Re: Need a user-friendly, low-requirement desktop

[Thanasis Kinias <tkinias@asu.edu>]

scripsit Kent West:
 
> I, too, like icewm. It's got the Windows-like taskbar at the bottom
> (or top, or hidden in either place) that shows the different apps you
> have running, so switching between them is easy. (You'll want the
> icepref package if you want to configure icewm, unless you want to
> tweak the config files manually.) There are three "disadvantages" to
> icewm: 1) The menus aren't drag-n-drop like with something like KDE's
> menus, so modifying the menus aren't as easy (icemenu might help).  2)
> No desktop icons without another package that provides that capability
> (actually, I'm not so sure this is a disadvantage).  3) No integrated
> file manager (again, I'm not so sure this is a disadvantage).

I'd like to add that icewm has a TaskBarDoubleHeight setting that gives
you a text input box in which to enter shell commands.  If you don't
like mucking with menus to try to find a prog's icon, this is great, and
less effort that starting up an xterm just to launch a GUI app and exit
the xterm.  The interface feels like what Windows 95 would have been if
it had done properly, as opposed to things like xfce, which feels like
CDE, or WindowMaker, which is NextStep-ish (or OS X-ish, if you prefer).

For people coming from a Windows background (rather than Mac or Unix),
icewm is probably the best bet.

-- 
Pax vobiscum; pax cum omnibus.

Thanasis Kinias
tkinias at asu.edu
Doctoral Student, Department of History
Arizona State University
Tempe, Arizona, U.S.A.