Linux users and bad GUI's?

[TNT1]

...So why not just buy a new PC?

Are you paying? some of us use the "dated" machines we do, cause that's all we can afford.

More of us use the so called dated machines, cause they work just fine for our needs, and we realise there's more to life than the next best technological piece of crap. There's a simple statement, "what will you do for one dollar, what will you do with one dollar", maybe a lot of people could learn from that. No, wait, they'd have to take their braincell off their fast food and youboob to do so. Nevermind.

[jfreak_]

...So why not just buy a new PC?

I hate to repeat this over and over again. EVERYONE does not live in places where gadgets are cheap. There are countries where buying a computer is considered as a luxury. Why? Because computers here cost about two months income for an average family. So this money could be better spent on more , let me say, needed stuff.

[RiceMonster]

I hate to repeat this over and over again. EVERYONE does not live in places where gadgets are cheap. There are countries where buying a computer is considered as a luxury. Why? Because computers here cost about two months income for an average family. So this money could be better spent on more , let me say, needed stuff.

I didn't realize computers were so expensive behind me. I guess you learn something new every day!

[TNT1]

I hate to repeat this over and over again. EVERYONE does not live in places where gadgets are cheap. There are countries where buying a computer is considered as a luxury. Why? Because computers here cost about two months income for an average family. So this money could be better spent on more , let me say, needed stuff.

Exactly.

[jazzerit]

@baracudu:
you don't need the mouse to browse the web; you could use w3m or lynx (or similar)

[MooPi]

Mine is not a need to be thrifty, but a desire for speed. Even a clean Gnome desktop is considerably slower than my Openbox minimal desktop. I have a newer PC and it can easily handle the fancy gui's but that's not what i enjoy. Besides that I would rather use a terminal for lots of things versus the gui interfaces. I use terminal for cdparnoia with oggenc for music, ffmpeg, mencoder, and mplayer, with mkisofs for video work. Don't get me wrong I enjoy the gui for some things but lean on the terminal. I've watched rhythmbox slog through encoding while my terminal encoding zipps. Same goes for video encoding.

[koenn]

What's with that obsession about what your (or anyone's) desktop looks like. I use my computer to run applications I need, or enjoy. I really couldn't care less about a desktop wallpaper, the color of a window border, or the appearance of an icon that I'll only see during a split second when I click on it to start an application.

I'm beginning to be under the impression that many Linux users want their desktop that way to intentionally appear like an experienced user who doesn't need a flashy GUI.

I am an experienced user who doesn't need a flashy GUI.

Furthermore, it seems to me that this eagerness to beautify a desktop is a noob's way of feeling in control. Who cares about configuring the appearance of a GUI when you're in a position to configure entire systems, services and networks ...

[msandoy]

I love that my desktop might look awful to someone. It just means that I'm human, and I decide what is nice/practical to me. But if OP wants a more mainstream desktop that millions of others have, I know just the OS for him.

[bunburya]

I am an experienced user who doesn't need a flashy GUI.

Furthermore, it seems to me that this eagerness to beautify a desktop is a noob's way of feeling in control. Who cares about configuring the appearance of a GUI when you're in a position to configure entire systems, services and networks ...

Plenty of people actually. Yourself and the OP represent the two extremes of this debate, whereas I imagine most people reside somewhere in the middle.

[CraigPaleo]

I can understand the minimalism but what I don't get are the desktops with transparent windows - especially with busy wallpapers and Conky running in the background. I sometimes wonder if they use them that way or if they just do it for the screenshots and then change to something else.

Many of them do look good. I just can't imagine working with them.