Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: John Ames Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc Subject: Re: What Window Manager/Desktop Environment do you use, and why? Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2025 14:10:23 -0700 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 48 Message-ID: <20250701141023.00003c97@gmail.com> References: <9nikhl-qb2.ln1@otis.foo> <102aft1$1icjg$5@dont-email.me> <102d5t2$298jm$2@dont-email.me> <102ecnj$2l3qp$3@dont-email.me> <20250612083705.000061fc@gmail.com> <102fi1k$2u1dt$4@dont-email.me> <20250612161731.00003f61@gmail.com> <102funf$3149j$4@dont-email.me> <20250620103703.00004ee7@gmail.com> <1035m0l$u0ib$5@dont-email.me> <20250623142902.00001ef8@gmail.com> <103cqjq$1ip4g$7@dont-email.me> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Injection-Date: Tue, 01 Jul 2025 23:10:29 +0200 (CEST) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="7b659e41f2f6e20349d76f93e33d1f44"; logging-data="3214271"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX19vWYpSk7oSsn6DAv3aSGYdi+EWsec7Yy0=" Cancel-Lock: sha1:IrRJDPMrDxPajT+ikx4DjSkz9m4= X-Newsreader: Claws Mail 4.3.0 (GTK 3.24.42; x86_64-w64-mingw32) Xref: csiph.com comp.os.linux.misc:69258 On Tue, 24 Jun 2025 00:13:46 -0000 (UTC) Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote: > >> But SGI were precisely an example of the sort of =E2=80=9Cflashy & > >> computationally expensive to render=E2=80=9D thing you were criticizin= g, > >> were they not? They did a full animated 3D desktop, with > >> 3D-rendered icons flying around all over the place, just because > >> they could. =20 > >=20 > > As a novelty, yes (3D hardware was their big thing, what can you > > say.) But I don't think anybody seriously meant that to be more > > than a proof- of-concept - the normal IRIX desktop environment had > > nothing to do with it, being a nicely-implemented but entirely > > conventional WIMP GUI based around a modified > > mwm: http://toastytech.com/guis/irix.html =20 >=20 > But the 3D interface did ship, did it not. Sun was also showing off > their =E2=80=9CProject Looking Glass=E2=80=9D. I don't care *what* people offer as a novelty geegaw as long as it doesn't get in the way of the regular workflow. FSN is ludicrous from a usability standpoint, but it was never anything you *had* to deal with; compared to genuine workflow malpractice like the Office 2007 Playskool activity-center bar or GTK3's habit of pointing file-open/save dialogs to a nebulous liminal space where files can neither be opened nor saved and there's nothing but links to places where the dev team thinks you *might* like to keep files, it'd be silly to get mad over. > > What I'm referring to is the way that NeXTSTEP/OSX is just sort of > > this entirely different thing plopped on top of an underlying *nix > > system. =20 >=20 > OSX is not. That GUI is very much bound into the kernel -- contrary > to the modularity tradition of *nix systems. I'm not talking about implementation details on the kernel level; I'm talking about the way that nothing in GUI-land interacts meaningfully with the traditional *nix toolset, and vice versa. It's a two-headed dog sort of thing, only one dog is written in Objective-C and Swift. > > Certainly it *works,* but it could be done much better. =20 >=20 > Tell us, or show us, how you would do it. Someday when I have a pile of free time and no other hobby projects that are more important to me, sure!