Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Originally posted by: drag
I can do that with my mac.
Ya sure. But people _expect_ that to work on a Mac!
Remember, Linux == old and broken, Mac == shiny and get-you-laid
Is that a feature of the new intel macs, but that doesn't come standard on the power versions.
It is, it's just undocumented. Unfortunately it involves the people that work at "genius bars" and exchanges involving large sums of money so it's not paticularely popular.
i am a bit surpised that the ubuntu craze hasn't swamped the results in favour of Gnome, especially with a Ubuntu release yesterday!
Well I think that for home desktops and given that people who do try Linux tend to be people who are of the 'power users' variety I figure it's not long until people begin to customize.
Despite warts that is the single 'killer feature' of Linux desktops; it's customization.
Even for businesses. Given they don't care so much about themes and wobbly windows, but they do care about efficient workplaces. What you can do for businesses quite easily is to take a existing Linux distribution, customize the desktop for specific roles and then deploy it.
For example a call center.
You setup LTSP on some quad Intel box with 16gigs of ram, RAID 5 scsi and a 4 gigabit port NIC card to a switch.
Some Mini-ITX machines to act as thin clients. You could easily run a entire call center with dozens and maybe a hundred or so X terminals to that single terminal server.
And it would be dead quiet, no fans, no nothing and the server is down in the network room.
Give them a simple FVWM desktop with their custom call logging program and dialer. Give them some program to take notes with. A Jabber client for messages. Have that stuff launch at start up. That's it.
Or you have data entry setup. Just give them full screen web-based application. Each get a desktop, each get a full screen Firefox browser that's been modified to get rid of all the URL bar and navigation stuff. It runs off of a web server over a VPN halfway across the world.
Or you have 'knowledge workers' with their own desktop. Setup the icons so they click this for word, click that for email, click that other thing for spreadsheet, etc. All lined up. Have a couple folders setup for network access.
Each require minimal training, minimal effort to maintain and secure. No having to have admins spending time 'locking down' desktops.
That can be very attractive for a big business.
Then the same thing for 'power' users. People use Linux workstations. They can setup the key bindings how they want. They can setup applications to launch when then want. They can change out the window manager and manage windows how they want. If you don't like how something is setup you can change it.
It's pretty easy to have a desktop with gyrations and gizmos and things blinking and scrolling.
It's also easy to just have a 'minimal' setup were you have a custom Window manager and wmctrl to almost eliminate all use of your mouse.
Whatever you want. It's tough to figure some stuff out time to time, but it's worth it if it's worth it to you.
I mean seriously.. people are doing very bizzare stuff.
Rox-desktop:
http://www.lynucs.org/index.php?screen_id=147314019460af7901d4e8&p=screen
Customized KDE:
http://www.lynucs.org/index.php?screen_...een_id=94345944845d8fc8b46821&m=screen
Customized Gnome
http://www.lynucs.org/index.php?screen_id=127884344945d8a9d297d03&p=screen
Customized KDE
http://www.lynucs.org/index.php?screen_id=74201976045d5f90262c49&p=screen
Enlightenment DR17
http://www.lynucs.org/index.php?screen_...een_id=74320653345d123fa3a670&m=screen
I think it's Metisse and Gnome
http://www.lynucs.org/index.php?screen_...en_id=194185439445d82254bfb31&m=screen
Custom Gnome
http://www.lynucs.org/index.php?screen_id=94479093246143d55e09f1&p=screen
Fluxbox
http://www.lynucs.org/index.php?screen_id=166354693845d8fcaab36fa&p=screen
Window Maker
http://windowmaker.info/imageview.php?cat=big&id=50
Afterstep
http://themes.freshmeat.net/screenshots/29122/30732/
And so people don't say 'oh it looks like windows had reproduced with apple'. You have to see them in action to appreciate them sometimes.
D17 video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0lP8QJQer0
Mandriva running Metisse
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P09WLS2a1H0&mode=related&search=
Beryl video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eOb3k_u1VI&NR=1
Fluxbox in action
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLE18zLsxtk
Ubuntu Feisty + Compiz + Windows XP.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01OqyzEyV9M&mode=related&search=
Hehe. To me all that stuff is pretty cool.
Compare all that to OS X or Vista. You can have it all big and bloated on some powerhouse of a machine with all the bling bling. But also the same systems can be made to run well on a 600mhz machine and 256 megs of RAM if you run Xubuntu.
No contest. Even when you add on all the weird shareware and pay applications that help you customize XP or OS X you only get a fraction of what you can do with Linux.
Most of all that should be aviable to you in Ubuntu. Except for Metisse, Rox-desktop, and Enlightenment DR17. But I bet you'll be able to quickly find 3rd party repos for that. If not you can compile them yourself.
And if you don't want to mess with it, don't. Default Gnome itself is pretty good and is specificly designed to be useful for a wide range of people.