__/ [Larry Qualig] on Sunday 12 February 2006 03:08 \__
> I really wanted to run windowmaker. It is so good looking and I had my
> desktop setup so that it was visually stunning. But beauty is only
> skin-deep and I think that I'm going to have to return back to KDE.
KDE is highly functional. You are many 'easter eggs' to explore and, even
after ~5 years with KDE, I contune to discover something new every now and
then.
Random example: Press Alt+<F2>. Now put in the path of some given file. See
how the icon shows a red cross when the path is invalid. When the path to
the file is valid, the corresponding icon (resolved in accordance with file
associations) gets shows. Also in KDE: alias open='kfmclient exec'. 'open'
now opens a file from the command-line using its default interpreter. Just
one example among many, that one....
> There were the occasional "knotify" crashes that only happen with
> windowmaker. Not very often but maybe once an hour. Everything always
> ran fine so it if was for the dialog that popped up I never would have
> known this was happening. But it *only* happens with windowmaker.
I never liked windowmaker. Enlightment was rather nice (visually) in the
older days, but nothing beats KDE in my humble opinion, from a purely
functional perspective.
> There are probably two things that are annoying with windowmaker. One
> is that I can only launch a single instance of an app from the
> "dockapp." If I want to run two konquerors it won't let me. (There's a
> workaround for this but it sucks.) I could always launch another
> konqueror from the konsole but why can't I simply click on the icon.
>
> But the *biggest* issue is that windowmaker is not very dual-monitor
> aware. Seems that every dialog wants to pop-up in the middle of my
> screen. The middle being where the left-monitor meets the right-monitor
> and there's a gap between the two. Same with menus... if I'm running an
> app that's near the center of the screen quite often the menu would
> appear with 1/2 on one monitor and the other 1/2 on the other monitor.
You could probably specify fixed coordinates. There are commands for doing
just that, albeit they are inferior to so-called "Smart" windows placements.
You at least have the control, shall you be interested in changing the
behaviour to suit your needs.
> So I think that I'm going to go back to KDE, at least for now. KDE is
> very good with handling dual monitors and I purposely tried to get it
> to mess up with menus or whatever. It didn't. So the next mission is to
> setup my KDE desktop so that it looks like what I had in windowmaker.
I agree with you on that one. KDE handles dual-head setups admirably well.
Back when I was using dual-head on Windows 98, placements were rather poor
at times, but maybe it just wasn't mature enough. Initial setup in Windows,
however, was more trivial than that which Sax2 or Xinerama can ever boast.
> Otherwise today was get my crap together day. I printed out all of my
> krb5.conf, smb.com, fstab, etc. files and placed them all in to a
> 3-ring binder along with all sorts of other things I printed up about
> Linux. ...
It is a bit old-fashioned, don't you think? Would it not have been easier to
put it all in a file(s) (even on a remote file/Webspace)? It can later be
copied and pasted if/when required rather than require pages to be flipped
over, an eye to interpret slightly illegible characters, and hands to tap on
the keyboard. It is an opinion, not a criticism by all means.
> ... I really like how the system is setup and running right now and
> should the worse happen... I don't want to start from scratch again. I
> put copies of the files out on the network but the printout is nice for
> those occasions where I'm having authentication problems and can't
> actually access the network.
Good move, Larry. Rest assured that nothing will be capable of intervening
with your settings until 'it' has your root password. I set up this current
machine back in 2003 (network, dual head, automated backups, etc.). I have
not had to mess about with anything since. I never bother either. The same
applies to other machines which I set up, but their test of durability
through time does not involve /years/.
> Part of getting my crap together was to tweak my .profle and
> /etc/profile scripts. (Saved these files too.) This SuSE install is
> just about exactly the way I want it. Hmmmm... now if I could just get
> my KDE desktop to look like windowmaker.... ( I already visited at
> kde-look.org )
Keep all your settings file in a 'locket'. They are very re-usable. You can
replicate your favourite settings and propagate them onto other machines
that you use.
Best wishes,
Roy
--
Roy S. Schestowitz | UNIX: Because a PC is a terrible thing to waste
http://Schestowitz.com | SuSE Linux | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
6:15am up 26 days 1:31, 30 users, load average: 0.46, 0.76, 0.91
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