: Jordan Share : I guess that, fundamentally, my problem is that I just don't know of : any compelling GUI linux apps. :)
I find xterm and wish (the windowing shell) to be excellent linux GUI apps. Most of my windows are one of the two of those, or vncviewer windows, with a mozilla window thrown in. In theory, much of what I do with xterm, wish, and vnc could be done with screen and J.Random.Scripting.Language, and at least some of what I do with mozilla could be done with lynx or links. Or possibly with character-mode emacs. But I find X packs more info onto the screen more flexibly than simpler alternatives. Then too, I've gotten addicted to gestural interactions (ie, point and operate as opposed to fiddle with positioning keys or commands and operate), and while the linux terminals have minimal mark-and-paste capabilities via gpm, most character-cell-oriented apps are mouse-blind. I am especially fond of wish as a method of integrating the unix pipe-oriented world with X, by creating X-oriented pipe fittings, and allowing selections and text widget content to be used as pipe sources and sinks. A fairly natural extension of the way one would work on character-cell-oriented terminals, which can therefore (looking at it the other way 'round) serve as a gracefull degredation of my normal gestural way of working. Icons, on the other hand, are a particularly atavistic peculiarity, what with pictograms having been displaced long ago by phonetic alphabets and arabic numbering (well OK, China etc, but still), it's ironic they are so beloved nowdays. Go figure. And I haven't really found Windows GUI apps to be all that compelling, myself. But then, I just don't do much where they are all that useful. I mostly use a token windows system to run usb devices that linux doesn't support well (yet) (such as vidcam and cameras). And if I wanted to pour enough time and trouble into tracking down the bleeding edge usb device support, I could probably do entirely without any Windows machine at all. Even the Windows machine I do have has OpenOffice instead of Microsofty alternatives. Matter of cost-effectiveness, given how seldom I use 'em, and how even-more-seldom-than-that I run into MSOffice features that can't be did on my OpenOffice installation (linux or Windoze). Come to think of it, even for the vidcam, I use standard mbone tools such as vic and rat, which are normally much easier to distribute through firewalls and to remote sites, and scale much better with multiple participants. So basically, Windows just serves me as an overcomplicated device driver loader, mostly because device manufacturers don't bother with linux drivers, and don't provide reliable specs. But that's just me. Wayne Throop [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ VNC-List mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.realvnc.com/mailman/listinfo/vnc-list
