The Static Page

Trying for a Linux Desktop

It really was inspiring. I had started making our Linux server consoles "simpler". This basically meant ditching GNOME and Sawmill (Enlightenment had long been given the flick) in favour of WindowMaker. It also meant some super cool colour schemes.

As you might surmise, I like WindowMaker. An alternative GUI doesn't have to look like Microsoft Windows, or a Macintosh. I hadn't really believed arguments that the Microsoft monopoly has stultified GUI technology. Well, whatever GNOME is trying to be, it's too much like Windows for my liking. WindowMaker harks back to a distinctively non-Microsoft way of managing your windows and I like that.

Back to my re-installed PC. Right now, I'm using Netscape 4.72 under Linux. On Windows, I had basically abandoned Netscape years ago. But I haven't gotten around to downloading Opera for Linux yet (even though it's a "Technology Preview") and Opera/Win32 is a bit flakey under WINE. I can survive with Netscape, though.

Ah, WINE. There are some things I, unfortunately, cannot do without. My Notes client is one of them. Fortunately, it seems to run fairly painlessly in the latest Wine snapshot, but it did work better after I (re-)installed it and upgraded it from Windows NT, not Wine. My next big task in that arena is Lotus SmartSuite. I'm not confident it will install okay under Wine. I suspect it should run okay.

I always knew switching to a Linux desktop would be ... painful. In some ways it seems like I have to take steps backwards, although in reality they're more steps sideways. Have any of you tried to go to a Linux desktop? Did you stay? If not, what made you revert back to Windows? Was it something you couldn't run in Linux? Or was it something in Linux (like GNOME!) that really got your goat?

Wade Bowmer, aka Static

Comments? Email me at static dash page at yceran dot org.