2.10. Linux graphical interfaces.
Section quotes:
- "A program, no matter how complex, should act as a single unit. The
program should be directed by the logic within rather than by outward
appearances."
-- The Tao Of Programming by Geoffrey James.
- "If you see a Lion coming showing his teeth, do not ever think that he is smiling."
-- from an Arabic wise poem
- "A lost ounce of gold may be found, a lost moment of time never."
-- found on 'fortune-mod'
Section contents:
2.10.1. Intoduction.
GNU/Linux systems give you the best flexibility and freedom, you may replace
each part in it including the graphical interface, there are two types:
Window Manager, a small programs used to manage windows, maximize, minimize,
and move between them using your mouse or keyboard, the other type is
Desktop Environment, which offer a window manager and other applications
like a file manager, applications to open what ever you think of,
from office suit to video players.
KDE,GNOME and XFCE (a CDE like light weight GTK Desktop Environment)
are examples of Desktop environments, we have talked about some of them ,
and by the way GNOME could use many Window Managers, first versions
of GNOME used sawfish, then they move to use MetaCity
and you me specify other window managers. In tthe following subsections we will
talk about some window managers.
2.10.2. Forgotten programs.
There are many infamous no one remember, one of those
Tab Window Manager (twm) it comes with X11, this Oscar winning window manager
for being the ugliest ever known graphical application, right click to get
a menu, one of its items is 'xterm' which open a command line,
it can display a permanent menu of windows, buttons are just
a colorful rectangles. A more enhanced window manager is called 'fvwm'
it was made to be a bit more beautiful, later versions 'fvwm2' and 'fvwm95',
tha last one has Windows 95 like appearance, the so called 3D buttons
(that what Microsoft calls its Windows 95 compared with Windows 3.1)
but they are just gray boxes with some white and dark edjes.
Another Window manager called 'flux box', its programmers has made
their mind not to use any picture or icon, similar window manager
were made like blackbox and hackedbox, with same look and feel,
the last one is the fastest ever known light weight window manager
(but with a few features).
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2.10.3 Icewm
It's a very fast nice looking, one of my favorite window managers,
it takes not time to start
(I test it on a very slow 60 MHz CPU and it need no time to load and I took the screenshot with that CPU).
It very themable like the XP theme (see the screenshot),
it offer no icons on the desktop, you should use other program to offer that,
like Desktop File Manager(dfm) , idesk
or even Nautilus (the GNOME file manager). The next screenshot is using dfm and XP theme.
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2.10.4. WindowMaker and AfterStep.
Those three apprear to be from Mars, they look and feel like 'NeXT Step'
a commercial window manager famous on old Unix.
It is based on colorful rectangle with pictures on them (like icons)
for executing programs and for each window (to replace task bar),
there are some rectangles not to run application but they are
the application it self (as applets)
like the clock and mixer.
Window-Maker the fastest Window manager, I have ever seen (how did they do it! I test it with 16MB of RAM)
it's the first one to support color gradients, it's nice beautiful, most I like
the paper pin it could be used to sort your desktop, you may use auto collapse
to hide icons attacked to the pin.
The main menu is on the right click, you may animate minimizing windows.
It's part of GNU Step project.
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After Step first free 'NeXT Step' replacements.
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2.10.5. Enlightenment.
It do what others dreem to do! and it do it very fast.
Tips could appear in a cloud and pointers could be be as light,
and the background ripple as a river, It look more like 'NeXT Step'
than Windows,I have used E.16 and it was very fast,
new versions contain a display manager and a file manager,
and it seems that they are making it a desktop environment.
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2.10.6. Other.
Those are some under development programs, if you are expert enough
to install them they will be funny.
3DDesktop is a workspace changer for 'sawfish', 'metacity' (in GNOME),
kwin (KDE's window manager) and WindowMaker,
as you know there are more than one (maybe 4) virtual desktops
(also called workspaces)
it put them in a 3D space, when you switch between them
the screen goes back and the camera moves the the 3D space to the wanted desktop.
Run the '3ddesktop' script or you may map a hot key to run it,
it's documents suggest 'CTRL+ALT+s', in GNOME use 'gconf-editor' and then
'apps -> metacity -> global_keybindings -> run_command_1 '
and type '3ddesktop' on that key.
Now jut press the host key and use the mouse or the arrows then ENTER.
You may need to add '3ddesk --acquire=700' to be automatically executed.
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XPDE, this desktop environment has the same exact look and feel of Windows XP,
so you don't need to give your employee Linux courses,
there are 'Programs', 'Accessories', ...etc, it's still in alpha stage.
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