David Haller said the following on 04/24/2011 04:10 PM:
I am going to try installing KDE, LXDE and some of the others mentioned and see if I can sort it out.
Ah, that sounds like a good way to get frustrated. Pick one and stick with it. Every time you switch you throw away what you just learnt and have to learn anew.
But on this I disagree! Strongly. Have a look at KDE, Gnome, LXDE, XFCE, and at least a selection of simple Windowmanagers, including preferably WindowMaker, fluxbox, icewm, Enlightenment, metacity[1], aewm(++), sapphire, whatever else you can lay your hands on. Note though: many of the simple ones (at least aewm(++) and sapphire in above list) need additional tools like e.g. fspanel for "basic" functionality, WindowMaker and AFAIR icewm do not though).
Yes, do. You'll find there are different ways of configuring each; difernt file manager for each. Gnome and KDE have their own - and ideosyncraticaly different - file managers, mailers, word processors, presentation tools, spreadsheets. I read an article somewhere once that pointed out the read difference was the central authority of Windows meant that there was One True Way of doing things, each "sui generis" and "ne variartur". The same, except for colour schemes, on all similar machies (i.e. all Xp or all Server2003). Wheras Linux, like UNIX, was based on a few reular patterns. That is, if you consider an editor to be an editor, be it ed over a 1200 baud modem on a KSR33 teletype, or emacs on the console under X-Windows, or VI or GVim or Kword, or OOWriter; if you consider a spreadsheet to be a spreadhseet be it Gnumber, OOcalc or KSpread. If that's how you feel, then obviously you won't be frustrated by the differences, obviously you know each so fully you never get confused and frustrated over which you are using as a newb might. Or perhaps even when using Gnome as a desktop you still use all the KDE tools: Dolphin, Konqueror, KWord, Kcalc, Kmail, ... After all, there's nothing to stop you doing that. Linux is *that* flexible. But it might confuse and frustrate a newb. -- Rule of Feline Frustration: When your cat has fallen asleep on your lap and looks utterly content and adorable, you will suddenly have to go to the bathroom. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org