Re: Hating desktops

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From: peter (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: Hating desktops
Date: 17:12 on 04 Sep 2003
> I am using X (FreeBSD) with a nice old window manager, olvwm (last
> modified in 1992 or so), and I don't really have complaints about
> it.  So maybe I should hear your complaints on that, to better
> assess in what light to consider the Mac complaints.  Maybe it's
> just not obvious to me?

Hating X.

I hate the fact that there's no file manager worth pouring out of a boot,
I'll take Windows Explorer, Finder, Finder Classic, or even the old File
and Program Managers in Windows 3.1 over ANY file manager for UNIX.

I hate the fact that there's about 10 different toolkits all with different
configuration mechanisms and slightly perverted variants of the good old
X Resources, all of which look different. And act different. And sometimes
act up when they meet each other.

I hate the lack of non-geek software. Not that I use much of it, but I do
use some (there is no universal geek).

I hate the fact that if you're not running Red Hat Latest Version you have
to spend way too much time compiling and building and in many cases porting
software. The FreeBSD Ports collection solves a lot of this, except where
some bastard software developers (some of whom are probably reading this)
think it's just fine to make important options that you really need to tweak
for your installation compile-time-only.

I hate the way the "new desktops" seem to chew up almost as many computrons
as Quartz and they still look like crap. And they STILL need geek-level skills
to do basic configuration.

It was better in the early '90s when many of the new toolkits were binary
compatible with Athena Widgets, so your Xaw programs just picked up the new
look-n-feel and actually started looking pretty nice, and you could add
new APIs and still fall back...

Oh well, we've passed a lot of water under the bridge since then.

There's stuff above here

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