Linux users and bad GUI's?

[hhh]

If I could figure out how to get the icon to disappear when a drive is mounted, i'd like that too, I like having no icons.

It should be in gconf-editor (Alt+F2, enter gconf-editor, then navigate to apps>nautilus>desktop and uncheck "volumes_visible".) HTH

[urukrama]

Yes, it is possible, it is also possible to surf the internet with Lynx and take 5 minutes to load a pdf file. I have seen some 'minimalist' systems at work. I used to have one with 256mb ram and a 56kb modem. I taught in a college and I had the option of submitting the grades through the internet. It took me 3 -5 minutes to submit a grade (they had to be entered separately) I had about 100 students and in the end I just took a trip to the college to enter the marks there.

This sounds like you were using the wrong type of applications and possibly the wrong OS for your hardware then. My 300Mhz/192 MB RAM laptop is reasonably fast: it boots in about 30 seconds, and accessing files is not that much slower than on other computers. It depends largely on what applications you use or how you configure them. Browsing the internet with Opera is really not significantly slower on that laptop than on my computer at work.

[Brunellus]

GUI aesthetics is highly personal and subjective. Linux desktop users have an almost unlimited ability to configure their GUIs to suit them, so they will configure them to look good to THEM, and not to some design guru.

GUI setup depends on what your intended use is. Users that need to monitor a number of servers remotely will be working with multiple terminals open. Many of these will abandon "pretty" GUIs for more functional tiling window managers, such as Ratpoison, Ion, awesome, or Xmonad. They may not look pretty to you, but they are excellent at displaying information quickly and effectively.

Other users tend to go overboard, enabling more desktop effects. They are the desktop GUI equivalents to guys who drive around with spinning rims on their cars. They can make it flashy, so they make it flashy.

I will confess: when I set up my GUIs, I set them up NOT to look like OSX or Windows as much as possible. If that makes my GUI ugly, well--you don't have to look at it.

[malspa]

If that makes my GUI ugly, well--you don't have to look at it.

That's really the bottom line!

[Duncan J Murray]

Just wanted to say thanks for one of the most amusing threads I've read in a while.

For what it's worth, here's a 120Mhz Pentium, 80Mb and an 8Gb CF card, using the framebuffer and screen on 2.6.31-something:



This is a 150Mhz Pentium MMX, with 32Mb and also with an 8Gb CF card, this time running Musca against xserver 1.8.2 and 2.6.32.2:



These, to me, are beautiful GUIs. If you don't like them, or think it's ridiculous to use 14-year-old hardware to handle day-to-day tasks, I don't really care.

Linux gives me the freedom to do those things, and questioning how someone else uses those freedoms is, in my opinion, beside the point. The point is there are no ugly GUIs.

Damn I am truly jealous.

I thought it was pretty cool that I could press ctrl-alt-F2 and type Mutt and show off thus, but this so-called-tiling-manager blows my Mutt right out the water.

Anyone know how I can downgrade my 7 year old T40 laptop to run this?

Dunc

P.S. Screw the 9.04 theme for 10.04 I wanted - anyone got this theme?

[Legendary_Bibo]

Other users tend to go overboard, enabling more desktop effects. They are the desktop GUI equivalents to guys who drive around with spinning rims on their cars. They can make it flashy, so they make it flashy.

I will confess: when I set up my GUIs, I set them up NOT to look like OSX or Windows as much as possible. If that makes my GUI ugly, well--you don't have to look at it.

[juancarlospaco]

I make some GUI on Tk and NCurses, and i love it

[kamaboko]

Are you the guy we should be checking with to determine whether or not our GUI is crap?????

No, that would be me. lol.

[wojox]

I like mine. Pretty simple and basic.

[FlameReaper]

... I think it's good to have a minimalist desktop to the very minimum level, but for new users they might find it a bit too inconvenient. Most new computer (not just Linux) users I know nowadays depend a lot on graphical solutions to get things done, and simply asking them to learn to use the terminal is like telling them to shoo on their part (just what I think they might think).

Especially when they are Windows users who use their computers for some ordinary stuff like typing documents, listening to music, surfing the Net etc. And I know most of them like to customize their desktop, and what would be better than downloading some themes and using them right away with a single click etc.

I'd like to think that Linux is for everyone to use like how Windows and maybe even Macs are, even those without any skill of using the terminal (and are not willing to due to various circumstances). So I don't think there's anything wrong for providing them a GUI solution for everything which they can understand in layman's terms.