On 19/10/2012 11:50 PM, Shay wrote:
> Fair enough. You're probably more of a "power user" than I am. I don't even work
> on things remotely. That being said, VMWare is on the Arch Linux wiki, and I'll
> bet you could get it working in ten minutes if you followed that.

I did wonder if maybe making /Linux/ the host OS and using Xen to run 
various guest OSes might work more reliably. Maybe I'll try it some day...

>>   From what I've seen, KDE is reasonable, and GNOME is reasonable. Every
>> other window manager I've ever seen has been /horrifyingly awful/! I
>> mean, they're literally /so bad/ that you wonder why the hell anybody
>> even bothered to build the RPM for it. It looks so utterly hideous, and
>> it's so difficult to use... WHY WOULD YOU BOTHER?
>
> Why I would bother:
> (12" laptop)
> * Multiple workspaces
> * Keybord control
> * Ability to fullscreen almost any application
> * Ability to alter and hide window decorations
> * At least rudimentary tiling
> (Shared Desktop)
> * Switch users with a key-combination
> * Configurable for wide monitors

I meant more why would people bother packaging up an WM that's so ugly 
that nobody would ever install it, but OK...

Most of the things listed look like they would be fairly easy under 
Windows as well.

> Of course, that's not only true of the ugly ones. I prefer xfce (an ugly one).
> It's easy to make attractive (fo my tastes: small, simple, square window
> decorations and a nice nature wallpaper) and it's simple to set up hotkeys.

Every time I use xfce, or fluxbox, or twm, or whatever, I hear a voice 
calling me, saying "1974 called, and they want their user interface back".

> The
> default ugliness must be a pride issue with some of those projects. Doesn't make
> sense to me either.

Wait, you mean there's a way to make it /not/ look nauseatingly awful?

>> You can fight it, and work around it. But you can't turn it off, sadly...
>
> I guess I'm bone-headed. I'm a user. I don't try anything fancy with the
> interface. But I always seem to quickly run into something the UI guys didn't
> expect me to.

Yeah, unfortunately Windows /is/ designed around the idea that the user 
is a total moron, and has to be "protected" from anything vaguely 
technical. Which is extremely irritating when you /do/ understand 
technical things!

Then again, Linux (or rather, Unix) is designed around the idea that the 
user is an elite hacker expert. And if you aren't, it's really quite 
hard to use.

Don't get me wrong, Linux is way, /way/ easier now than it used to be. 
But if you use Linux, sooner or later the shiny, whizzy GUI breaks, and 
you have to look under the covers to figure out why. And then it's still 
as hard as ever. Particularly now, as there's lots of new stuff with 
inadaquate documentation.

(I'm just bitter because I've spent two entire days trying to figure out 
GNOME 3 extensions. One forum post asked for a list of stock icon names. 
And somebody replied "there is no such list, and nor should there be; 
the source code is the documentation". WTF? Who /the hell/ reads 25,000 
LOC just to look up an icon name or find out what arguments a function 
takes? That's retarded.)

>> IME, a good IDE has a text editor roughly comparable to a good
>> standalone text editor.
>
> I remember now: you don't care for featureful text editors.

I don't care for features? Or I don't care for the features that a 
typical VT100 editor typically implements? ;-)

> They've been working on Vim for decades now. It can do a lot of things.

Perhaps. I still haven't figured out how to do simple things like "quit"...

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