Re: Feedback about Desktop Environments
On Tue, Sep 17, 2013 at 09:50:53AM +0200, Raimo Niskanen wrote: Can you recommend an alternative automounter for network mounts? I guess fstab + ifstated(8) would do the job even better then amd. -- Dmitrij D. Czarkoff
Re: Feedback about Desktop Environments
Personally, I'm an long time fvwm user. My partner wouldn't know where to start nor care to learn how to use that. Which is why I need to install a DE. Years ago I did use KDE3 and liked it but changed because I did not like KDE4. Don't forget especially with xfce you can take just parts of it like the panel or mix parts with gnome panel or gkrellm. You may lose some features? without some parts like xfvwm but will likely gain some speed, simplicity and existing fvwm configs. One thing I am not fond of in xfce compared to fvwm is it being annoying to configure using a text editor and config file copying and locking it down only being semi filesystem based and again not so straight forward. -- ___ 'Write programs that do one thing and do it well. Write programs to work together. Write programs to handle text streams, because that is a universal interface' (Doug McIlroy) ___
Re: Feedback about Desktop Environments
On 2013-09-18, john slee indig...@oldcorollas.org wrote: On 17 September 2013 20:37, Jes jjje...@gmail.com wrote: but if you want you can mount them in /etc/fstab. Simply read the documentation about permissions and syntax. It's very easy. For NFS the best way is mount them in /etc/fstab too. /Why/ is it the best way, though? Unlike automounters, static fstab entries don't address the problem of network filesystems being unreachable during boot. They will eventually time out and fail, requiring manual intervention. Fine if you have only a small group of systems... Failures may also rather substantially lengthen the boot process. See mount_nfs' -b option. Perhaps there are nasty side-effects of using automounters, but I've never encountered any. If there are I'd love to hear about them! One problem is that amd uses NFSv2 which is restricted in file size.
Re: Feedback about Desktop Environments
Interesting. I just used Xfce for a bit on a new Ubuntu box from a vendor here today, I didn't check the version. It sure has come a lng way from when I last used it around 1999. I may try it out on my home desktop, seems a lot more responsive than KDE and Gnome. On Mon, Sep 16, 2013 at 3:41 AM, thornton.rich...@gmail.com wrote: Definitely XFCE 4.10. Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Verizon Wireless 4G LTE network. From: James GriffinSent: Monday, September 16, 2013 6:20 AMTo: misc@openbsd.orgSubject: Feedback about Desktop Environments I need to install a Dektop Environment for my partner. I thought about KDE or xfce, i've tried neither on OpenBSD before. Which of the 3 main main DE's (gnome, KDE, XFCE) do you feel work best on OpenBSD. I would need things like removable media mounting from within the graphical environment, good sound support and multimedia applications. Any advice would be helpful from those using any of these Desktop's. I thought i'd ask on this list before installing loads of packages. Cheers, Jamie.
Re: Feedback about Desktop Environments
On Mon, Sep 16, 2013 at 06:15:50PM +0200, Marc Espie wrote: On Mon, Sep 16, 2013 at 03:18:28PM +, Stuart Henderson wrote: On 2013-09-16, Stefan Sperling s...@openbsd.org wrote: You can use hotplugd(8) to simulate an auto-mounter for known USB disks. hotplug-diskmount (in packages) saves a bit of time writing a script for this. Or there's amd(8) of course... No, don't use amd. Every time somebody uses amd, a kitten die (and we get that much farther away from being able to modernize NFS). Can you recommend an alternative automounter for network mounts? -- / Raimo Niskanen, Erlang/OTP, Ericsson AB
Re: Feedback about Desktop Environments
On Mon, Sep 16, 2013 at 5:18 PM, Stuart Henderson s...@spacehopper.org wrote: On 2013-09-16, Stefan Sperling s...@openbsd.org wrote: You can use hotplugd(8) to simulate an auto-mounter for known USB disks. hotplug-diskmount (in packages) saves a bit of time writing a script for this. And there's also this[1], for even better integration. [1] http://www.bsdua.org/tray-app.html#eject
Re: Feedback about Desktop Environments
Try E17: lightning fast, meek on requirements, user friendly. On Mon, Sep 16, 2013 at 12:18 PM, James Griffin j...@kontrol.kode5.netwrote: I need to install a Dektop Environment for my partner. I thought about KDE or xfce, i've tried neither on OpenBSD before. Which of the 3 main main DE's (gnome, KDE, XFCE) do you feel work best on OpenBSD. I would need things like removable media mounting from within the graphical environment, good sound support and multimedia applications. Any advice would be helpful from those using any of these Desktop's. I thought i'd ask on this list before installing loads of packages. Cheers, Jamie.
Re: Feedback about Desktop Environments
On Tue, Sep 17, 2013 at 10:47 AM, Paolo Aglialoro paol...@gmail.com wrote: Try E17: lightning fast, meek on requirements, user friendly. yes, it's nice. A bit buggy, but nice...
Re: Feedback about Desktop Environments
Regarding samba... there's no need to automount samba folders because you always can browse them via file browser (konqueror, thunar or nautilus), but if you want you can mount them in /etc/fstab. Simply read the documentation about permissions and syntax. It's very easy. For NFS the best way is mount them in /etc/fstab too. For external disks/pen drive, hotplug-diskmount, as Marc said, it's the best option. This pretty tool automount the drives when inserted and unmount when the drive is plugged off. If the drive is FAT you can extract it before unmount it. For other systems different from FAT you must unmount before extract. BR Jes On Tue, Sep 17, 2013 at 9:50 AM, Raimo Niskanen raimo+open...@erix.ericsson.se wrote: On Mon, Sep 16, 2013 at 06:15:50PM +0200, Marc Espie wrote: On Mon, Sep 16, 2013 at 03:18:28PM +, Stuart Henderson wrote: On 2013-09-16, Stefan Sperling s...@openbsd.org wrote: You can use hotplugd(8) to simulate an auto-mounter for known USB disks. hotplug-diskmount (in packages) saves a bit of time writing a script for this. Or there's amd(8) of course... No, don't use amd. Every time somebody uses amd, a kitten die (and we get that much farther away from being able to modernize NFS). Can you recommend an alternative automounter for network mounts? -- / Raimo Niskanen, Erlang/OTP, Ericsson AB
Re: Feedback about Desktop Environments
On 2013-09-17, David Coppa dco...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Sep 16, 2013 at 5:18 PM, Stuart Henderson s...@spacehopper.org wrote: On 2013-09-16, Stefan Sperling s...@openbsd.org wrote: You can use hotplugd(8) to simulate an auto-mounter for known USB disks. hotplug-diskmount (in packages) saves a bit of time writing a script for this. And there's also this[1], for even better integration. [1] http://www.bsdua.org/tray-app.html#eject Now in ports. :)
Re: Feedback about Desktop Environments
On 17 September 2013 20:37, Jes jjje...@gmail.com wrote: but if you want you can mount them in /etc/fstab. Simply read the documentation about permissions and syntax. It's very easy. For NFS the best way is mount them in /etc/fstab too. /Why/ is it the best way, though? Unlike automounters, static fstab entries don't address the problem of network filesystems being unreachable during boot. They will eventually time out and fail, requiring manual intervention. Fine if you have only a small group of systems... Failures may also rather substantially lengthen the boot process. Perhaps there are nasty side-effects of using automounters, but I've never encountered any. If there are I'd love to hear about them! John
Re: Feedback about Desktop Environments
Quoting James Griffin j...@kontrol.kode5.net: I need to install a Dektop Environment for my partner. I thought about KDE or xfce, i've tried neither on OpenBSD before. Which of the 3 main main DE's (gnome, KDE, XFCE) do you feel work best on OpenBSD. I would need things like removable media mounting from within the graphical environment, good sound support and multimedia applications. Any advice would be helpful from those using any of these Desktop's. I thought i'd ask on this list before installing loads of packages. Cheers, Jamie. My wife and I tried various desktops but so far have ended up back with KDE3. FWIW, it works very well for us. Vijay Sankar, M.Eng., P.Eng. ForeTell Technologies Limited vsan...@foretell.ca - This message was sent using ForeTell-POST 4.9
Re: Feedback about Desktop Environments
Definitely XFCE 4.10. Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Verizon Wireless 4G LTE network. From: James GriffinSent: Monday, September 16, 2013 6:20 AMTo: misc@openbsd.orgSubject: Feedback about Desktop Environments I need to install a Dektop Environment for my partner. I thought about KDE or xfce, i've tried neither on OpenBSD before. Which of the 3 main main DE's (gnome, KDE, XFCE) do you feel work best on OpenBSD. I would need things like removable media mounting from within the graphical environment, good sound support and multimedia applications. Any advice would be helpful from those using any of these Desktop's. I thought i'd ask on this list before installing loads of packages. Cheers, Jamie.
Re: Feedback about Desktop Environments
On Mon, 16 Sep 2013, James Griffin wrote: I need to install a Dektop Environment for my partner. I thought about KDE or xfce, i've tried neither on OpenBSD before. Which of the 3 main main DE's (gnome, KDE, XFCE) do you feel work best on OpenBSD. I would need things like removable media mounting from within the graphical environment, good sound support and multimedia applications. Any advice would be helpful from those using any of these Desktop's. I thought i'd ask on this list before installing loads of packages. My favorite by far is WindowMaker, but it isn't the graphical environment you seem to want. I use anything else so seldom (not counting a VT-100 compatible monitor that I use whenever possible) that I don't even have a runner up favorite. I do remember thinking that Ratpoison was pretty good, but I never used it enough to form a solid opinion about it. Eric
Re: Feedback about Desktop Environments
On Mon, Sep 16, 2013 at 11:18:58AM +0100, James Griffin wrote: I need to install a Dektop Environment for my partner. I thought about KDE or xfce, i've tried neither on OpenBSD before. Which of the 3 main main DE's (gnome, KDE, XFCE) do you feel work best on OpenBSD. I would recommend XFCE, which I use. It runs reasonably fast on most machines. Functionality-wise it is the simplest of the bunch but it it is also relatively stable. The KDE packages are outdated (KDE 3), efforts for making KDE4 packages available are on-going. If you like KDE3 and it works for you, that's great. But ports for the modern KDE4 are rather experimental at this stage. Gnome requires 3D hardware accelleration which is not available on every system. I once tried to run Gnome on an eeepc 901 with OpenBSD 5.3, and ended up using XFCE instead because Gnome was painfully slow on that small system and crashed often. If you want to run gnome I'd recommend installing OpenBSD-current first, which contains many Gnome-related fixes which are not available in 5.3 (such as much broader 3D hardware support). I would need things like removable media mounting from within the graphical environment, good sound support and multimedia applications. Most of desktop-based automounting was written with Linux-only support code that relies on technologies such as udev, which is not available on OpenBSD. You can use hotplugd(8) to simulate an auto-mounter for known USB disks. This requires some scripting. See the hotplugd(8) man page for examples. A reasonable default behaviour of such scripts is to try to mount an 'i' partition if it exists, which is usually an MSDOS filesystem. This will work with any desktop, as it simply causes a new filesystem to be mounted at a known directory. Beware of permission problems if you'd like non-root users to access files on auto-mounted disks. See the mount_msdos(8) man page (-u, -g, and -m options). You might want to browse the package README files for each desktop to learn more about the quirks required to run them (these links point to -current versions and might not apply 100% if you don't run -current): http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/ports/meta/gnome/pkg/README-main?rev=1.21;content-type=text%2Fplain http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/ports/meta/xfce/pkg/README-main?rev=1.2;content-type=text%2Fplain http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/ports/x11/kde/base3/pkg/DESCR-main?rev=1.1;content-type=text%2Fplain
Re: Feedback about Desktop Environments
Hi, Eric Johnson wrote: On Mon, 16 Sep 2013, James Griffin wrote: My favorite by far is WindowMaker, but it isn't the graphical environment you seem to want. Mine too, coupled with GNUstep. SOund should work (media player).. But we lack video and also mounting/unmonting is spotty. It should work if you are in the correct group. Riccardo I use anything else so seldom (not counting a VT-100 compatible monitor that I use whenever possible) that I don't even have a runner up favorite. I do remember thinking that Ratpoison was pretty good, but I never used it enough to form a solid opinion about it. Eric
Re: Feedback about Desktop Environments
hi, When I install a BSD for someone I usally use xfce, it's easy to understand, just need to add icons or menu-shortcuts for applications. for I i use mwm ;) so it cannot be used by someone that doesn't want to learn a little of command lines ;) From: thornton.rich...@gmail.com Sent: Mon Sep 16 12:41:04 CEST 2013 To: James Griffin j...@kontrol.kode5.net, misc@openbsd.org Subject: Re: Feedback about Desktop Environments Definitely XFCE 4.10. Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Verizon Wireless 4G LTE network. From: James GriffinSent: Monday, September 16, 2013 6:20 AMTo: misc@openbsd.orgSubject: Feedback about Desktop Environments I need to install a Dektop Environment for my partner. I thought about KDE or xfce, i've tried neither on OpenBSD before. Which of the 3 main main DE's (gnome, KDE, XFCE) do you feel work best on OpenBSD. I would need things like removable media mounting from within the graphical environment, good sound support and multimedia applications. Any advice would be helpful from those using any of these Desktop's. I thought i'd ask on this list before installing loads of packages. Cheers, Jamie. Cordialement Francois Pussault 3701 - 8 rue Marcel Pagnol 31100 Toulouse France +33 6 17 230 820 +33 5 34 365 269 fpussa...@contactoffice.fr
Re: Feedback about Desktop Environments
On 09/16/13 22:18, James Griffin wrote: I need to install a Dektop Environment for my partner. I thought about KDE or xfce, i've tried neither on OpenBSD before. Which of the 3 main main DE's (gnome, KDE, XFCE) do you feel work best on OpenBSD. I'm currently on XFCE and it works for me. Used both Gnome and KDE and found good things and bad things - from *my* point-of-view. I was happy with KDE 3.5.10 - but was missing the eye candy of newer things, so tried Gnome 3. Was really enjoying Gnome 3 but it got a bit sluggish on the hardware I was using at the time, so headed for something more light-weight. I've tried the more bare-bones ones like fvwm and cwm - bit too minimal for my liking, but worth trying cwm (in base so nothing to install.) So moved to XFCE and been happy there for a while. Alt-Tab works, performance is good, enough eye-candy for me. Parole (the multi-media app) times out on some of my DVDs, so I use mplayer for those. Picture viewer, GIMP for graphics, thunar file manager, Firefox Chromium, Thunderbird, nice console, Libreoffice, etc., etc. Does everything I need and looks pretty enough. It is really going to be down to personal preference and your requirements - no real short-cut to trying all three out for a few days and see which one works for you. I would need things like removable media mounting from within the graphical environment, good sound support and multimedia applications. Any advice would be helpful from those using any of these Desktop's. I thought i'd ask on this list before installing loads of packages. Cheers, Jamie.
Re: Feedback about Desktop Environments
My favourite desktop is KDE, but I have to admit it has some concepts that can scary a new user, like the management of desktop icons and folders. Therefore KDE 3 is better than 4 for this kind of users, but I would not suggest to use such an old version. I'm not a gnome fan, even if I've seen a lot of friends of mine succesfully using it. Therefore I would suggest gnome or xfce if the user is not a computer sxpert, or KDE 4 for a normal user. Luca On Mon, Sep 16, 2013 at 1:35 PM, Francois Pussault fpussa...@contactoffice.fr wrote: hi, When I install a BSD for someone I usally use xfce, it's easy to understand, just need to add icons or menu-shortcuts for applications. for I i use mwm ;) so it cannot be used by someone that doesn't want to learn a little of command lines ;) From: thornton.rich...@gmail.com Sent: Mon Sep 16 12:41:04 CEST 2013 To: James Griffin j...@kontrol.kode5.net, misc@openbsd.org Subject: Re: Feedback about Desktop Environments Definitely XFCE 4.10. Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Verizon Wireless 4G LTE network. From: James GriffinSent: Monday, September 16, 2013 6:20 AMTo: misc@openbsd.orgSubject: Feedback about Desktop Environments I need to install a Dektop Environment for my partner. I thought about KDE or xfce, i've tried neither on OpenBSD before. Which of the 3 main main DE's (gnome, KDE, XFCE) do you feel work best on OpenBSD. I would need things like removable media mounting from within the graphical environment, good sound support and multimedia applications. Any advice would be helpful from those using any of these Desktop's. I thought i'd ask on this list before installing loads of packages. Cheers, Jamie. Cordialement Francois Pussault 3701 - 8 rue Marcel Pagnol 31100 Toulouse France +33 6 17 230 820 +33 5 34 365 269 fpussa...@contactoffice.fr
Re: Feedback about Desktop Environments
* Luca Ferrari fluca1...@infinito.it [2013-09-16 14:05:12 +0200]: My favourite desktop is KDE, but I have to admit it has some concepts that can scary a new user, like the management of desktop icons and folders. Therefore KDE 3 is better than 4 for this kind of users, but I would not suggest to use such an old version. I'm not a gnome fan, even if I've seen a lot of friends of mine succesfully using it. Therefore I would suggest gnome or xfce if the user is not a computer sxpert, or KDE 4 for a normal user. Luca Personally, I'm an long time fvwm user. My partner wouldn't know where to start nor care to learn how to use that. Which is why I need to install a DE. Years ago I did use KDE3 and liked it but changed because I did not like KDE4. Does KDE3 work well on OpenBSD? Things like k3b and similar apps that come with it or, is XFCE more likely to have better support for graphical apps to play CD/DVD's, burning media, music, stuff like that. That is what my partner will want to use. I can do the configuration, where necessary, but don't want to be constantly hassled into showing how to use stuff. So it needs to be idiot proof lol ;-) Gnome 3 is not something I'll give too much consideration too. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. cheers, Jamie.
Re: Feedback about Desktop Environments
On Mon, Sep 16, 2013 at 10:39:58PM +1200, Richard Toohey wrote: Was really enjoying Gnome 3 but it got a bit sluggish on the hardware I was using at the time, so headed for something more light-weight. As a lot of you probably know, there's been a big jump in gfx in current, both for Intel and ATI cards, thanks to the awesome kms work by jsg, kettenis, and others (and many thanks to the sponsor as well!) As far as desktop goes, the experience went from sluggish to modern (as in wow, my gfx is fast). All the more incentive to get people running current and testing shitz :)
Re: Feedback about Desktop Environments
Hi all: I use during so long time KDE3. Nowdays I prefer xfce4. Gnome3 is a bit ugly for me. I prefer WMs that integrate the file browser and other tools. Because of this I don't use WindowMaker or FVWM or Enlightenment If I'd only had to code I'll use vim and some minimalistic wm. In my experience, KDE3, Gnome3 and XFCE4 are good choices for general use. Not related with the desktop choice but with the performance... In OpenBSD, all versions, I note performance decrease (not smooth mouse movement or web page scrolling) when the machine is doing any heavy reading/writing task or cpu compsuming (for example a rsync or zip/unzip a big file). Has anyone else experienced a similar behaviour? Jes On Mon, Sep 16, 2013 at 2:21 PM, James Griffin j...@kontrol.kode5.netwrote: * Luca Ferrari fluca1...@infinito.it [2013-09-16 14:05:12 +0200]: My favourite desktop is KDE, but I have to admit it has some concepts that can scary a new user, like the management of desktop icons and folders. Therefore KDE 3 is better than 4 for this kind of users, but I would not suggest to use such an old version. I'm not a gnome fan, even if I've seen a lot of friends of mine succesfully using it. Therefore I would suggest gnome or xfce if the user is not a computer sxpert, or KDE 4 for a normal user. Luca Personally, I'm an long time fvwm user. My partner wouldn't know where to start nor care to learn how to use that. Which is why I need to install a DE. Years ago I did use KDE3 and liked it but changed because I did not like KDE4. Does KDE3 work well on OpenBSD? Things like k3b and similar apps that come with it or, is XFCE more likely to have better support for graphical apps to play CD/DVD's, burning media, music, stuff like that. That is what my partner will want to use. I can do the configuration, where necessary, but don't want to be constantly hassled into showing how to use stuff. So it needs to be idiot proof lol ;-) Gnome 3 is not something I'll give too much consideration too. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. cheers, Jamie.
Re: Feedback about Desktop Environments
Hi, Hi all: I use during so long time KDE3. Nowdays I prefer xfce4. Gnome3 is a bit ugly for me. I prefer WMs that integrate the file browser and other tools. Because of this I don't use WindowMaker or FVWM or Enlightenment If I'd only had to code I'll use vim and some minimalistic wm. In my experience, KDE3, Gnome3 and XFCE4 are good choices for general use. Not related with the desktop choice but with the performance... In OpenBSD, all versions, I note performance decrease (not smooth mouse movement or web page scrolling) when the machine is doing any heavy reading/writing task or cpu compsuming (for example a rsync or zip/unzip a big file). Has anyone else experienced a similar behaviour? I use Windowmaker + GNUstep and I do experience this. More than in Windowmaker, in GNUstep itself, e.g. opening of the menus, or selecting a directory in GWorkspace. I have a slower machine so it is quite noticeable. I too experience too much a slow-down. Download something through FTP, update cvs.. and the itnerface becomes sluggish. But it might be the limited PC architecture. Riccardo
Re: Feedback about Desktop Environments
* Jes jjje...@gmail.com [2013-09-16 14:43:48 +0200]: Hi all: I use during so long time KDE3. Nowdays I prefer xfce4. Gnome3 is a bit ugly for me. I prefer WMs that integrate the file browser and other tools. Because of this I don't use WindowMaker or FVWM or Enlightenment If I'd only had to code I'll use vim and some minimalistic wm. Thanks for your input. I agree, having a file browser would make life simpler for average users. For me, though, the best file browser on UNIX systems is the shell (ksh). In my experience, KDE3, Gnome3 and XFCE4 are good choices for general use. For my partner, i'm inclined towards KDE or xfce. I think xfce is not so bloated (a term I have often seen/read to be associated with KDE). Not related with the desktop choice but with the performance... In OpenBSD, all versions, I note performance decrease (not smooth mouse movement or web page scrolling) when the machine is doing any heavy reading/writing task or cpu compsuming (for example a rsync or zip/unzip a big file). Has anyone else experienced a similar behaviour? Jes This is what you've observed with KDE, then? Cheers, Jamie.
Re: Feedback about Desktop Environments
On 2013-09-16, Stefan Sperling s...@openbsd.org wrote: You can use hotplugd(8) to simulate an auto-mounter for known USB disks. hotplug-diskmount (in packages) saves a bit of time writing a script for this. Or there's amd(8) of course...
Re: Feedback about Desktop Environments
On Mon, Sep 16, 2013 at 03:18:28PM +, Stuart Henderson wrote: On 2013-09-16, Stefan Sperling s...@openbsd.org wrote: You can use hotplugd(8) to simulate an auto-mounter for known USB disks. hotplug-diskmount (in packages) saves a bit of time writing a script for this. Or there's amd(8) of course... No, don't use amd. Every time somebody uses amd, a kitten die (and we get that much farther away from being able to modernize NFS).
Re: Feedback about Desktop Environments
On 16/09/13 15:25, James Griffin wrote: * Jes jjje...@gmail.com [2013-09-16 14:43:48 +0200]: Hi all: I use during so long time KDE3. Nowdays I prefer xfce4. Gnome3 is a bit ugly for me. I prefer WMs that integrate the file browser and other tools. Because of this I don't use WindowMaker or FVWM or Enlightenment If I'd only had to code I'll use vim and some minimalistic wm. Thanks for your input. I agree, having a file browser would make life simpler for average users. For me, though, the best file browser on UNIX systems is the shell (ksh). In my experience, KDE3, Gnome3 and XFCE4 are good choices for general use. For my partner, i'm inclined towards KDE or xfce. I think xfce is not so bloated (a term I have often seen/read to be associated with KDE). Not related with the desktop choice but with the performance... In OpenBSD, all versions, I note performance decrease (not smooth mouse movement or web page scrolling) when the machine is doing any heavy reading/writing task or cpu compsuming (for example a rsync or zip/unzip a big file). Has anyone else experienced a similar behaviour? Jes This is what you've observed with KDE, then? Cheers, Jamie. I've observed that behaviour in KDE, GNOME3 and XFCE4. Always when a lot of readings/writings are taking place in the disk, or for example, when the CPU load is high though in a only core. My machine is not very old; it's a thinkpad T410 with 4 cores and 8MB RAM (amd64). If only one core is on high CPU I experienced a not so smooth scrolling in firefox, or the mouse pointer jumps from one place to another one when moving. I didn't experience this in linux or freebsd... And it ocurrs in 4.9, 5.0... and 5.4 current. Back to the desktop environments... KDE includes some tools for administration (users, permisions, etc.). Konqueror file browser is a bit old and has some bug (for example moving files, cut/paste) but it works well in general. If you want to more integrated desktop with its file editor, file browser, clipboard tool, display tool (for screen resize), burn cds, etc. KDE is a good candidate. Gnome3 is more modern than KDE, if it fits your needs in terms of functionality and you like its appearance then probably it works in a better way than KDE. If you need something simply, but functional, with a small application tools for thinks like file browser, image viewer, simple edition, clipboard management, folders in desktop, panels for quick launch, etc. XFCE would be a good option. Maybe it's a question of install the three and test them. For coding or administration only, probably wms like ratpoison, xmonad, and so would be the right election, in terms or reduced CPU and memory consumption. BR
Re: Feedback about Desktop Environments
On Mon, Sep 16, 2013 at 06:49:37PM +0200, Jes wrote: On 16/09/13 15:25, James Griffin wrote: * Jes jjje...@gmail.com [2013-09-16 14:43:48 +0200]: Hi all: I use during so long time KDE3. Nowdays I prefer xfce4. Gnome3 is a bit ugly for me. I prefer WMs that integrate the file browser and other tools. Because of this I don't use WindowMaker or FVWM or Enlightenment If I'd only had to code I'll use vim and some minimalistic wm. Thanks for your input. I agree, having a file browser would make life simpler for average users. For me, though, the best file browser on UNIX systems is the shell (ksh). In my experience, KDE3, Gnome3 and XFCE4 are good choices for general use. For my partner, i'm inclined towards KDE or xfce. I think xfce is not so bloated (a term I have often seen/read to be associated with KDE). Not related with the desktop choice but with the performance... In OpenBSD, all versions, I note performance decrease (not smooth mouse movement or web page scrolling) when the machine is doing any heavy reading/writing task or cpu compsuming (for example a rsync or zip/unzip a big file). Has anyone else experienced a similar behaviour? Jes This is what you've observed with KDE, then? Cheers, Jamie. I've observed that behaviour in KDE, GNOME3 and XFCE4. Always when a lot of readings/writings are taking place in the disk, or for example, when the CPU load is high though in a only core. My machine is not very old; it's a thinkpad T410 with 4 cores and 8MB RAM (amd64). If only one core is on high CPU I experienced a not so smooth scrolling in firefox, or the mouse pointer jumps from one place to another one when moving. I didn't experience this in linux or freebsd... And it ocurrs in 4.9, 5.0... and 5.4 current. Yes, there's something deeply fucked up somewhere in our scheduler/disk-handling/whatever. The issue is known. It appears it is complicated to fix properly without replacing it by a lot of other problems, some of which pertain to keeping relatively old archs in working condition, or so I'm told.
