[Tfug] [stein.les at gmail.com: TCS General Meeting]

[Quag7]

> On Sun, 27 Aug 2006 22:06:48 -0700, Bowie J. Poag <bpoag at comcast.net>  
> wrote:

> > Next time you see a window that takes a full second to draw, stop and
> > think.  How many clock cycles, how many instructions did it take to draw
> > that window? A billion? Two billion?  Once you begin to see things from
> > that perspective, you will lose all respect for Win-clone desktops like
> > GNOME and KDE, because it's horrifying. A Linux desktop doesn't have to
> > be that way.

Forgetting wasted cycles for a moment, there's something else to be said
for being *intriguing* which Windows is not.  I think if I were going to
do a demo for a group, one thing I would emphasize is the different
selection of window managers, and their different philosophies.

I think I'd have a KDE and Gnome desktop to show how the system can work
similar to Windows for those who want that, and then show things like
Enlightenment, Fluxbox, Windowmaker (the most visually interesting, in
my opinion), and even Ratpoison to show the different desktop
experiences a user can have, for free.

If I had never seen a Linux desktop and had been staring at effectively
the same Windows desktop for what is 11 or so years now, I think the
prospect of being able to not only have a selection of desktops with
different philosophies, but being able to get those for free, and
install as many as I wanted to try them out, would interest me greatly.

A lot of the criticism of Linux is over fragmentation - but at least
some of what is referred to as fragmentation is choice, and it would be
nice to get that across, because in so doing you hook not only those who
are not excited about change, but also those who are, who want something
dramatically different.

Explaining how the console, X, and window managers interact with each
other should be of interest to almost any Windows fan, I think.