[oclug] Evolution problem

[David F. Skoll]

On Sun, 15 Jun 2003, Jack wrote:

> The system of configuration files for both KDE and GNOME is starting
> to be as convoluted as the MS Windows registry--that's *really*
> something to worry about, I think.

I agree with you.  In fact, my next Monitor article is all about my
frustration with RH9 and my decision to switch to Gentoo on my laptop.
I wanted to do something extremely simple, which under RH9 meant
editing huge chunks of XML (after learning what the hell everything
meant first), and under Gentoo meant changing one line in a simple
self-documenting text file.

> Like you, I don't usually use GNOME and KDE, but I do use some GNOME and
> KDE applications occasionally. Like many people on this list, I like
> "lightweight" applications. In my case, I achieve this by using icewm as
> my window manager, Midnight Commander for files and slrn for usenet
> news.

I can't think of a GNOME or KDE application that I would really miss.
I use The Gimp, but that's a Gtk+ application, not really a Gnome app.
I use knode to read news, but could do without it if I had to.  The killer
apps for me are Emacs, Mozilla, Pine and LaTeX.

Finally, I agree that GNOME and KDE are trying to imitate M$ Windoze
and that it's probably not a good idea.  Roaring Penguin has two
full-time sales/marketing people.  They're computer-literate, but had
only ever used Windoze.  They adapted just fine to the default RH8/RH9
setup---it took no retraining whatsoever.  Interestingly, I had to
train them to demo our app on Solaris, which uses CDE.  That's very
different from Windoze/GNOME/KDE, and yet it took them about two
minutes to catch on.

So I think a lot of people vastly overrate how difficult it is to switch
from Windoze to Linux.  They vastly overrate the importance of a "rich"
(i.e., Windoze-like) desktop, and vastly underrate the intelligence
and adaptability of the average computer user.

--
David.