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Date: Sat, 3 Sep 2005 15:56:34 -0700
From: Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com>
To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org
Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Slightly OT: favorite window manager/desktop environ?
In-Reply-To: <20050903223954.GA2047@waltdnes.org>
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On 9/3/05, waltdnes@waltdnes.org <waltdnes@waltdnes.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 01, 2005 at 11:31:28AM -0400, Charles Marcus wrote
> > IceWM (with ROXFiler if you want Desktop icons, etc)
> >
> > lightening fast, easy to configure
>
> Blackbox WM here. This goes back to when my 6-year-old Dell, 450 mhz
> PIII, 128 megs of RAM, was still my main machine. The GNOME and KDE
> people write some great apps (Gimp, Gnumeric, AbiWord, KDE Office), but
> their "desktop environments" are huge, bloated, resource hogs. With
> Blackbox, I can still run the apps, without the desktop. Put it this way
>
> I don't run desktops, I run applications.
>
> I think lightweight WM's will be important. Linux in general will
> have a great "window of Opportunity" when Vista is released. A lot of
> current machines will not be able to run it well ("crawl" != "run"). If
> people are faced with a choice of throwing out their old W2K, and XP
> machines, and buying new ones, versus keeping their machines and
> switching to linux, I think we could see quite a few converts. We can
> also pound away on the TCO angle at Microsoft's expense. Running the
> latest version of linux doesn't require you to buy a new desktop. On
> the other hand, that may explain why some PC hardware companies are so
> lukewarm (in some cases hostile) about linux support.
>
In general I'll have to take the unpopular position and say I
disagree. All those potential converts are just like you - They don't
run desktops they run apps - and because they are so entrenched with
dollars already spent on Microsoft Windows, Microsoft email, Microsoft
Office, Quicken,, etc., they won't come just because they can save
$400 buying a new PC.
To become a Linux user is a commitment. People don't make new
commitments lightly, and making a light commitment to Linux is doomed
to failure. It's far too hard to use. Imagine knowing absolutely
nothing about any Linux editor, nor even terminal commands, and trying
to configure networking. It's nigh on impossible.
That said, Linux, and Gentoo specifically, is a pleasure to run when
it's running, but even after 3-4 years of being a newbie it's taken me
3 days of work to get my new AMD64 machine to the point where it's
starting to do multimedia.
Just my 2 cents,
Mark
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