On Sun, Jan 23, 2005, Offer Kaye wrote about "Re: rant: changing color depth": > On Sun, 23 Jan 2005 17:27:56 +0200, Oded Arbel wrote: > > or worse: every window > > manager maker would have to include their own configuration tool. > > There are over 300 distributions listed on distrowatch.com . > There are about 5 or 10 (give or take a few) popular Window Managers, > with only 2 really big ones. > You do the math. Seems to me it would be *better*, not worse, if every > WM included its own desktop configuration tool, instead of the > distributions themselves doing so.
This thread is turning into a bizarre mix of Unix philosophy and ad-hominem flaming, so let me try to add a little more of the former (which I believe is more relevant for this list). The original philosophy of X11 Windows Managers is that they should do as little as possible to comply with the ICCCM (the Inter-Client Communications Convention Manual), leaving the rest to other programs. For, for example a Window Manager had menus, but the menu choices invoked external programs; The Window Manager supported a background image, but the image was loaded by an external program (xsetroot, and later more sophisticated things). This Window Manager was never intended to have things like system configuration tools included into it. If anything, the window manager would have a tree of menus, which would eventually run external programs to do what the user wants. For example, the user might choose "configure -> X11" menu choice on some hypothetical window manager, and the window manager will run some external "xf86config" program (or whatever). This idea in that philosophy is decoupling the choice of window manager from other choices. You could take an X11 with a set of GUI configuration programs, and mix and match it with any window manager, and the result will work. Sure, you may want to tweak the window manager's menus, for example, to be more friendly given the set of configuration tools you have, but at least it's possible. The result is a system where you have - in your own words - a choice of 5 to 10 window managers. That's 5 to 10 more options than you have on other systems, like MS-Windows. I know I'm a little eccentric, but I actually still use a little-known Window Manger called "ctwm" - a sort of twm on steroids (and with virtual desktops). And I have no problem to use this antediluvian Window Manager even on the most recent Linux distribution - exactly because of this decoupling between X, the Window Manager, and the rest of the applications. Strongly-coupled "Desktop Systems" like Gnome and KDE are slowly hurting this basic ideal, but luckily the fact there are two of those - plus a host of other "unaligned" projects - keeps the original decoupling ideas still very much alive. > > I think URPMI is good enough for my needs, and Mandrake's graphical > > interface for urpmi (rpmdrake) beats synoptic in ease of use every time, > > but you are entitled to your opinion. And I use Fedora Core 3, with "yum". I don't see how Debian's deb system is any better than this. But to each his own tastes. > kick-ass. I totally agree there. But can you really compare the wealth > of packages offered by apt to those offered by rpm? After making the > switch, I can say, at least based on my personal experience, that > using an apt based distribution is simply better, hands down. I don't understand why this has anything to do with "deb" vs. "rpm". You're right that Mandrake and Fedora proper have a limited supply of packages (if you call hundreds of packages spanning several gigabytes "limited"), mainly determined by the requirement of these distributions to be installable by CD-ROM (and wanting to be delivered on 3 CD-ROMs, not 30). However, this is not a fundamental problem with RPM-based systems. Fedora already has a number of unofficial sites providing packages that you can't find on Fedora's official release - including legally-problematic things like mp3 and mplayer. Anyway, *every* distribution has its flaws. If your favorite distribution (which I have to admit I haven't even heard of) is missing a color-depth configuration utility, don't give up - try sending a bug report to your distribution. Or to KDE. -- Nadav Har'El | Sunday, Jan 23 2005, 14 Shevat 5765 [EMAIL PROTECTED] |----------------------------------------- Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |I have a great signature, but it won't http://nadav.harel.org.il |fit at the end of this message -- Fermat ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
