Re: [LUG] Using linux as a desktop OS

[Simon Waters <Simon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Alex Charrett wrote:
> A thought has occurred to me, how many people on here have experience of
> using Linux as a desktop system, like a normal user would use Windows
> etc.

> So, any comments on a users perspective I'd be very interested in.

I've been using graphical interfaces on Unix, since before Linux
was written. I use KDE 1 as my principal desktop for about 2 and
1/2 years.

Whilst I thought later versions of KDE 2 had some great ideas,
the improvements in graphical user interfaces have been
surprisingly limited over the years.

Possibly the one exception is Object Linking and Embedding,
where I think Microsoft still have the edge in terms of number
of objects in the same framework. Whether the average Windows
users takes advantages of that I've no idea.

When someone I know was talking to a potential employer they
asked if they use how to link cell between different Excel
Workbooks. Apparently no one they interview does (funny I
haven't used Excel for years, but I bet I could figure it out
pretty quick).

Having seen the data on how many spreadsheets have significant
mistakes and experienced "power users" getting ambitious with
Microsoft Office, I think some of the advanced things you can do
with these technologies are best done with non-proprietary
languages, and minimal dependencies (less is more).

The problems one user had when we upgraded the network, and
discovered that although he had types in "R:" or "P:", and "R:"
and "P:" now mapped to the same files in the same directories,
the spreadsheets had stored URI internally, and was still
looking for the old file server<doh> - find and replace wasn't
an option!

The reason we have analysts (well we use to have rather more)
and programmers, is so they only trip over these things once in
a career, not once per user.

File managers - hmm I hate things like Midnight Commander - KFM
from KDE 1 would be nearly perfect if they hadn't tried to turn
it into a web browser as well. It's main fault is the assignment
of file types and such like, whilst flexible isn't obvious or
well documented in-situ. Who has time to read manuals,
especially for something as simple as file managers, that is why
no one know what can and can't be dragged around on Win32 GUIs
either. 

I still do a lot of file manipulation from the command line,
hell I use cvs from the command line (with lots of very long
aliases), but when playing with files of different types, or
tidying up disk space file managers can be handy - especially
that trash can.

Of course the big win is when you want to add an application to
multiple desktops - X Windows desktops were all built with the
concept of multiuser standard, plus per user variations, where
as Windows has had to retrofit the "corporate standard" GUI
concept to single user machines.... Thus when I was responsible
for lots of X destops I'd push the new apps settings to the same
place on each server, and the users could then customise if
needed, easy. Windows now has some good tools for this, but X
Windows never needed them, 'rcp', 'sh' and 'vi' were sufficient.

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