James G. Sack (jim) wrote:
> Neil Schneider wrote:
>> Joshua Penix wrote:
>>> On Jan 24, 2008, at 4:17 PM, James G. Sack (jim) wrote:
>>>
>>>> Does anyone feel comfortable comparing (or moderating) KDE vs Gnome?
>>> I don't know that a "vs" setup would be worthwhile, but this tickles
>>> an idea I've had in the back of my head for a year or two...
>>
>> Well compare and contrast would be more useful. But I like the idea below.
>>
>>> How about a series of presentations that focus not on desktop
>>> environment features or comparisons but instead on ways of getting
>>> more out of your chosen desktop, as demonstrated by expert users? I'd
>>> like to see power users of some of the common desktop environments
>>> give a 30-45-minute-ish presentation on what their daily workflow
>>> looks like and what features of their desktop they use to their
>>> advantage.
>>
>> I like this idea a lot. But I think instead of having Gnome and KDE on the
>> same night, maybe do something like KDE and Fluxbox, or Gnome & Windowmaker.
>> KDE and Gnome may be a lot different underneath, but the interfaces look
>> very
>> similar to me. Comparing something like Windowmaker with its icons and root
>> window menus to something like Gnome with it's "Windows like" task bar would
>> be more interesting. If we could get two displays up at once, it would be
>> interesting to see how you accomplish similar tasks in the different GUIs.
>>
>>> Windowmaker, for example, is a common power user desktop used by at
>>> least John and Neil. I've tried Windowmaker myself, but found the
>>> strange concepts of the clip and dock a little foreign, and wasn't
>>> sure how to best take advantage of them. Watching John simply *use*
>>> his desktop for 20 minutes would probably teach me more than I could
>>> get in four hours of documentation reading.
>>
>> I wouldn't consider myself a power user. I just prefer the "Next style"
>> interface to Windows. But I've never been much of a Windows user so I don't
>> have a distaste for anything that looks like it. I did use fvwm95 when I
>> first
>> started with Linux.
>>
>>> Common DE's that should definitely be covered (need volunteers!):
>>> - Gnome
>>> - KDE
>>> - XFCE
>>> - Windowmaker
>>>
>>> More obscure DE approaches that might be interesting:
>>> - Ratpoison or one of the other "window-less" window managers
>>> - Open/Black/Fluxbox
>>> - Emacs (LOL!)
>>> - ???
>>>
>>> And to be really complete, considering the sheer quantity of OS X
>>> users in KPLUG, a Mac desktop demo would probably be of interest. I
>>> could also see value in doing a Windows demo showing how to get the
>>> most Unix-y experience out of it, considering that Linux guys often
>>> get stuck on a Windows machine from time to time.
>>>
>>> I could see this actually being a 2-3 meeting series, since we'd want
>>> to leave ample room for Q&A.
>>
>> So does that mean than you would actually grace us with your presence and
>> perhaps even participate, by presenting one of the interfaces?
>>
>
> Hear! Hear!
>
> would it be feasible for someone to act as a driver / demo-er, and try
> to illustrate features or practices suggested from the audience?
What I think might work is a laptop configured to run two X servers on
different virtual consoles. Then run different window managers on each
separate X server. If the laptop has enough horsepower, you might even be able
to run three. Has anyone tried this? I don't think my old Thinkpad has enough
power or memory to run two. If someone could get this going on their laptop, I
might volunteer to stand up front and make a fool of myself.
I would also like to see another presentation on ssh, with emphasis on how to
ease the use for the casual Linux user. How to set up ssh-askpass under
various windowmanagers, the care and use of ssh keys. Explanation and
demonstration of ssh-keygen, ssh-agent, ssh-add, ssh-copy-id, ssh-argv0,
ssh-keyscan and ssh-askpass.
Volunteers?
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