Re: Very slim Desktop Manager
On Thu, 13 Nov 2008 14:46:56 +0100
NN_il_Confusionario <pinkof.pallus@tiscalinet.it> wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 05:25:07AM -0600, lee wrote:
> > Well, maybe I should learn more about using framebuffer stuff
>
> why? If you are satisfied with X, you have no real reasons.
>
I have to admit that even in X I have several consoles always open as they can
make things work a lot better. I don't switch to the console for two reasons,
I do use some X apps (I prefer to browse with firefox, and even that is not
always enough due to badly written pages) and the second is that I like mouse
copy/paste and I don't feel like setting up the mouse for the console.
[ ... ]
>
> > (though
> > openoffice still sucks to the point of unusability in that)
>
> the idea itself of a office suite sucks, and I have no use for it.
>
anything worth writing can and should be written in either text or latex
(there are a few alternatives to latex, I admit). It will always look better
than any office suite.
[ ... ]
>
> > and phone software.
>
> I do not use them, but being audio (no video) I think that if and when a
> console developer will need it, it will be ported. Obviously I am not
> considering proprietary things.
>
There are text voip programs (forgot which one now, sorry). Albeight not skype
though (but they are netmeeting compatible).
[ ... ]
>
> > them, there might be a substitute than you can run on a console, but it
> > is so much easier to use the GUI application.
>
> This is a very correct argument. It is the same as my argument, except
> that (1) in my argument console and X interchange their roles; (b) in
> your case you are equally able to use console and GUIs, and in my case I
> ame completely lost with GUIs
>
I have run into one woman in one of the forums (escapes me which one at the
moment) who couldn't use gui at all due to a visual disorder, she couldn't make
out the layout. Have heard of a few others with similar problems, for starters,
blind people would have a hard time using x, I don't know exactly how it works
but there are Braille readers for the console.
> > ATM, I have 5 terminals open plus claws plus firefox plus plan plus
> > emacs, I'm logged in on two consoles and gnome-panel is running (to
> > provide a few icons, the dictionary plugin and a clock). Eventually add
> > gimp, gaim, gnumeric or openoffice, ekiga. How would I do that with
> > only 6 available consoles?
The wonders of screen and additional virtual consoles (I actually cut them down
to 3 since I don't need more.
[ ... ]
>
> > See the attached screenshots, one is of lynx, the other
> > one is firefox, both showing the same forum.
> > Now which one is more useable/user friendly?
That would depend on your preferences, but I don't see why a text interface
would be worse. Even in firefox I usually kill most flash and stuff and I'm
left with text tables ...
>
> lynx. Infinitely.
>
> The first evident thing is colors. But one can configure both lynx and
> mozilla to use (and force) whatever colors one prefers (infact, this is
> one of the first things I do when I have to meet mozilla: edit
> preferences ... fonts and colors, and set a sane minumum dimension for
> fonts, and *force* a decent shaped font, and *force* colors like green
> [or white] on black)
>
> The other evident thing is that lynx does not display annoing and
> useless icons. But fortunately you can set mozilla such that it does not
> display images automatically (unfortunately mozilla no more has a old
> and useful feature of netscape: do not show images by default, but a
> command can show the images in the displayed page without changing the
> default. But there should exist mozilla extensions for this now)
>
[ ... ]
>
> Obviously, you can take a digital photo of the monitor, but I do not
> have a digital (or not digital) camera, and I have no real interst in
> images (even if I have a strong interst in music; the two things might
> be related since is find images _very_ disturbing when listening or
> playing music).
>
A different discussion, but there is actually a syndrome where people mix the
senses and can hear pictures or see sounds. Personally I have a problem
describing feelings in words since I feel and think more in color and images
then words.
I also prefer analog cameras since they have a lot more soul (same as records
compares to cds) and I would still be using them if it weren't so difficult
processing slide film where I live.
[ ... ]
> > You can do all that on a console. But isn't it so much easier to do it
> > under X11?
>
Depends on your habits, way of thought, visual limitations and progrematic
requirements. I do a lot of work in the console (x or vt) and then only thing I
miss in the vt is the mouse which I never feel like setting up.
[ ... ]
>
> > That would all be possible if there was a solution for the
> > problem with the fonts.
>
> I am not convinced that my problem is _only_ with fonts.
>
sounds more like an issue with perceptual organization. Same reason that also
in X I usually work full screen with whatever application I'm using. Personally
I also use small fonts since I need an "above" look. I have a very hard time
with people who work in word or the browser seeing only three or four lines at
a time through all the toolbars and zoom settings.
Personally I use X but I guess that I have more of a console like setup since
all toolbars and and titles etc. are almost always hidden. X just makes them
easily accessible.
My work is images and math formulas so I do need something that is more graphic
capable them the console though
[ ... ]
>
> I do not have or use win, but I know for sure that mozilla under linux
> and under win is _NOT_ the same (even if much is in common, obviously),
> and that there are many more developers for mozilla under win than onder
> linux, which explains the better features under win.
>
Same thing actually, there are some plugins that use win features though
(active X and such) and thus are not directly applicable to linux.
> Incidentaly, from what I had occasion to see, win has by default a much
> better integration between "win32 console application *in full screen*"
> and "win32 GUI application" than the default integration in linux/*BSD
> between vt consoles and X.
>
My experience is the other way around. The difference is that windows doesn't
have a command line per say. You either run things in the console, and linux's
are ages ahead than the windows console, or you run them full screen, and
linux has a way to set that up (what I usually do).
> > into .muttrc, and I would not have the filtering, processing and SPAM
> > filtering options claws offers
>
Even with claws I use fetchmail + procmail (don't use spam assassin but it's an
option) and I can access the same folders with mutt, claws and a bunch of
others.
> you can use spamassassin or any other kind of "server" spam filtering
> with mutt (however I do not need to do this locally, the servers are
> alreding doing this)
>
> > I have no reason to, and claws does (so far) everything mutt
> > does
>
[ ... ]
> >
> > What is the advantage of using different users?
>
> security. A mail malware cannot do anything against my web downloads,
> and a web malware cannot do anything against my mails. And both kind of
> malware cannot do anything against my (for me important) mathematical
> .tex files and musical (.ly .mid .wav and so on) files.
>
> Yes, you can have something like this also with X, but (1) X is
> intrinsecally less secure, see OpenBSD documentation to understand why;
> (2) when you start X as user1 and then (even with the sane method of
> xauth, not to speak about insane methods like xhost) you give to user2
> the right to use the display, then privacy of user1 is completely
> compromised, and partly also security (se X documentation). You can use
> two separate istances of the X server, at the expemse of more resources
> used and the non-integration between the two X servers (unless you do
> crazy things like vnc on localhost only; one day I will amuse myself by
> using the svga version of vncclient to attach to a local X with
> vncserver ...). But even withy two X servers, the potential security
> hole of the direct memory acces of X is present (see (1) above).
>
There is xnest, and I thing a newer one, don't know if the security is better
though.
> > You mean you can open an X terminal and have it display what is
> > currently being displayed on a console?
>
> apt-get install screen
> man screen
> info screen
> pinfo screen
> tkman screen
> tkinfo screen
> $WHATEVER screen
>
> > That's an interesting
> > feature, how do you do that?
>
> screen -x
>
> Or also something like conspy should be possible (I have never used it,
> however)
>
> > Still I'm not really understanding how you see using consoles (almost)
> > exclusively as so superior to using applications and terminals with
> > X11
>
Don't know about him, but I'm guessing that not superrior but rather more
fitting to the needs, why are you so hurt that other people have other needs?
[ ... ]
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