On Wed, Sep 18, 2013 at 07:29:24AM +0200, Michael wrote:
> >
> >Besides, we aren't on 300 baud serial lines!
> >
> 
> As backup line I have 56k dial-up modem ;)
> We still trolling each other about IDE ?) Or Win 8.1 UI is the best
> UI?

Linux is my IDE. ;-)


T

-- 
VI = Visual Irritation

On Wed, 18 Sep 2013 06:15:00 -0700
"H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh@quickfur.ath.cx> wrote:

> On Wed, Sep 18, 2013 at 07:29:24AM +0200, Michael wrote:
> > >
> > >Besides, we aren't on 300 baud serial lines!
> > >
> > 
> > As backup line I have 56k dial-up modem ;)
> > We still trolling each other about IDE ?) Or Win 8.1 UI is the best
> > UI?
> 
> Linux is my IDE. ;-)
> 

That line's been rolling around in my head lately, and although I don't usually dev on Linux, it's occurred to me - my file manager is my IDE:

I launch my editor from it. I launch my CLI terminal from it. I manage the project's file/structure with it (naturally). And the reason I've never had any interest in IDE/VCS integration is because with Tortoise* it's already integrated into my filemanager, where VCS integration belongs, IMO.

Linux may yet become my IDE though. I've been wanting to get off Windows for general everyday stuff (since Vista, each new version has needed more and more tweaking to become tolerable). To that end, the other day I was trying out the latest versions of a ton of DE's via VM'ed Live discs. I was getting really frustrated for awhile, but then I hit what seems to look really promising: Mint 15 with Xfce 4.10, Dolphin 4.10 and kdesdk-dolphin-plugins[1]. And maybe replace xfce's WM with kwin if I can ever get that to work (Kwin seems to work fine under the KDE4-based distros).

Dolphin seems to have fixed it's Vista-like goofiness with the
folder view's horizontal scrolling, and it really is pretty good for the
most part. The terminal panel is a brilliant idea (never noticed
before - maybe it's new since about 4.5ish?). I think there may
still be a few things needing improvement, but it appears fairly
usable so far.

As of the latest version, Xfce seems to be about the only DE that can handle my side-mounted taskbar worth a darn. Plus it's nice and lean/fast. A bit unpolished, same as most others, but like those others still usable.

Mint seems to be the best Debian for a desktop (unless you want a blatant OSX clone with slightly more straight-jacketing, in which case Ubuntu's Unity seems surprisingly decent. Or GNOME 3 if you like to drop acid. I really would recommend Unity for OSX fans that want to try Linux - maybe with Docky if it works as advertised.) Although, if I ever end up moving from Debian to Arch, Manjaro really looks worth watching.

[1] kdesdk-dolphin-plugins: http://sebastian-doerner.de/2011/09/a-git-plugin-for-dolphin/

It's missing a few important features from TortoiseGit, but it's leaner and a fundamentally better design. TortoiseGit (and to a much larger extent, TortoiseHg) tends to forget it's supposed to be a Tortoise* tool.

On Wednesday, 18 September 2013 at 18:20:42 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>
> Dolphin seems to have fixed it's Vista-like goofiness with the
> folder view's horizontal scrolling, and it really is pretty good for the most part.

Dolphin is pretty nice, though there are cases where Konqueror still runs circles around it. For example, if you want a horizontal split or more than one split.  Also, I don't think Dolphin has the file size view plugin, which is nice for finding hidden monsters in your ~.

> The terminal panel is a brilliant idea (never noticed
> before - maybe it's new since about 4.5ish?).

Hehe, this has been around since...at least KDE 3.4 (Before Dolphin was written). The shortcut is F4. :)

> As of the latest version, Xfce seems to be about the only DE that can
> handle my side-mounted taskbar worth a darn.
>
Really?  I figured Plasma would probably be able to do a decent job.  :/  I guess they still haven't gotten it into shape.  Have you tried the 4.11 versions?

> Mint seems to be the best Debian for a desktop

I've been hearing good things about aptosid and Mepis lately, too.

On Thu, 19 Sep 2013 15:04:44 +0200
"Wyatt" <wyatt.epp@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wednesday, 18 September 2013 at 18:20:42 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> >
> > Dolphin seems to have fixed it's Vista-like goofiness with the folder view's horizontal scrolling, and it really is pretty good for the most part.
> 
> Dolphin is pretty nice, though there are cases where Konqueror still runs circles around it. For example, if you want a horizontal split or more than one split

I do vastly prefer Konquerer's method of drag-selecting files in the Details view (it's the same method as XP - although I did find a registry hack to make Win7 *usually* do the same). I can at least live with Dolphin's method, though.

> Also, I don't think Dolphin has the file size view plugin, which is nice for finding hidden monsters in your ~.

Ouch, I didn't notice that was missing. I would think that shouldn't be too hard to add, though.

Konquerer tends to feel not quite as cleanly-designed as Dolphin, but I definitely prefer Konquerer to all of the Nautilus-based ones. (The Nautilus-based ones are usable, but at that point I'd just as soon use the CLI for everything.)

> 
> > The terminal panel is a brilliant idea (never noticed
> > before - maybe it's new since about 4.5ish?).
> 
> Hehe, this has been around since...at least KDE 3.4 (Before Dolphin was written). The shortcut is F4. :)
> 

Heh, learn something new every day :)

> > As of the latest version, Xfce seems to be about the only DE
> > that can
> > handle my side-mounted taskbar worth a darn.
> >
> Really?  I figured Plasma would probably be able to do a decent job.  :/  I guess they still haven't gotten it into shape.  Have you tried the 4.11 versions?
> 

I tried Plasma 4.10 (the one that comes with Mint 15 KDE). Also tried whatever it is that comes with the latest OpenSUSE (probably the same). The task buttons work mostly fine, although they insist on expanding/shrinking depending on how many windows are open. Which means all but the first task buttons keep moving around. It's clearly a deliberate design, but I don't like it.

However, the bigger problem is when you enlarge the side-mounted bar enough that you can read the task labels, then some of the other widgets on the panel grow enormous and take up a lot more vertical real estate than they should, such as the clock (which I don't want to get rid of or I'd never know what time it is ;) ).

And then the launcher icons (which seem to disappear after you use
them? What? A broken attempt to copy Win7's OSX-like pinning?) refuse to
sit side-by-side when the panel's side-mounted. So *each one*
takes up an entire row. And then they think "wow, I've got all this
horizontal space", so they grow bigger and take up even more vertical
real-estate. Xfce does the same by default, but as of 4.10 you can fix
it (awkwardly) by going into the panel's settings and (unintuitively)
increasing the number of *cough* "rows".

There's also a couple other things that bug me regardless of where it's mounted:

- Plasma uses a *completely* different set of themes than kwin. AFAICT,
  you can't even make them use the same theme, you just have to find
  two that don't clash too badly. I was surprised that hasn't been
  fixed by now, but I guess it wasn't seen as an issue?

- Most of the plasma themes make the task button borders invisible
  until you hover. I'm sure that's an attempt to increase visual
  simplicity, but it just looks sloppy to me (especially when combined
  with how they auto-resize depending how many windows are open). And
  it increases the amount of visual-noise and "stuff" that happens just
  by moving the mouse pointer around (It's one of the reasons I
  dislike Win7's default configuration - just simply move the mouse and
  all sorts of shit happens and animates all around. It's all visual
  and cognitive clutter.)

I know side-mounted taskbars are kind of uncommon, and I never used to use them (even though Windows has had very solid support for it as far back as Win95 - and is still, unfortunately, the only DE IMO that really gets the interface for adjusting the task panel right). But in this age when you can't even get a monitor that isn't short-screen, I think side-mounted taskbars are essential.

As soon as I got my laptop (the tallest screen I could find: 16:9...:/) I compensated for the minuscule vertical space and excessive horizontal space by moving the taskbar from the bottom to the left. Later, when I started plugging the machine into my 4:3 external, I found that I liked it side-mounted so much that I ended up keeping it that way even on 4:3. Makes anything heavy on lines-of-text (web browser, word processor, code editor, file manager) sooo much nicer.


> > Mint seems to be the best Debian for a desktop
> 
> I've been hearing good things about aptosid and Mepis lately, too.

Never heard of them. I'll take a look.

On Thu, 19 Sep 2013 18:08:49 -0400
Nick Sabalausky <SeeWebsiteToContactMe@semitwist.com> wrote:

> On Thu, 19 Sep 2013 15:04:44 +0200
> "Wyatt" <wyatt.epp@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > Also, I don't think Dolphin has the file size view plugin, which is nice for finding hidden monsters in your ~.
> 
> Ouch, I didn't notice that was missing. I would think that shouldn't be too hard to add, though.
> 

Nevermind, I thought you meant a column in the details view that shows file size (which of course is there in the details view by default).

On Fri, Sep 20, 2013 at 04:42:11PM +0200, Adam D. Ruppe wrote:
> On Friday, 20 September 2013 at 14:34:26 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:
> >Stop right there. When the graphics driver crashes, no window can be displayed...
> 
> It restarts the driver or loads a simple, generic driver to work temporarily if that's impossible.

When the mouse is also not working, it's a very very painful experience to repair Windows... (yes, it happened to me before, which is why I have a deep distrust of GUI-reliant OSes -- and that includes Linux distros that require GUI apps to configure).


> >Windows is also unusable without a graphics mode to begin with.
> 
> Not necessarily true, the newer professional/server versions can work without a gui or headless, and any version can run with a minimal graphics mode (such as with a generic VESA driver - safe mode)

GUIs, especially the kind that comes with Windows, are unusable when there's a problem with the mouse, for example. When things go wrong, I really *really* prefer a completely minimal UI, that is, text mode with no rodent dependence. What I find troublesome with Windows is that so many system-level operations require GUI utilities to access. So when the GUI doesn't work for any reason (bad graphics card/driver, mouse problems, etc.), you're basically screwed.

Or at least, that was the state of things when I left the Windows world. Things may have changed since. :-)


> or even command line off a recovery disk.

Well, the same can be said of Linux too. :)


T

-- 
It won't be covered in the book. The source code has to be useful for something, after all. -- Larry Wall