Re: [tlug] Speaking of computer usage ....

[Attila Kinali <attila@example.com>]

Moin,

On Thu, 28 Feb 2008 20:26:32 -0800
"SL Baur" <steve@example.com> wrote:

> Just about *everyone* is missing the point why Linux rocks.  Free as
> in beer?  Who cares?  I'd rather buy a CD/DVD of the distro or pay to
> have it as a preinstall.  Free as in liberty?

Well.. how about "let me tell what the computer does instead of the
computer telling me what i should do"?

yes, i might have come to linux because it was cool at the time,
but the reason why i stuck with it was purely because i can tell
it exactly what i want and adapt it to my needs instead of adapting
myself to the computer.


> > Well, in my experience novices tend to have a grand total of one
> > program open at once, and if you try to leave a second one open
> > they will close it, sometimes even when you have carefully minimized
> > it. Many developers are this way as well -- wanting to squeeze an
> > extra 50msec out of that recompile. Oh, and that one program is
> > almost for sure 99% most likely you-can-bet maximized.
> > That's probably the case with novices. I'm surprised that
> > developers would do something similar.

I'm not surprised. A damn lot of professionals who do comptuer
related stuff for a living live with the attitude that the computer
is a tool with severe limitations and that one has to adapt to it.
Not to mention that even professionals often do not know the 
capabilities of their computers/OS and stick with the working style
they have learned years ago from their friends friend who showed them
win 3.11 for the first time.
 
> I'm a developer and I currently have 28 open windows on my
> desktop in 8 virtual desktops. 10 of them are Eterms, some of
> which have ssh sessions to other machines on the local net. I have
> two Firefox windows (for viewing certain internal corporate webpages)
> one instance local and one running on another machine. One copy of
> Opera with 3 windows of its own (that I'm posting from now), one
> copy of FSF Emacs running on another machine in the network,
> 8 XEmacs windows, 5 of which are unique instances, 1 Konsole, 1
> plain vanilla xterm, and 1 copy of Evolution (for reading corporate
> email). If I left something out, well my desktop is kind of um, cluttered.

Hmm.. (here at work)
Desktops: 10
Eterms: 30
Firefox: 12
Sylpheed: 2
(X)Emacs: 0 (common! i'm a vi guy! ;-)
misc: 5

I think record i ever counted was 70 windows open, of which 50 were Eterms
on my desktop at home.


> I logged in 45 days ago, the system has an uptime of 83 days (I
> don't have a UPS in my cube), I have only 1GB of memory and I'm
> slightly over 1GB into swap.

I beat that: 512MB RAM 1.8GB swap (300MB used). Uptime is just
13 days because i had to reboot for some hardware tests.
(this also explains the low number of open windows)

> Everything runs with acceptable
> performance except the Firefox running over the network on a
> Solaris workstation. Oh and this all with the older, piggier and slower
> KDE 3 *and* this is an "old" HP workstation that isn't likely to be
> "Vista Capable".

I couldn't run KDE or far less gnome on this machine. I'd be constantly
waiting for it to do something usefull. I used to use KDE 1 back
when i first got linux, but dropped it after 3 months because it
was too slow (on my newly bought PC). And for a few years now,
i keep my computer even gnome-clean (ie not even libraries installed).

Eterm with semetransparend background is the only eye-candy i have,
and together with firefox it's the only non-lean application i regularly
run.

> Do you see how someone like me just isn't interested in Vista or
> indeed any version of Microsoft Windows? I've been able to work
> like this on Linux since the stable 2.0 kernel was released 12 years
> ago and then I had a bit less core memory. I've been working with lots
> of windows open on Unix for over 20 years (scaling up the number of
> windows as core memory has increased).

I had to work on windows 4 years back, when i was in Japan.
Heck! I was astonished how the "mother of all GUIs" sucked so
much at handling multiple windows. While one window worked ok,
having a second one open that didn't overlap was kind of iffy.
Having more than 3 windows, all higly overlapping was a total
pain. I'm astonished that people can work like this. 
And it explains why so many windows applications have their
own window managment (that totaly sucks too, but at least
somehow works for this specific app).

Oh yes, i haven't been working with unix for the last 20years. :-)


-- 
Praised are the Fountains of Shelieth, the silver harp of the waters,
But blest in my name forever this stream that stanched my thirst!
                         -- Deed of Morred