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Killing Clutter With The Antidesktop 542

Posted by timothy from the your-brain-is-your-panel dept.
Espectr0 writes "Hate window managers? Cannot live without one? Well, you can, kind of. A Freshmeat editorial called 'The Antidesktop' talks about how you can get rid of flashy, bloaty window managers without loosing functionality." It depends on how many tasks you want to keep track of in your head, too.
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Killing Clutter With The Antidesktop More

Killing Clutter With The Antidesktop

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  • loose versus lose (Score:3, Informative)

    by DuncMan ( 4534 ) <slashdot.dcorps@nOsPam.fwei.org.uk> on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @10:18AM (#4461883)
    sigh... that should read "... without losing functionality". Two very different words.

    • Re:loose versus lose (Score:3, Informative)

      by DeadSea ( 69598 )
      More and more people seem to be getting this one wrong. It isn't even hard to remember, if you think about it.

      • loose - rhymes with moose and goose. "I set the dog loose to run in the woods."
      • lose - present tense of lost. Related to loss. Those words only have one 'o', so "lose" has only one as well. "We need to get another goal, I don't want to lose."

    • Re:loose versus lose (Score:4, Funny)

      by Espectr0 ( 577637 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @10:31AM (#4462009) Journal
      Sorry, english is not my primary language. Not to be a troll, but what is the excuse of the editor? :)
    • One is an 80s Kevin Bacon movie; the other is something you don't want to do, unless you enjoy hobbling (different from hobbiting, btw) from one spot to the next.
    • Where is LoseNotLooseGuy [slashdot.org] when we need him?

      To the grammarmobile, LNLG!

    • Re:loose versus lose (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Quaryon ( 93318 )
      I'm coming to the opinion that the English language has actually changed so that "loosing" is now a valid spelling of the word. I hate it, I must admit, but you see far more people spelling it this way than the correct way ("losing"), and I guess that's how language changes.

      English has evolved throughout its history - I guess this is just another evolution, albeit one I would rather not see.

      Q.
    • i have friends that swear that you can spell "lose" (i.e. to misplace or create a lack of something) either "lose" or "loose." it pisses me off to no end.

      i maintain that the only reason you can do that is because so many people have made that common(?) mistake it has become allowed due to lack of education ^_~ ... or a lack of will to educate... *sigh*
    • Perhaps the /. crowd should modify the preview function to highlight certain words that are often misused (with loos[e|ing|ed] being chief among them).

      Then perhaps some of the people might learn the difference. (Yes, like most of those folks actually USE the preview function.)

      But considering the problems of mod-bombing, egregious trolls, repeated stories, and moderators who have no clue what Funny is, I would not bet on that happening.

    • Re:loose versus lose (Score:3, Insightful)

      by grytpype ( 53367 )
      The main reason to spell "lose" correctly is that if you spell it "loose," everyone born before 1975 will think you're a complete dumbass.

      Same goes for to/too/two, you're/your, their/there, the use of apostrophes, and so on. Because they used to teach spelling in school, you see. In elementary school.

  • Darn. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Prince_Ali ( 614163 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @10:19AM (#4461897) Journal
    I hate when my functionality gets loose.

  • First Desktop (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @10:20AM (#4461901)
    Windows managers were created to encapsulate what Antidesktop is trying to offer. I'll stick to complexity, thank you.

  • Console (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RalphJay ( 617820 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @10:20AM (#4461906)
    I think this guy is taking it too far. If you really want to avoid all bloat, you shouldn't run X anyway. Seems to me someone who doesn't like windowmanagers etc. should just run stuff from the console (and definately not Mozilla).

    • Re:Console (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Blkdeath ( 530393 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @11:10AM (#4462338) Homepage
      I think this guy is taking it too far. If you really want to avoid all bloat, you shouldn't run X anyway. Seems to me someone who doesn't like windowmanagers etc. should just run stuff from the console (and definately not Mozilla).
      I agree. We have screen on the console and things like SVGALib for simplicity. Mozilla is the anti-lean, if you will, for a desktop. It consumes 50MB of RAM as soon as you actually use it for something - which is atleast 17MB more than X.

      At home, for some strange reason, I run rxvts instead of Xterms. Now, the reason this is strange is because I run KDE 3, Mozilla, OpenOffice, and VMWare. Colour me quirky. ;)

      If I want to use my computer in a lean environment, I'll use something along the lines of TWM, LWM, etc. where I can still have some of the window manager functionality (resizing of windows to optimize my desktop space usage, for example) without all the bloat of desktop wallpapers, flashing/pulsing icons, translucent menus, etc.. In my normal work environment, however, I do appreciate a lot of the glitz so I leave it all enabled.

      All a matter of choice, of course, but I don't see the point of going out of your way to make a complex situation in the interests of simplicity.

      • Re:Console (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Bastian ( 66383 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @11:27AM (#4462486)
        I think windowmanager choice is a somewhat different issue from software package choice.

        My take on the whole issue is that software (office suites, Mozilla, etc.) is what the computer is actually there for, and this stuff should be the focus of what I am doing when I sit down.

        To that end, when I login on my computer, I am not logging in to goof around with Gnome or KDE, I'm logging in to browse the web, check my e-mail, or work on some project.

        It's probably of note that I program enough that most of my time interacting with my computer is either done through a web browser or through CLI.

        I also want X. As far as I can tell, the CLI jockeys who don't use X aren't using any applications that need X - say, OpenOffice or a web browser. The GUI people who say someone who wants to use X but have it get out of his way, on the other hand, have missed the point.

        I like WYSIWYG word processors like OpenOffice, I like browswing webpages with web browsers that are capable of displaying images, and I don't know how in the heck I would maintain my webpage if I didn't have X to run a decent paint program from.

        What I don't like is navigating endless menus, using the mouse to manipulate files, and not being able to efficiently switch tasks with only a keystroke. You know that feeling some people express that Windows is more of a roadblock on the path to efficient computer usage, and so is MacOS? I feel the same way about Sawfish.

        This is a very different issue from Mozilla wasting resources - that has nothing to do with the interface. Frankly, the Web is a mouse-driven thing, and for that I can handle Mozilla being mouse-driven. Resource wastage is bad, but then again so is resource wastage on most any other decent web browser. Besides, Mozilla is an application, not a desktop environment.

        • Re:Console (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Blkdeath ( 530393 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @12:09PM (#4462797) Homepage
          To that end, when I login on my computer, I am not logging in to goof around with Gnome or KDE, I'm logging in to browse the web, check my e-mail, or work on some project.
          Granted, but the ability to quickly re-arrange, re-size, create, and destroy windows is invaluable to working efficiently. When I'm running at 1024x768, sometimes I don't want six Xterms opened (which don't fit on the screen all at the same time without hiding portions of atleast two of them), but I can do so very easily without having to futz with command-line options. Ctrl-Alt-T opens a new terminal - I can open them even on my slow(er) laptop at a rate of two per second when my system is under a typical load. I can destroy windows at a rate of about five per second with configurable keyboard shortcuts, too, using WindowMaker or KDE, or even just Ctrl-D within Xterms.
          What I don't like is navigating endless menus,
          Why navigate menus? I rarely, if ever open my Kmenu - I've got keyboard shortcuts assigned to all tasks (again, under both my primary window managers). Some things have icons on my taskbar because hey, they're pretty. :) Moreover, you can organize the menu any way you'd like. My friend likes to group his applications by task ("Cd burning", "Audio", "Video", "Internet", etc.), as do I, but not to that extreme. More like "Applications", "Multimedia", and a couple of other fairly broad categories. Of course, you could also remove all entries and have only your five most commonly used applications right in the root of your menu if you want to.
          using the mouse to manipulate files,
          Why would you do that? Midnight Commander within an Xterm is perfect for that. Ctrl-Alt-T{cr}mc{cr} and I'm manipulating files. If I want to see more detail, I maximixe the Xterm and mc shows me wide listings of my directories. If I want to see larger type, I Ctrl-RightClick the Xterm and select "Huge" and give my poor eyes a rest. If I want to shoot the window to the background, I middle-click on the titlebar and it drops allll the way to the bottom of the 'pile'.
          and not being able to efficiently switch tasks with only a keystroke.
          Ctrl-Esc, scroll to desired task, Cr. Else, Alt-Tab works. Or, if I have tasks focused in alternate desktops, Alt-1 through Alt-0 switches from one to another.
          This is a very different issue from Mozilla wasting resources - that has nothing to do with the interface. Frankly, the Web is a mouse-driven thing, and for that I can handle Mozilla being mouse-driven
          In the interests of efficiency on a scale of 1-10, Mozilla rates somewhere around 0.5. {smile}

          If you want graphical, mouse-driven web browsing even with anti-aliased fonts and JavaScript, backgroundable downloads - use Links.

      • Re:Console (Score:3, Insightful)

        by eno2001 ( 527078 )
        Why lean? I'm not trolling, I'm just curious. Why would someone who has a P4 1.x Ghz box with 1 Gig of RAM and 200 Gigs of HD want to run lean? What are you going to do with the other 3/4ths of a gig of RAM and 90% CPU other than run apps? What I usually do if I need extra horsepower is init from runlevel 5 to runlevel 3. Then I run my job from the console.

        I do think that X is pretty resource hungry, but look at all of the useful things it can do. Just last night I ran it over a DSL connection using VPN. My upstream is only 128K and using 'lbxproxy' to compress the X data from the client apps, the response was pretty much on par with a VNC session. If anything, I think we need something like a local X proxy so that we can leave apps running for reattachment later. To be honest, I am still frustrated by the fact that I can't remotely reattach to a background job or one that was started in a session that was disconnected. (I think screen might be able to do this, but I'm still unsure) Look at Windows XP... a user can log off and let someone else log in to do other work, then log back in later to pick up where they left off. Damn cool. We need that in *nix. VNC can kind of do it, but with a real X proxy that supported acceleration, ANY app could be run this way. Now THAT would be damn cool. Of course that's just my opinion... and I'm sure you know what people say about opinions.

    • Re:Console (Score:5, Interesting)

      by cduffy ( 652 ) <charles+slashdot@dyfis.net> on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @11:26AM (#4462478)
      It's not just about eliminating bloat; it's also about usability. I've been using ion for quite some time, and love it. I can run my favorite apps (Evolution, Galeon, &c), control *everything* by keyboard... and have absolutely no wasted real estate on the screen, or issues juggling which window is on top of which.

      Simply put, don't knock it 'till ya try it.

  • Nice concept (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jos3000 ( 202805 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @10:20AM (#4461908) Homepage
    With so many people around here being attracted by the smooth curves of Mac OS it's nice to see utilitarian ideals being put into practice.

  • Is it just me? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by FortKnox ( 169099 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @10:21AM (#4461918) Homepage Journal
    Is it just me, or does that just appear to be like an 'emacs windows manager'?
    Basically, a maximized emacs window with all the commands you can use without a mouse, and no bloat.

    Also, how does one loosen functionality?? ;-)

    • Re:Is it just me? (Score:5, Funny)

      by zrodney ( 253699 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @10:26AM (#4461965)
      Basically, a maximized emacs window with all the commands you can use without a mouse, and no bloat.

      I think that's the first time I've seen Emacs and no-bloat in the same sentence! ;)

    • Re:Is it just me? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @10:37AM (#4462065)
      Its not quite an emacs window manager. The closest thing I've found the the emacs experience in the window manager arena is Ion [cs.tut.fi] It has the frames and minibuffer thing going for it.
      My desktop at work is dual-head running several Ion frames, with emacs windows, xterms, and galeon windows. Its really all I need. If Emacs were to gain the ability to run graphical applications in emacs buffers similar to how it can currently run console apps, it would be the perfect window manager for what I (and I think a lot of other people here) want out of a desktop.

  • X-windows (Score:4, Funny)

    by CaptainAlbert ( 162776 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @10:22AM (#4461925) Homepage
    > I get the graphical abilities of X without all the clutter that usually attends it

    It would be churlish of me not to mention... :)

    X-Windows: ...A mistake carried out to perfection.
    X-Windows: ...Dissatisfaction guaranteed.
    X-Windows: ...Don't get frustrated without it.
    X-Windows: ...Even your dog won't like it.
    X-Windows: ...Flaky and built to stay that way.
    X-Windows: ...Complex nonsolutions to simple nonproblems.
    X-Windows: ...Flawed beyond belief.
    X-Windows: ...Form follows malfunction.
    X-Windows: ...Garbage at your fingertips.
    X-Windows: ...Ignorance is our most important resource.
    X-Windows: ...It could be worse, but it'll take time.
    X-Windows: ...It could happen to you.
    X-Windows: ...Japan's secret weapon.
    X-Windows: ...Let it get in *your* way.
    X-Windows: ...Live the nightmare.
    X-Windows: ...More than enough rope.
    X-Windows: ...Never had it, never will.
    X-Windows: ...No hardware is safe.
    X-Windows: ...Power tools for power fools.
    X-Windows: ...Putting new limits on productivity.
    X-Windows: ...Simplicity made complex.
    X-Windows: ...The cutting edge of obsolescence.
    X-Windows: ...The art of incompetence.
    X-Windows: ...The defacto substandard.
    X-Windows: ...The first fully modular software disaster.
    X-Windows: ...The joke that kills.
    X-Windows: ...The problem for your problem.
    X-Windows: ...There's got to be a better way.
    X-Windows: ...Warn your friends about it.
    X-Windows: ...You'd better sit down.
    X-Windows: ...You'll envy the dead.

    • Re:X-windows (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      it's called x-window

    • Re:X-windows (Score:5, Funny)

      by JordanH ( 75307 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @10:59AM (#4462239) Homepage Journal

      The following has been attributed to Dennis Ritchie and Bill Joy, but I seem to remember it being Rob Pike. When someone pointed out that X fills a much needed void:

      "I have never seen anything fill up a vacuum so fast and still suck. --- Rob Pike, on X"

      Also, Dennis Ritchie was said to have been heard saying:

      "Steve Jobs said two years ago that X is brain-damaged and it will be gone in two years. He was half right."

  • Sounds cool (Score:5, Interesting)

    by IamTheRealMike ( 537420 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @10:22AM (#4461926)
    It's a good idea (disclaimer, I read the article a few hours ago). When I first started using vim (emacs now) my friends saw me use it for a few moments when looking over my shoulder. I did a key sequence, I don't recall what it was, and they actually said "whoa" and took a step back :) Advanced emacs usage has the same effect. If you're fast with the keyboard, this kind of thing can push efficiency through the roof.

  • EvilWM (Score:3, Informative)

    by sfraggle ( 212671 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @10:22AM (#4461933) Homepage
    For the less radical EvilWM [sourceforge.net] is a similarly "minimalist" window manager. There are no menus or icons, the only window decoration is a 1 pixel border.
    • I dunno, I see a major advantage of this ratpoison over EvilWM. Consider the case where you have a GUI app running and you want to use the menus with a mouse (because you haven't memorized keyboard shortcuts or something). It looks like with ratpoison, you slam the mouse pointer up against the top of the screen and can start clicking, with all the efficiency of MacOS. From looking at EvilWM, it looks like if you were to do the same thing, you would overshoot the menu -- by a single lousy pixel. Ugh. So while EvilWM may look convenient, I get the impression that it might be just as inconvenient as Gnome or MS Windows.

      (Disclaimer: I haven't used either one. I am analoquizing [slashdot.org] as usual.)

      • Re:One pixel is too much (Score:2, Interesting)

        by six809 ( 1961 )

        Well I just tried that by fullsizing Mozilla (easiest example to hand) using Ctrl+Alt+X, and whacking the mouse up to the top takes it outside of the click region on the menus anyway. Ho hum.

  • Warning (Score:4, Funny)

    by bucklesl ( 73547 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @10:23AM (#4461937) Homepage

    ...how many tasks you want to keep track of in your head, too.

    Do not chew bubblegum while attempting to use the Antidesktop.
    thank you.

  • I have NO clutter. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by garcia ( 6573 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @10:23AM (#4461941)
    I use Enlightenment. I have no icons. I have a menu that comes up on the left mouse click w/my favorite programs.

    I use Brushed Metal for my theme. It's clean. I have no graphics in my background (a holdover from my 256 color, 800x600, 8 bit days using a laptop). I have 2 virtual desktops. One's for Mozilla, the other's for whatever else (again a hold over from when I was using dual heads).

    I don't need keyboard shortcuts, and I can easily cut and paste back and forth between the web and my other windows.

    I like it simple, but "ratpoison" reminds me of Desqview/X (which went away for a reason).

    I will keep screen on the console where it belongs and use X like *I* believe it was supposed to be used.

    • Re:I have NO clutter. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I used to do what you do, but enlightenment was unstable and slow. I use sawfish now. It does everything I used enlightenment for, but faster and without crashing.

    • Re:I have NO clutter. (Score:5, Informative)

      by peterpi ( 585134 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @10:50AM (#4462155)
      (This is not flamebait; I just want to show that you don't need plain black to be fast).

      I use Windows 2000. My desktop is a mess of icons. I don't look at them, and I don't click on them either. I just hit Windows-D, type in the first couple of characters for the one I want, and press return.

      For example, "i" launches Internet Exploer, "ou" launches Outlook, "ba" launches bash in cygwin, "v" launches vi... you get the picture. This has the advantage that anybody else can still use the computer.

      For example, to type an email, I would do the following:

      Windows-D
      o (return)
      CTRL-n
      (to)
      tab tab
      (subject)
      tab
      (content)
      CTRL-enter

      ... and the email is sent.

      Command lines are all good and well, and I love bash to death, but don't knock GUIs if you're just using them wrong.

    • I should add, in reference to my other reply, that using Alt-Left-click and Alt-Right-click is a giant leap forward in productivity. I always see other people carefully moving the mouse to the three-pixel border of a window so they can resize it, or dragging the mouse all the way up to the top of a window so they can move it. All i have to do is slam the Alt button and grab onto a window anywhere. No aiming for tiny borders or titlebars.

  • get a bigger monitor (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cr@ckwhore ( 165454 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @10:23AM (#4461942) Homepage
    Hmm... reduce desktop clutter? You could try ratpoison, the counter productive approach, or you could get a bigger monitor... worked for millions of users, including myself.

  • Not for the faint of heart (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BESTouff ( 531293 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @10:24AM (#4461948)
    Although I find his setup really geeky and probably will never use it, that's what I like with X (and Linux in general): those who have the balls can really customize what they want to appear how they like it.

    This guy must have a good laugh at each GNOME/KDE flamewar ...

  • Ick (Score:4, Funny)

    by aengblom ( 123492 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @10:24AM (#4461955) Homepage
    Not a fan of flashy bloated loose things.

    They're on street corners near my home a lot though.

    someone had to right?

  • Lightweight window managers (Score:5, Informative)

    by sfbanutt ( 116292 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @10:25AM (#4461961) Homepage
    Another lightweight window manager is called lwm. It can be found at http://www.mit.edu/afs/athena/project/windowmgr/sr c/lwm/lwm.html [mit.edu] It has most of the advantages of ratpoison, but allows real windows. I believe there is a debian package for it and I know there's a gentoo ebuild. It's great on an older laptop if you're going to run X.

    jim

  • Great (Score:3, Funny)

    by ksw2 ( 520093 ) <obeyeater&gmail,com> on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @10:26AM (#4461968) Homepage
    Just when I thought I was 1337 with fluxbox, now this. Oh well, back to the drawing board.

  • If ratpoison is too minimal for you.. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Xzzy ( 111297 ) <`gro.h7urt' `ta' `rehtes'> on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @10:27AM (#4461975) Homepage
    ..try larswm [fnurt.net].

    It's not the eden of windows managers, but what it DOES offer is the ability to manage every window on your desktop via the keyboard, it maximizes the amount of your desktop you get to use for working, yet still retains the ability to keep the mouse useful. It also offers rudimentary window managing features so those odd applications that refuse to cooperate can still be used (such as gimp).

    I use it full time these days, it took me a couple days to get into the rhythm but now, considering using anything else is unthinkable.

    I tried ratpoison, liked the philosophy, but it seemed to me it took the keyboard driven GUI philosophy way too far to be useful for an X session.

  • I dig, man. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by pub ( 301151 )
    " It depends on how many tasks you want to keep track of in your head, too. "

    I find that I do this, anyway. I'm one of those people can't work well with a lot of clutter around. A clean, sleek, minimalist desktop enviornment is an extension of this, especially if my desk has gone the way of junk (which it often has, and in fact, is at this moment).

    Tons of little window bars, be they floating around or anchored or what-have-you, don't really help me get my mind in order. I'd just as soon hit a control key to switch between "windows" as I would search around my desktop for the right little bar.

    Just an early word of enthusiam, as it seemed to be in an early minority.

  • How many more times to I have to read the word 'loosing' where an author meant 'losing' before I am legally released from all obligations against torturing said authors? They're even pronounced differently, thus causing me to mentally trip on a conversational rock and fall in a pit of grammatical despair.

  • And for others....... (Score:5, Informative)

    by IamTheRealMike ( 537420 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @10:30AM (#4461995)
    For those who like the "lite" approach, but don't want to go quite this extreme, try FluxBox.

    It can do tabbed windows, task switching, virtual desktops, keygrabbing (emacs style keybindings from all over your desktop) and so on. If you run it without a desktop, and if you have the Xscreensaver collection then you can run:

    /usr/X11R6/lib/xscreensaver/atlantis -root -texture

    and get a beautiful animated dolphin as your "wallpaper". I think that's the command anyway, i'm at work so please correct me if wrong. If you're going to save CPU cycles in one way, you might as well spend them in another :)

  • And yet Microsoft still claims that Open Source threatens innovation. Pah!

  • Yes Ratpoison (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SomeOtherGuy ( 179082 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @10:31AM (#4462016) Journal
    I have been using Ratpoison on of my (small resolution 800x600 with 64 Megs ram) machines for months. Once you get used to having those extra pixels and that extra memory, its hard to go back.

  • Window Manager without the bloat (PDF based!!!) (Score:5, Funny)

    by toupsie ( 88295 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @10:34AM (#4462042) Homepage
    Personally, I am tired of X-Windows and all the Window Managers associated with it. They are clunky hacks based on ancient tech. Fortunately for me, I found a modern, composited windowing system using the Portable Document Format (PDF) for my UNIX system. It sports crisp graphics, anti-aliased fonts, and blends 2D, 3D and multimedia content together with transparency and drop shadows. It even integrates OpenGL converting every window into a texture. As a bonus it supports all those non-Roman languages. Multiple monitor support is seemless -- no more hacking XFree86 files and searching for drivers and solving conflicts. Thank God!

    Check out its home page here [17.254.3.183].

    • That's great. Now if you can tell me where to download the source code for that, I'll be quite grateful, as I'm pretty sure the supplied binaries won't run on all the x86 machines in my house. Then, once I do get it compiled on my application server, what are the odds that I can run it as a display server on my thin-clients?
      • That's great. Now if you can tell me where to download the source code for that, I'll be quite grateful, as I'm pretty sure the supplied binaries won't run on all the x86 machines in my house.

        Unfortunately, I don't have the source handy as I tend to use their pre-compiled binaries. I really don't have time to compile their source everytime they update their code so I elect to use the binaries. If I were you, I would contact the author and see if you can get the source for usage on your x86-based UNIX system. It runs like a dream on my old PPC-based UNIX system. Much better than XFree86 and its various Window Managers.

        I can't believe I forgot. You can get a copy of Microsoft Office that runs on it if you need that kind of application for your business environment. Which I hear a lot of people do!

  • time warp (Score:5, Funny)

    by (trb001) ( 224998 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @10:39AM (#4462083) Homepage
    You can do fancier split screens to make several applications visible at once:

    Anyone else notice how his "screen split" looks amazingly like what Desqview did back in the day for BBS consoles?

    Good gravy, we've advanced to the point of reverting to 10 year old technology

    --trb

    • Re:time warp (Score:3, Interesting)

      by hey! ( 33014 )
      It's not surprising that it looks retro.

      I think part of the stuff that MS got from Apple was the idea of operlapping windows. Originally, Windows only had tiling. This is so taken for granted now it's hard to remember that at one time the idea was new. In fact, the idea is so old that it practically is new.

      Overlapping windows get you two different things: (1) the ability to work with multiple documents within an application (early MacOS required you to switch between applications), and the ability to coordinate multiple applications. The problem with this approach is that applications are the wrong way to chunk the user experience. What would really be interesting is something like this with a component architecture. Each document would get an entire screen, but bits of functionality from various sources could be embedded in the document.

      In that case, we'd forgo the ability to view multiple documents overlapping each other (which is really not so important if you can tile them) in return for less clutter. But we'd retain the ability to use multiple applications on a document.

  • I've been using Ion off-and-on recently, trying to decide if I want to switch. It is very great. I didn't like posion, because (a) it brakes my web browser, Konquerer, and (b) I find it akward to use.

    Ion is similar. You can have multipal frames on the screen at a time (which is good), but the frames never overlap. One thing to note is that multipal clients can be in the same frame (one shows up at a time). Each frame (or the whole screen if you only have one) has a row of tabs at the top, one for each client. It's great.

    Here lives Ion. [cs.tut.fi]
  • I'd heard of screens, but never used it. I like the idea of being able to detach and reattach a session, but I want to do this in console mode for some of my boxes that don't "do windows".

    Does anyone know of a console-land type of setup, a "getty"-ish app, perhaps, that would let me log in, start a task (say a big compile), detach, and then reattach later to 'check up on it'?
    • That IS what screen does. You run screen, type the commands you want or start the application you want or whatever, then hit ctrl-a d to detach, then you log out or start another screen or whatever you like. Then later you do screen -r and it will reconnect you with the first screen session.

      man screen.
    • Does anyone know of a console-land type of setup, a "getty"-ish app, perhaps, that would let me log in, start a task (say a big compile), detach, and then reattach later to 'check up on it'?

      That is exactly what screen does. CTRL-A d to "detach" from screen, then log off. When you log back in, do "screen -r" to reattatch, and everything will still be running.

      On an X windows system, you can do the same thing with VNC or even Xvfb.
    • Does anyone know of a console-land type of setup, a "getty"-ish app, perhaps, that would let me log in, start a task (say a big compile), detach, and then reattach later to 'check up on it'?

      This is precisely what GNU screen allows you to do. You start some long task, detach from it, and re-attach later. Greatest thing is that you don't need to re-attach from the same machine - start that big compile at work and check on it from home (without having to run "script", or redirecting output, etc).

      GNU screen has nothing to do with X11: you can start the compile on the console and check on it from an xterm (it takes care of differences between xterm and Linux/BSD consoles all by itself).

      Wonderful little program. Learn it by starting screen and then typing control-A, question mark.

  • xmove (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Ari Rahikkala ( 608969 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @10:46AM (#4462127) Journal
    Someone on that thread asked about an X equivalent for screen, one that would allow you to detach an X program from one screen and run it on another. I don't have an account at Sourceforge and don't care to get one right now, so here goes:

    I've tried xmove [ensta.fr] once but never got it to run without segfaulting. Which isn't really a big surprise, since the last release is from 1995. However, if it worked correctly, it would sit between your X server and clients (guzzling some performance and probably making DRI, DGA, XSHM and the like pretty hard to configure). Maybe it would be possible to upgrade xmove to modern X11 revisions, but I'm not up to the task...

    OTOH, would it be possible to implement this in X servers and/or Xlib itself? As far as I can see, an X client could just store its state, close its connection to the X server and initiate a connection with another X server to move from one server to another. Doing changes only to servers, it could be implemented with a little stupid redirection even without doing any changes to clients at all, but that would cause a lot of connection overhead...

  • Screen is great (Score:2, Informative)

    by DustMagnet ( 453493 )
    For those of you that do lots of work with the command line, give screen [gnu.org] a try. It's great to just disconnect at work and then reconnect at home, right where I left off. I normally have five to ten consoles running under it. I started using it back when my 56K modem would disconnect me. With screen, I never lose my place.
  • I recommend pwm [cs.tut.fi]. Its a graphical WM with tabbed windows. Supports windowmaker dockapps.

    Unfortunately, it does not support iconification of programs...I'm trying to convince the developer to include that as an alternative to window shading.

    Imo, PWM's the best light window manager, providing a good combination of a clean graphical interface with minimalism.

    For a more heavy-duty WM, I recommend WindowMaker over GNOME or KDE. WindowMaker is fairly light-weight, and has a much cleaner appearance and feel. Another nice feature about WindowMaker is that it has a lot of the nice Apps that you see in OSX, like the mail program and the column-file navigator. Better, its easy to port an OSX program to WindowMaker if you have the source, as its based on OpenStep.

  • X's Multiple Personalities, and OS X (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Spencerian ( 465343 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @10:49AM (#4462154) Homepage Journal
    I love X Window's flexibility in adding window managers. I also hate it because I never, ever get the same convenience and experience in navigating an operating system as I do with Mac OS X and Windows. KDE and GNOME have gone through great changes to make this easier, but they are desktop managers, not window managers. Nowandays the distinction is subtle, but significant when you're trying to pawn off Linux to your mom.

    That said, while Mac OS X (my choice) doesn't use X (but can with the XDarwin OSS project [xdarwin.org]), a user can get quite minimalistic even with Apple's OS X interface. For instance, unlike previous versions of the Mac OS, you don't have to show one damned icon, or even the dock, in Mac OS X. To do it:

    1) From the Apple menu, choose Dock-->Turn Hiding On. This hides the dock until you move the mouse towards the dock's hidden location.

    2) Click on the Finder button in the dock (or click on the desktop) and choose Preferences from the Finder menu. Uncheck the options under "Show these items on the Desktop." That rids you of any hard drive, removable media, or network drive icons.

    3) Move any other document icons (the only things that can be left) into a folder in your Home folder, or elsewhere.

    4) Change your desktop background to something pleasant.

    The only thing left on the desktop now will be the menu bar.

    Users who prefer to navigate their applications in a menu-centric style can create an alias (shortcut/symlink) of their Applications and Documents folders and place them in the dock. From there, users can just click on the folder and, ala the Start button or typical window manager menu, navigate through to the item they need.

    • Re:X's Multiple Personalities, and Windows (Score:5, Funny)

      by mblase ( 200735 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @01:43PM (#4463503)
      I wanted the same thing with Windows 2000 at work, but it wouldn't let me. I came close by opening my Display control panel and, under the "Effects" tab, replaced all my desktop icons with the tiny shortcut arrow. (I suppose I could have found an icon file which was completely blank, but I haven't bothered yet.)

      All that was left was the text and those tiny icons, which I arranged in a single row and gave a silver background color in the "Appearance" tab. I then set my desktop background image to a screengrab of my code editor.

      Now, whenever the boss is coming while I'm busy playing "Bejeweled", I just hit Win-D to hide all open windows, and casual passers-by think I'm terribly busy working on something very difficult.

  • scwm (Score:2)

    by rnd() ( 118781 )
    Isn't this what scwm [sourceforge.net] is for?

  • Uhm.... Okay, But, You're Missing A Few Things... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Bowie J. Poag ( 16898 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @10:54AM (#4462195) Homepage


    This is a good editorial. Its always good to see people thinking differently about how to do the things we all do on a daily basis.

    However..

    The notion of using a text-based backdrop to GUI applications certainly isn't a new idea, and its not without merit -- The only problem is, what the editorial discusses can be replicated in X, and represents a set of personal preferences, not something that would be inherently better than what you or I would make for ourselves.

    For example, the layout of my own GUI has been relatively unchanged in the past 10 years, since thats how I like things. A large work area, bordered by a few shells down below, and a single line of information at the top that reflects system conditions. Take AmigaDOS 3.1's desktop, for example. It tells me everything I need to know at any given time using a single slat of text that not only doubles but *triples* as an information display, a File/Edit/View/Options bar, and a grab point for moving the screen up and down to expose screens beneath. Best of all, it conveys the same information a Dock would, but doesn't waste real-estate like a Dock would.

    The problem with a Dock is that it it offers very little *useful* information for the real estate it encompasses. It also offers a wealth of information that isn't particularly useful to anyone. Most screenshots of desktops with Docks confirm this -- A comparably large piece of real estate is taken away from other applications for the purposes of eye candy. Big mistake.

    Not to dismiss this guy's editorial, however, but he fails to distinguish how his method is any better or any different than simply running an xterm in the root window and simply utilizing pre-existing keyboard shortcuts for his applications.. (*shrug*)

    Cheers

  • screen [freshmeat.net] is awesome. If you do any type of remote administration through ssh [openssh.org] and you have not tried it - do so! You don't need to mess with job control, and you can have lynx/links/w3m/etc/ open in another "session" to look things up while you edit that config file, without having to open 2+ ssh sessions open at the same time. You can "disconnect" from the machine, "reconnect" from elsewhere, and have all your "windows" just as you left them - all through one ssh connection! Helpful even on your X desktop to reduce xterm clutter. You can even cut-and-paste between text sessions with ease.

    Find the GNU page here [gnu.org]. It's the VT100 equivalent of the "Antidesktop" -- check it out.

  • Perfect Sawfish theme (Score:2, Interesting)

    by F.O.Dobbs ( 17317 )
    Lines [freshmeat.net] is the perfect theme for me. I run Gnome/Sawfish with nothing but a single edge panel set to "tiny" for launching apps and keeping track of my desktops. Throw this in with Xinerama and I'm only wasting 24x1200 pixels out of 3200x1200. Key shortcuts are your friend.

    F.O. Dobbs

  • Pointless (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @11:03AM (#4462271)
    What is the point in yet another window manager - FVWM2 has been around for years, and is only slightly more resource intensive then TWM, yet it's got a lot more functionalilty.

    Loads of people have tried to make a better FVWM, and a lot of them even based their window managers on FVWM, but at the end of the day, FVWM is something of a standard for a lightweight window manager. It's perfectly happy running on X on Linux in 16 Mb of RAM, and I personally find it runs happily in 8. It can run in 4 Mb of RAM, but then X is hardly useful in only 4 Mb of RAM.

    Simple point - why re-invent the wheel? FVWM2 does what 99% of people who are looking for a simple window manager want, and it is very well known, and customisable. What is the point in yet another lightweight window manager.

    Nice idea, but pointless.

  • Id like to see this guy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by brunes69 ( 86786 ) <slashdot@nOSpam.keirstead.org> on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @11:15AM (#4462382)

    ...who "doesnt need a mouse" use Mozilla (or any other graphical web browser) for any length of time without the mouse, and be faster than anyone with one. While the keyboard certainly has its places, browsing the web certainly isn't one of them. There is a reason for all these insane web accessability standards everyone talks about yet no one follows, because navigating the web without a mouse is slow.

  • Me too. (Score:3, Informative)

    by eyeball ( 17206 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @11:22AM (#4462449) Journal
    I just made a similar switch after using every combination of desktop/window manager made over the last 10 years.

    I run a SunBlade 100 with two heads, and a SunPCi Intel coprocessor card (since I need to dip into our the company exchange server). I use the ion window manager, which gives not only split-screen windowing, but multiple tabs per window. Monitor one is usually debugging output or programming reference material on the left, emacs on the right, console and email at the bottom (a second full-screen workspace gives me Oracle GUI stuff). Monitor two is my windows (Outlook, instant messengers, etc..) Eventually I'm going to integrate some more Afterstep/WindowMaker type applets, but no rush.

    Anyway, for you screenshot junkies, check it out:
    Screenshot 1 [well.com]
    Screenshot 2 [well.com]

    I can't say exactly what's caused my frustration with the overlapped windowing metaphor, but whatever it is, it's gone now. I urge people to try it out before dismissing it as a joke.

    ion is available here: http://modeemi.cs.tut.fi/~tuomov/ion/

  • Minimalist??? Keyboard? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by philovivero ( 321158 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @11:32AM (#4462541) Homepage Journal
    I don't see this "ratpoison" WM as saving much in the way of keystrokes. In the way he uses it, he's got far more keystrokes to do than I do in my stock GNOME2.0 (Mandrake 9) environment. And GNOME2.0's WM is pretty lightweight (Metacity).

    For example, I keep three "root" GTerm's on desktop 1 which is bound to "F1" -- yep, a single keypress and I'm on my first desktop. More GTerm's on 2, email & Galeon on 3, etc. I can get from app to app with single keypresses and occasionally an alt-tab if I want to "overload" a given desktop.

    The biggest obstacle to eliminating the mouse in GUI land isn't the WM anymore. Metacity finally fixes the keyboard bindings for moving/resizing windows like -- [ahem] -- that other OS has had since 3.11.

    What's the biggest obstacle then? The apps. Tell me, in Mozilla, how do you navigate a web page*? How, in Gimp, do you select a rectangular region? How, in Dia, do you create five objects? The theme? You use the mouse. You don't use the keyboard. You can't use the keyboard.

    GNOME2.0 is addressing the problems. I'm not sure where and with what document, but every GNOME2.0 app I've seen thus far is so much more keyboard-compliant than any other Linux app I've seen to date, there must be some central document explaining in simple checkbox style what keyboard shortcuts apps must support.

    * Yes, I know you CAN navigate a web page in Mozilla using the keyboard, but scroll down seven pages until you see a link you're interested in, press "TAB" and notice how it scrolls all the way back to the top where the first link is. F--king brain-dead. Useless.

  • i'm trying it out, and it's pretty cool so far (Score:5, Informative)

    by terrified ( 89447 ) <efarris.yahoo@com> on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @11:51AM (#4462678) Homepage

    after reading the article a couple days ago, i thought i'd give these ideas a try. I'm a longtime screen user, and it's really changed the way i administrate and use *nix boxes. it's wonderful.

    Once i got ratpoison going, i needed some other things to make it truly useful and comfortable:

    • This guy [mcgill.ca]'s patch for adding dockapps to ratpoison. very nice. patched ratpoison-1.1.1 just fine.
    • keylaunch [debian.org], which allows arbitrary keystrokes to perform arbitrary commands (arbitrarily :)
    • ratmenu [debian.org], which i haven't put into use yet, but allows keyboard-navigable menus on the screen, created dynamically.

    this setup definately has some advantages: i'm not obsessing over the right KDE theme and color, there's no clutter at all on the screen, and, as a screen junkie, it just feels right.

    there's a lot of bashing these ideas going on (at least right now) in this discussion, but i'd advise you to try it out for a while, particularly if you're a screen-keyboardy kind of person.

    I don't know if i'll keep this setup or not. next step for me is to stop using mozilla and play around with phoenix instead. but, with today's earlier story of the cool new stuff coming in KDE3.1 [kde.org] this experiment, though useful, might be short-lived.

    For the sake of continuity (and gratuitous attempt at scoring a few karmasnacks), here's my setup:

    My $HOME/.ratpoisonrc:

    startup_message off
    defbargravity sw
    exec Esetroot -scale /home/eafarris/.kde/share/wallpapers/Horesh.jpg
    e xec keylaunch
    exec xscreensaver
    exec gnome-terminal --hide-menubar -e="ssh kermit"
    exec mozilla
    exec wmCalClock -S -24
    exec wmMoonClock -lat 39.7 -lon 78.9
    exec wmmon
    exec wmmemmon
    exec wmnd -i etho -m wmnet
    select 0

    basic stuff, some dock apps, a ssh into another box (with a screen session on it), a pretty background, moz, no biggie.

    My $HOME/.keylaunchrc:

    # Format:
    # key=...KeyName:Command
    #
    # ... No modifier
    # *.. Shift
    # .*. Ctrl
    # ..* Alt

    key=...XF86Back:ratpoison -c prev
    key=...XF86Forward:ratpoison -c next
    key=...XF86Standby:xscreensaver-command -lock

    key=..*F1:ratpoison -c 'select 0'
    key=..*F2:ratpoison -c 'select 1'
    key=..*F3:ratpoison -c 'select 2'
    key=..*F4:ratpoison -c 'select 3'
    key=..*F5:ratpoison -c 'select 4'
    key=..*F6:ratpoison -c 'select 5'

    (i have a Microsoft Internet Keyboard, which has a bunch of extra keys). Right now i'm not remapping very many of these keys, i've only been playing around for two days. but you get the idea. A cool thing about ratpoison is that a command-line can control the wm (all that ratpoison -c stuff), so i get the flexibility and speed and power without the wm having so many "features."

    What i have right now feels like gnu screen for X, which is a marvelous thing, right now, for me. My opinion will most likely change in the future, as i have yet to find the setup that's perfect. At least with X i have a choice. But so far, i'm optimistic. Not bad. Not bad at all.

  • My thoughts along the same lines (Score:4, Insightful)

    by iabervon ( 1971 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @12:12PM (#4462813) Homepage Journal
    I'm using fvwm, because I actually want multiple things on the screen at once (since I want to watch for changes in one window while doing things in another window, or type notes on the things I'm reading in a different window; having overlapping windows is nice for this). I don't actually use the virtual desktops much (unless I find I want to do something totally different for a while, with an entirely separate set of windows). Fvwm, at least, can be controlled with keys and key combinations not normally used by other programs (rather than "^O"). I use mostly left-windows, shift-left-windows, alt-left-alt, alt-right-alt, shift-left-shift, and shift-right-shift; this leaves free every non-modifier key with every combination of modifiers on the traditional PC keyboard. This makes "left-windows 1" the X equivalent of "^A ^A". Fvwm is also good for mapping random keys and key combinations to scripts; I have the Pause/Break key start, pause, or resume the CD player.

    Screen is, in fact, the coolest piece of software ever. I've been logged into my home server continuously since the morning of April 30th, when I installed a new version which wasn't happy with sessions from the old version. I've had sessions going nearly all the time since 1998. My .profile actually contains "screen; exit", so I never do anything on that machine outside of screen. The cool thing he didn't mention is that you can attach the same session multiple times, so that, if you want to see two of the virtual consoles, or even see a virtual console that's being shown on a different computer, you can do that.

    I use emacs server mode with a chunk of elisp to make each new buffer invoked from the command line appear in a separate frame. This puts the file name in the title (which appears in fvwm's window list), and I then have icons and window list entries for all of the file I'm currently working on.

    Other than windows for programs I'm running (which are generally xterms, emacs, and a web browser), I have a digital clock. I sometimes have a modern art moving background (kind of hyponotic and relaxing, sort of a white-noise generator).

  • A tip to the fanatic (Score:4, Funny)

    by CCRancor ( 314979 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @12:15PM (#4462835)
    For a truly minimalistic GUI:

    alias startx='killall -9 *tty*' ;)

  • splitvt (Score:5, Informative)

    by tweek ( 18111 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @12:36PM (#4462992) Homepage Journal
    I'm surprised noone mentioned splitvt at all. I use this in combination with screen when I want to group logical windows on one screen(the program) screen.

    You can check it out here [devolution.com].

    It only has three keybindings and includes a ^O for command mode that allows you to resize the windows.

  • BlackBox? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by LoudMusic ( 199347 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @01:02PM (#4463173)
    There are plenty of window managers that aren't bloatware. BlackBox is one of my favorites.

    Keep your console sessions in a different tty - or even open one full screen and throw it on a different desktop.

    This guy is nuts.

  • From Plan 9: 9wm (Score:4, Informative)

    by sward ( 122951 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @01:20PM (#4463313)
    If you folks want a really light-weight window manager, you should look at 9wm. Decorations? What are those? The same goes for most other sort of processing that's outside of what the apps themselves do. I've seen it used (personally, I like Window Maker) with a simple black background. The focused window has a black border, the other windows have white borders. And that's it.

  • If you get nothing else from this article... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Thomas A. Anderson ( 114614 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @02:13PM (#4463702) Homepage
    At least check out screen. It's amazing software.

  • Mainframes Session Managers There First (Score:3, Informative)

    by Mittermeyer ( 195358 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @06:31PM (#4465499) Homepage
    There is a class of software that as far as I know only exists commercially on IBM mainframes. They are called Session Managers, and allow multiple sessions to multiple VTAM apps to one physical session with an optional centralized security authentication.

    Each session can be swapped onto the screen as the primary Current session (sound familiar?), and the other sessions can be switched to at the touch of a button. One extra doodad we have even allows a list to be called up in the middle of ANY app and another session selected straight off that list.

    In addition you can have instant messaging between any session manager sessions so authorized, cut-and-pasting between dissimilar apps, broadcast messages that can be targetted at different users on specific apps on different host machines, and all sorts of other spiffy things. Plus, to get really esoteric the Session Manager can be used as middleware (albeit kludgy).

    Now mind you this is the well-defined very specific very character-only world of TN3270E as oppossed to X-GUI issues, so this is very much apples-and-microsofts, but the concept is well-defined and in production at mainframe sites all over, so any SCREEN fans ought to check them out.

    The two primary products in this category are Multsess and Candle Supersession.

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