Topic: I Don't Do Windows (Read 50657 times)

Thad · « **Reply #120 on:** January 22, 2009, 08:38:22 PM »

...it has come to my attention that somebody's compiled KDE 3.5 packages for Intrepid.

The bad news is that 3.5 can't be installed alongside 4.x, which harshes my mellow as far as wanting to run 4's ktorrent on 3 (or 3's Kicker on 4). Could install 4 as a nightly build, I guess -- might even be more stable than the "stable" version, the way Akregator and KTorrent have been behaving for me.

In summary: oh great, ANOTHER inadvisable upgrade which is probably going to hose an entire OS.

Büge · « **Reply #121 on:** January 23, 2009, 09:01:23 AM »

4th edition sux

prove me wrong

Thad · « **Reply #122 on:** January 27, 2009, 05:29:22 PM »

KDE 4.2 released; Linus Torvalds reveals he's switched to GNOME.

I'm considering giving GNOME a shot myself at this point. Or Enlightenment, or Xfce.

OTOH, my KDE 3 experience has been vastly improved since I stopped seeding like 8 million files out of KTorrent.

Thad · « **Reply #123 on:** January 28, 2009, 07:00:01 PM »

Trying Enlightenment. It's fast and it's pretty, but it's pissing me off.

No built-in taskbar. (The dock or whatever-you-call-it DOES have an Applications button that lists every open window, but it's damned inconvenient.)
Related to above: OS9-style dock that takes up fraction of the bottom of the screen and is not easily resizable.
Keyboard shortcuts bound to combinations commonly used by apps (eg Ctrl-G, which a hell of a lot of apps, including Firefox, use as their default for "find again", is bound to "gadgets"; common Windows keybindings like Ctrl-Shift-Left for "highlight previous word" are set to other things too).
Alt-Tab brings up a tiny, eight-line window instead of taking up more screen real estate if I have more than eight windows open. Also, there's no obvious way to get it to tab to windows on other desktops (though I struggled to find this feature even in KDE, so it could very well be in here somewhere).
"Run" dialog box won't let you use the arrow keys, Home, or End in the text field; if you want to move the cursor left you have to backspace. (And I tried emacs keybindings, and they don't work either.)

So, yeah. This feels like something that I COULD spend a few hours configuring to work some way resembling how I want it to, but mostly it would just make me angry.

So, the search continues. Or will, probably, at some point; guess I'll check out the current version of GNOME to see if it's acceptable. But for now, back to KDE 3.5.

JDigital · « **Reply #124 on:** January 29, 2009, 12:45:27 AM »

I liked GNOME when I used Ubuntu Hoary a while back. KDE seemed to rip off Windows wherever possible, whereas GNOME was closer to Mac or Amiga, hence my preference. It's nice and simple.

Thad · « **Reply #125 on:** January 29, 2009, 05:13:48 PM »

"Simple" is the opposite of what I want. I want customizability (although I want to be able to do it WITHOUT hacking a config file). A friend of mine recently described the Apple/GNOME approach to software as "BDSM".

Thad · « **Reply #126 on:** January 29, 2009, 09:49:34 PM »

Kernel update to 2.6.24-23 hosed my sound mod. Found a fix, but now it's barely audible with all my shit cranked.

(EDIT: Actually, I don't think the "fix" did anything; I've just noticed that gmplayer gives me the same "no sound" error it did before. Regular command-line mplayer gives a series of ALSA errors and then says it's playing with OSS. Of course, AFAIK OSS is actually emulated through ALSA at this point. Sure wish I knew what the hell was going on and automatic updates didn't break basic shit that worked this morning!)

I'd complain that they're railroading me into downloading Intrepid, but judging by the outcome of that thread, that won't fix shit, so I'm sticking with Hardy. Maybe I'll give another shot at going back to my previous kernel -- though of course that's the first thing I tried, and sound didn't work there either.

Thad · « **Reply #127 on:** April 16, 2009, 05:34:08 PM »

...so apparently the new (release client) version of Kubuntu actually optionally includes KDE 3.

So they have fixed one of the two things that was preventing me from upgrading.

The other is that I need to find a day I can spend fixing my computer after upgrading breaks something.

Mongrel · « **Reply #128 on:** July 08, 2009, 06:14:26 AM »

After dancing around the issue for years now, Google to finally go head-to-head with MS in the OS market.

Android notwithstanding, the gloves are now officially off.

Brentai · « **Reply #129 on:** July 08, 2009, 07:56:18 AM »

Will Google make a better operating system than Windows? Well, yes. Windows is spectacularly awful for everyone who's not an end-user, and Google's proven to be perfectly capable of providing a comparable end-user experience.

Can they possibly get the third-party support they need to do what Apple will never be able to do? There's the actual decider.

They're doing the smart thing by starting with netbooks, where third-party software is completely removed as a factor. I might need to grab one.

McDohl · « **Reply #130 on:** July 08, 2009, 09:34:40 AM »

Yeah, I might throw Chrome on mine.

Royal☭ · « **Reply #131 on:** July 08, 2009, 09:49:58 AM »

Quote from: Brentai on July 08, 2009, 07:56:18 AM

They're doing the smart thing by starting with netbooks, where third-party software is pretty much all google stuff anyway

The biggest issue is how much different will it be to not justify just using the multiple versions of Linux for Netbooks as it is. It seems a weird choice to consider them "taking on Microsoft" this way, as Netbooks didn't originally have XP until people started wanting it.

But if it integrates will all the things I use Google for now anyway (web, docs, pictures) then a Netbook will be an even more pressing purchase than it already is for me.

Cyan Prime · « **Reply #132 on:** October 25, 2009, 06:20:12 PM »

Anyone here tried Mint Linux? It is near-perfect. So much better than Ubuntu, or any other *buntu. Seriously, if you've ever tried Linux, or are running it right now go try out Mint!

Thad · « **Reply #133 on:** October 25, 2009, 07:57:32 PM »

Hi Cyan!

When you say "X is better than Y", it sounds like you are simply trying to provoke an argument. It is not a factual statement, and it is not actually helpful in any way.

Please feel free to tell the class precisely what the fuck Mint Linux is and why you feel it is better than the Ubuntu family -- which, going by the about page, it is based on.

Cyan Prime · « **Reply #134 on:** October 25, 2009, 08:15:06 PM »

Well, it's the small things. Like that I have both Java and flash pre-installed. When I click a Link in Pidgin it opens in Firefox. When I press the plus and minus volume buttons on my keyboard they work. It's like Ubuntu is just a bunch of stuff thrown together, but Mint makes it all work together in perfect harmony to make the whole experience blissful right out of the box.

TA · « **Reply #135 on:** October 25, 2009, 08:19:59 PM »

wow. sounds like it can do almost as many things as windows.

Cyan Prime · « **Reply #136 on:** October 25, 2009, 08:21:20 PM »

Quote from: TA on October 25, 2009, 08:19:59 PM

wow. sounds like it can do almost as many things as windows.

Without any of the viruses, too.

Thad · « **Reply #137 on:** October 25, 2009, 08:39:21 PM »

Quote from: Cyan Prime on October 25, 2009, 08:15:06 PM

Well, it's the small things. Like that I have both Java and flash pre-installed. When I click a Link in Pidgin it opens in Firefox. When I press the plus and minus volume buttons on my keyboard they work. It's like Ubuntu is just a bunch of stuff thrown together, but Mint makes it all work together in perfect harmony to make the whole experience blissful right out of the box.

...media keys and Pidgin links worked fine for me out of the box on Kubuntu. And it's not like Flash or Java were hard to install.

Quote from: TA on October 25, 2009, 08:19:59 PM

wow. sounds like it can do almost as many things as windows.

Get that stupid shit the fuck out of my thread right now, please. If you want to have a constructive argument about the relative merits of different operating systems, then by all means, but save the smug one-liners for the "I'm a Mac" commercials.

Wait, is there some other way I could have put that? Possibly within the past hour?

Quote from: Thad on October 25, 2009, 07:57:32 PM

When you say "X is better than Y", it sounds like you are simply trying to provoke an argument. It is not a factual statement, and it is not actually helpful in any way.

Oh right! That was a good point I made, right there, just now, four posts ago.

TA · « **Reply #138 on:** October 25, 2009, 10:10:34 PM »

Quote from: Thad on October 25, 2009, 08:39:21 PM

Get that stupid shit the fuck out of my thread right now, please. If you want to have a constructive argument about the relative merits of different operating systems, then by all means, but save the smug one-liners for the "I'm a Mac" commercials.

Jeez. I'm mocking Cyan, not Linux. I've used Linux. I understand and agree that Linux is capable of a lot of things that Windows isn't, and there are a lot of legitimate purposes to which it can be put, in both desktop and server environments, that Windows can't keep up with. I just think those purposes are a bit beyond Cyan. He's operating his Mint Linux on a web-toys and shiny things level, and creaming himself because holy crap it comes with Flash already installed! Those are what he considers the draws, and I was mocking his choice for the reasons behind it.

Thad · « **Reply #139 on:** November 01, 2009, 06:17:54 PM »

But there's nothing wrong with the idea of using Linux as a desktop OS; I've been doing it for years and it is in fact the stated goal of the Ubuntu distribution, among others. Linux is still deficient as a general-purpose OS for end users in some ways, and Cyan has raised a useful topic for discussion, even if I don't think he's really explained what Mint does that standard Ubuntu doesn't.

As for me, I just upgraded to Karmic. I THINK KDE 4 has finally risen to my standards, but I'm sure I'll have a lengthy, bulleted list of everything wrong with it if it still hasn't. (EG: I seem to have broken the rather neat Expose-style alt-tab configuration I was using. That's not really make-or-break, as I can always just go back to the old-style list version. Which is what I'd be doing in KDE3 anyway. Also, the program that's supposed to report crashes keeps crashing.)

fglrx (the proprietary ATI video driver) still appears to suck. I'm getting a lot of tearing with any kind of OpenGL stuff.

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Author Topic: I Don't Do Windows (Read 50657 times)