-- Johannes Zarl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote (on Monday, 04 November 2002, 10:19 PM +0100): > On Monday 04 November 2002 21:38, james leclair wrote: > > We currently run a variety if Debian products in the mail and file > > serving areas. Now we are investigating the possiblity of running Debian > > products on our desktops. Could someone please recommend what packages > > we should be running in the following areas for our desktop machines > > should we switch to Debian? > > First you should decide, which Desktop Environment (KDE, Gnome) you want > to use, or if you want to use a more light-weight windowmanager > (enlightenment, blackbox, fluxbox, and many more). > > Desktop Environments have the benefit, that their programs tend to work > together quite well and have the same look-and-feel, whereas "pure" > windowmanagers encourage you to pick out the best suited programs for your > needs. I highly agree here -- if you are looking at having a similar look and feel across your client desktops, you need to determine how you're going to deliver that. Desktop environments provide an easy way to do so, but they are consistently more resource intensive than running a window manager and installing libraries for the programs you run. So, determine your needs, and research from there.
> > Essentially what packages should we look to add to our Debian > > desktops. > > Example: > > :multimedia(music, movies, photo editing) > Assuming you don't want to manipulate music/movies, following packages may > be worth a look: > - music: > +mpg321 -- plays mp3-files, console-based > +ogg123 (vorbis-tools) -- plays ogg-vorbis-files, console-based > +cplay -- provides easy-to-use interface to other programs like > mpg321/ogg123, console based > +xmms -- a winamp lookalike > +noatun -- kde's mediaplayer > +rythmbox -- a media-player for gnome (well, i don't know it, but a quick > apt-cache search returned it) > Personally I prefer the console-based applications, but who cares;-) I've had problems running console-based music programs -- starting new programs and processes tends to interrupt music output, which I find annoying. If you're using a graphical environment, I highly recommend xmms -- it's fairly lightweight, there are a number of different panel applets that can control it (as well as CLI commands!), and can play just about anything. > - movies: > +xine -- plays movies, works well for me;-) > +mplay -- not yet a debian-package, but look's promising.. > +others: Anyone got alternatives/better ones? Umm, that would be _mplayer_, and you can get deb packages for it using either of the following apt sources: deb http://mplayer.nmeos.net stable/ deb http://marillat.free.fr/ stable main > - photo editing: > +gimp -- Tried it, loved it. Don't care about others. I agree here -- the GIMP is incredible, and can serve anything from small scale needs to advanced image manipulation. However, if you just need to view images, gqview is quite nice. If you're doing batch manipulations (rotating or scaling all images in a directory), ImageMagick is /very/ nice. > > :mail clients > +kmail -- the client of kde. Using kde i use kmail, too. > +mutt -- some people i know swear on it; console based > +evolution -- non-free client from ximian. Offers calender, etc.(a bit > like outlook on windows) > +gnome ought to have its own client, too Evolution /is/ the GNOME mail client. Mozilla also has one (optional under debian) which is easy to migrate to if you've been using Netscape's. I'm one of those who swear's on mutt :-) . > > :game playing What kind of games do you have in mind? Didn't you say this was for work? :-) If you just want some solitaire, pysol has /tons/ of different options... outside of that, I can't help you (don't play too many games on my machine). -- Matthew Weier O'Phinney [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]