Ian Lepore <free...@damnhippie.dyndns.org> wrote: > On Sat, 2012-03-03 at 09:09 -0800, per...@pluto.rain.com wrote: > > H <h...@hm.net.br> wrote: > > > ... Forever installing FreeBSD Desktop, either KDE or Gnome, > > > was a nightmare process, or better, to make it appear on screen > > > was a nightmare. > > > > I have never understood the point of KDE or Gnome, other than > > (perhaps) as eye candy for the uninitiated. If I wanted a > > Windows desktop, I would install Windows. If I wanted a Mac > > desktop, I would use a Mac. > > I've been getting paid to develop software since 1975 --
Same here (approximately). > Maybe you long for a return to punch cards and fanfold greenbar > paper, but I'm not going back there. I think we've both been around long enough to know that even an ADM-3 or a 3270 is a step up from "punch cards and fanfold greenbar paper". The second step up is screen(1), and AFAIK no one is advocating a "return" even to that level of functionality, much less to anything more primitive. The next improvement is huge, and costly: high-resolution display hardware, and the software (X11, xterm, basic window manager) to handle it. That provides the capability to use multiple windows -- to see several ptys at the same time instead of being able to see only one and having to remember what's on the rest. I think most of us would agree that, costly as this upgrade is, it is justified for most desktop systems. Once we have the high-resolution display capability, it becomes possible to add graphics-based productivity apps like a PDF viewer, web browser, word processor, calendar, drawing programs, etc. I _know_ it is possible to run all that with nothing more than X11 and the same basic window manager, because I do it on a daily basis. The question remains: what more does KDE or Gnome bloatware provide, other than eye candy? > It's exactly because I don't want a Windows or Mac desktop that > I use gnome. Last I saw, Gnome was a way to make an otherwise perfectly good X-windows desktop look like MacOS X. Again, what's the point? What does Gnome give you, that twm or fvwm2 would not? _______________________________________________ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-stable-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"