The Purpose of 4 Desktop environment.

[kanata]

Hi everyone,

I have always puzzled about the purpose of 4 Desktop environments.
what is the significance.

I use only one for my daily work.


Thanks.
kanata

[thatguruguy]

If that's all you need, that's fine.

I sometimes need more. For instance, if I am working on a legal brief, I will keep all of my research on one desktop, and keep my brief on another. I find it's easier to keep organized that way, but YMMV.

[Igorpan]

I love it!
I binded desktops to <Super>+1,<Super+2> etc.
When i'm doing few tasks at the same time,i just switch them with my keyboard,i find it very fast and better organized

[Simian Man]

I don't use them much on my laptop because it's just for casual use. For my work computer, however, I keep a different project on each desktop with several terminals, text editors and web browser windows on each. Then I can switch between tasks simply and keep my place even if I don't look at a particular project for several days.

[lucasart]

Hi everyone,

I have always puzzled about the purpose of 4 Desktop environments.
what is the significance.

I use only one for my daily work.


Thanks.
kanata

Well I suppose it's for these super hardcore nerds who like the 3D cube stuff. Not a big fan myself, I use 2 desktops and switch just by moving the mouse through the edge of them screen. So it really feels natural (rather than doing ctrl+alt+left/right or <super>+E or clicking in the bottom pane)

Try installing compizconfig-settings-manager, and have a look at all that you can configure. It's insane... (although 90% is useless and annoying after a while so you'll endup turning it off anyway)

[darolu]

If you can find the use of having 2 monitors, but only have one screen... voilá; it all depends on your taste and needs, for instance I like to keep a separate workspace for "communications", e-mail clients and IM clients are in a separated workspace so they don't bother me while working; part of my work is to create graphics so I usually keep gimp and inkscape running on another workspace and in the 'main' one I keep my IDE, browser, etc...
It's really up to you, if you don't want more than one, configure it to use one only.

[2hot6ft2]

4? You mean you're not using all 32?
It's so the desktop you're on at any point in time doesn't have to be cluttered with everything you have going.

[malspa]

I find workspaces and virtual desktops to be convenient. I usually have three available. They're just another tool to help keep things organized.

I think that in KDE they are called desktops, but in GNOME and other environments they are called workspaces. At least, I think those are the names for them when you go to configure them. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong about that. For example, I'm using Xfce at the moment and here they're called workspaces.

[rogerpittman]

I normally use 4 workspaces - one for web browsing, one for email, one for reading documents (PDF) and one for projects (digitizing audio cassettes with Audacity). Keeps everything more organized for me.

[1clue]

I use 2 rows of 6.

I always set things up the same way:

1. I have one for email and other communications like Skype.
2. I have one for recreational web browsing.
3. I have one for work admin stuff.
4. I have one for software development IDE (I'm a programmer)
5. I have one for software development command-line terminals.
6. I have several screens with terminals in various arrangements that I have found helpful for various other tasks.
7. One is for office-related apps like word processors.

All these things are in a specific arrangement, such that any two screens I use "together" are adjacent to each other.

What I get out of it is a bunch of application sets. Instead of minimizing an app and bringing another one, it's a quick keystroke to switch from one to another "suite" with all the windows arranged perfectly.