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Dear Neil, It is most interesting seeing how different people use computers. The way in which I use mine is quite different to how many distributions are set up for, so I appreciate it when the installer gives the option to not install a desktop environment at all. Conversely, I find it a shame that the components of some desktop environments are integrated so deeply that they become useless outside of that desktop environment (such as GNOME Settings, which won't even open unless the current session is running GNOME). > Desktop > > I like to have the panel at the bottom. Some distros start with it at > the top, or even on one side. So I have to move it. First difference! My father and I are both in the top-panel brigade! > The plank. Whose weird idea was that one? If it is there I remove it. I think it is there mostly for aesthetics - I don't see the utility of a bar that takes up all the horizontal space on the bottom of the screen, and yet only shows a few icons. That's one reason why I like the way Xubuntu defaults to, as it uses Xfce in a more efficient configuration, although, like you, I'm not so keen on Ubuntu in general. > All those pretty (or not) pictures to show on the desk top. To me just > a silly distraction. I always set up each desk top with a plain > coloured background. Each one a different colour. I like the idea of colour-coding your desktops; that sounds really helpful. However I have to disagree about pictures! Without the lovely photographs showing through my transparent windows I think it could look a little drab. I have even created a cron job to cycle randomly through a curated collection of images on a regular basis! Same, indeed, with picture frames and posters: used in moderation they can be quite a tasteful way of lifting the appearance of a room. > I always keep the panel hidden. When I need it I just move the mouse > pointer to the bottom of the screen and the panel appears. The rest of > the time it is out of the way. Auto-hiding panels is very convenient on netbooks and other small devices. The setup that I have currently has one wafer-thin bar that's always visible; it just shows indicators for the desktops (empty, current and occupied), the date/time, my IP address and a volume control. All of this is mostly out of the way, and I can change the content of the bar easily when my needs change; currently I am doing a lot with networking so I need the IP address visible for instance. > For some reason most browsers seem to be set up at the start so that > closing the last, only, tab also closes the application. Why? I always > switch that off via about:config. There are already several ways to > close my browser down when I have finished, I don't need another one. Haha! Well put! I must look into that about:config setting for myself. > Terminal screen. > > Yes, I do use it a lot. But the default seems to be to open it up with > a small screen. I like to have it full screen, so I change that in > preferences. I usually change the font and background too. I use a tiling window manager, so any new window will expand to fill the space available to it. So the first window is full screen, the next splits the desktop in half, and so on and so forth. It feels very awkward going back to stacking/floating window managers now! > I had better finish by saying that we are so lucky with Linux. Most > changes that I want to make are so easy. Try that in Windows or Mac. > That is one of my main reasons for using Linux. So please take this as > just a bit of fun, not a rant. Further to this, I'd like to add that plain-text configuration files are very helpful in this regard, because you can backup your settings and share them very easily, and it's also easy to merge other people's settings with your own. Anyone here is welcome to examine mine! Best wishes (and happy new year), Sebastian -- - Freenode: 'seabass' - Matrix: '@seabass:chat.weho.st' -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG https://mailman.dcglug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq