On Tue, 31 Dec 2002, Matthew Carpenter wrote: > begin Net Llama! <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > (Tue, 31 Dec 2002 11:31:53 -0500 (EST)) > > > On Tue, 31 Dec 2002, Matthew Carpenter wrote: > <SNIP> > > > No offense, but that sounds more like you don't understand why people > > > would use something other than RedHat... :) > > > > How so? > > Just that when comparing the different distros I use, it's not the WM > which makes much difference (although when comparing the different desktop > distros, some do one particular WM/DE better than others), but the amount > of precompiled software which comes along with it is generally a good > indicator of what makes a good desktop. I know that you have used RH for > a long time and have made it your primary distro, and it just sounded like > you hadn't ventured far to see what other options were there. I will say > this much, the KDE team has covered RH's Printer Admin difficulties with > their built-in Printer config tools.
That's because i don't care about 90% of the precompiled packages that come with a distro. I build my own version of most things, and rarely use any of the extras that come preinstalled. What I want is a distro that is easy to install, and easy to maintain, and Redhat fits the bill for me. The KDE vs. Gnome wars are irrelevant to me, because i dont' use either. That alone negates the desktop. I used Caldera religiously up through their 2.4 release, and then came the great schism, and i moved to redhat. I tried out Debian about 3 years ago, and it was a complete nightmare to install and manage from my perspective. Yea, i know there are a few Debian based distros with GUI installers out there, but i never washed the bad taste out of my mouth, and i still dislike the entire "GNU/Linux" zealotry that comes with Debian. I installed SuSE about a year ago, and while the install was ok, managing it was also a nightmware with one of the most non-traditional filesystem layouts i'd ever seen (and this was compared to Redhat, Caldera & Debian). I've never attempted Slackware, but i don't see a reason to when i'm satisfied with what i've got. Quite honestly, i've never understood why people spend weeks or months flying through numerous distros. Sure, some folks do it for hardware support, but i build all of my own kernels, so that's a moot point with me. Others do it looking for bleeding edge packages, but once again, i build everything i use from source, so this is also a moot point for me. In short, i've tried the other options, and wasn't impressed. Redhat meets my needs, especially when i'm building all of the packages I need anyway. > > MPlayer is one of my favorite apps. If you build it from source, you > > can get some amazing performance improvements, not to mention a very > > high degree of customization. > > hmm,.. I'll have to try that. Are these improvements in an SxS? I've > been thinking of building XINE for SuSE, since I didn't see it listed in > the installer. I wrote both the MPlayer & Xine SxS. MPlayer is _very_ heavily dependent on the hardware in which it runs. This is why using precompiled packages is a waste, since you end up with something that is most likely not even remotely optimized for your box. For the most part, most of the hardware dependent options are autodetcted when you run './configure' for MPlayer, so you don't need a SxS for that, just build it and you get them for free. There are some optional options, which you can usually pick up on simply by running "./configure --help". As for Xine, my SxS covers how to build it for encrypted DVD support, with navigatable menu support as well. MPlayer also can play DVDs, but IMO, Xine is much more mature in that regard. > > Glad that you like KDE. I finalized that divorce back when 2.0 came > > out, and our differences are unreconcilable. I've been happily wed to > > XFCE ever since. XFCE4 is really really nice, and is what KDE2/3 should > > have been. Beauty without the beast. > > XFCE is in SuSE's install and I checked it just to see what you keep > talking about here. I'll have to see what it's like. I know that even > though I love some of KDE's perks, it does like to eat memory up for > seemingly inoccuous things. Alt-F2 is just too easy a thing to give up, > though! And I love Klipper's pop-up web and email options... The latest stable version of XFCE is 3.8.18. Unless you haev that or possibly 3.8.16, you're not getting a clear picture of what's available. Also, the development version of XFCE, 4.x, is available from CVS, and is prolly more stable than KDE's latest. I'm not sure what "Alt-F2" does, so i can't comment on whether XFCE can do it too. XFCE is very highly configurable, and also support themes. Obviously, you're not going to get your beloved Klipper in XFCE, so if its that important to you, then you'll not enjoy your XFCE experience much. I can post screenshots of both XFCE-3.8.18 & XFCE-4.x (from yesterday's cvs checkout) if anyone is interested. -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Lonni J Friedman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Linux Step-by-step & TyGeMo http://netllama.ipfox.com _______________________________________________ Linux-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe/Suspend/Etc -> http://www.linux-sxs.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
