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OpenBSD Minimalist Desktop

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Re: OpenBSD Minimalist Desktop

#41

Post by nvrspyx »

ogogmad wrote: post #28
INTPenis wrote: post #22

The word minimal often means minimalistic in appearance and resource use, what I want is minimal work. That's why I run default gnome.

Default KDE does more out of the box, and is very usable. Resource usage seems OK. I recommend it over Gnome. The only thing I liked about Gnome was the appearance, which was something purely superficial. (I don't use Linux anymore.)

I think the parent comment's choice of "minimal work" was key. In my experience, KDE requires quite a bit of work to set up because it encourages you to adapt the system for your workflow. GNOME, on the other hand, encourages you to adapt your workflow to the system, which is minimal out-of-the-box, and IMO doesn't take much effort or work to do so.

Regardless, I think once KDE is set up to one's workflow properly, it stays out of the way and can remain out of the way on new systems by transferring the config files. It just may take a lot of upfront work to get to that point and you can get easily distracted tweaking the minutiae over time. For that particular reason, I also prefer just using vanilla GNOME (with only the AppIndicator extension for DropBox and Steam tray icons). Granted, that's a "me problem" because I get easily distracted and can never stick with a specific setup when there's so many options available for me to tweak.

TL;DR: Both KDE and GNOME can be minimal, but the latter requires "minimal work" because it's minimal out-of-the-box and there's not much work that can be done.

Re: OpenBSD Minimalist Desktop

#42

Post by foodstances »

CoolCold wrote: post #24
doublepg23 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve posted it here before but the frustrating state of OpenBSDs filesystems is a big issue for me putting it into production.

My first one would be "can I hire any reasonable sysadmin for that at all?" Among others - is it supported by any hosting vendor or I'll be forced to tinker with it myself without even cloud-init tooling?

https://www.openbsd.org/support.html

Re: OpenBSD Minimalist Desktop

#43

Post by nvrspyx »

dysoco wrote: post #39
ogogmad wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Default KDE does more out of the box, and is very usable. Resource usage seems OK. I recommend it over Gnome. The only thing I liked about Gnome was the appearance, which was something purely superficial. (I don't use Linux anymore.)

I enjoy KDE more than Gnome nowadays but it's far from being more minimalistic; it has way too much options, applications, dropdowns, buttons, etc. compared to Gnome and pretty much any other DE. It DOES run great though, but I think they'd do a good job by simplifying some aspects of it, too bad the community seems to be mostly opposed to that as they want KDE to remain a more power-user friendly desktop.

I haven't tried it out in awhile, but I wonder if LXQt might be worth looking at for something more configurable than GNOME, yet more simple than KDE. Of course, there's also always XFCE, MATE, and Cinnamon. I just don't see LXQt mentioned much.

Re: OpenBSD Minimalist Desktop

#44

Post by MuffinFlavored »

INTPenis wrote: post #22

The word minimal often means minimalistic in appearance and resource use, what I want is minimal work. That's why I run default gnome.

> That's why I run default gnome.

That's why I run Mac OS X and don't waste hours setting up a machine/operating system that could just work out of the box.

Re: OpenBSD Minimalist Desktop

#45

Post by somat »

INTPenis wrote: post #22

The word minimal often means minimalistic in appearance and resource use, what I want is minimal work. That's why I run default gnome.

I like to understand the system and am happiest with a simple setup.

So openbsd with a small tileing wm(I use spectrwm) is perfect for me.

If I were less addicted to web browsing I would probably use plan 9.

Re: OpenBSD Minimalist Desktop

#46

Post by somat »

numlock86 wrote: post #30

If your minimalist desktop is just terminal space, why bother with X?

Because you can fit a lot of terminals on a modern display.

Aha! you say, just use tmux.

tmux is great, but I like the feel of a tileing window manager more than tmux.

Re: OpenBSD Minimalist Desktop

#47

Post by smoldesu »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #44
INTPenis wrote: post #22

The word minimal often means minimalistic in appearance and resource use, what I want is minimal work. That's why I run default gnome.

> That's why I run default gnome. That's why I run Mac OS X and don't waste hours setting up a machine/operating system that could just work out of the box.

After you log in to iCloud, of course. And then you have to download the Xcode tools, which is fine because it only takes ~8 hours. You'll probably want to reboot after the latest version of Monterey downloads, but make sure you do this after the Xcode tools are done downloading. While you're at it, you should also disable SIP so you can use the filesystems on your external drive, and you'll also want to double-check that your docks/Ethernet components are all MacOS-compatible. You'll also need a copy of GNU's coreutils, so grab those after installing Homebrew/Nix or else you'll get dozens of bash errors. Can't forget Docker, either! That's okay, just go to the Docker website and download their Commercial Client, and only run it when you need a container. We can't just run Docker in the background of a modern OS, can we?

Depending on your workflow, MacOS is fully capable of wasting your time. Especially if you're a developer, MacOS will frequently go out of it's way to deliver you a worse UNIX environment than Linux. If MacOS makes you happy, use it - but nobody is deploying their web infrastructure to MacOS. You're beholden to Linux usage whether you like it or not.

Re: OpenBSD Minimalist Desktop

#48

Post by somat »

gtirloni wrote: post #40
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #18

This is my long term safe place desktop if Ubuntu slides further down the slippery slope of advertising.

Ubuntu and OpenBSD are at completely opposite in the user friendly spectrum. You're a better off moving to Debian.

True, but openbsd is far easier to understand than ubuntu.

user friendly is not the same thing as simple.

Re: OpenBSD Minimalist Desktop

#49

Post by anxiously »

CoolCold wrote: post #27

Not related to OpenBSD itself, more for "minimalistic" approach - screenshots with irssi were popular like 25 or 20 years ago. I see kinda nothing new here, just fly stuck in amber. Has minimalistic meant to be "limited"? Then makes sense. TUI based? Somewhat makes a bit of sense. Minimalistic but yet full featured? I couldn't see that on provided sample.

I have a similar setup as I mentioned in another comment.

I wouldn't say it is limited or not fully featured. It does everything one needs. There's nothing missing, rather it lacks the bloat. It begins with a basic system and you build up the things you need and want on top of it (versus starting with a bloated system and trying to remove things you don't need or want).

Why do I prefer the minimal setup? In my mind, stability. I have used the same setup and mostly the same configuration for ~16 years. At times my machine has had an uptime of 700+ days before a reboot.

I like things that "just work" and continue to work, forever (preferably). More moving parts means more potential breakage. Keep it stupid simple and to the point.

Re: OpenBSD Minimalist Desktop

#50

Post by ninjin »

somat wrote: post #46
numlock86 wrote: post #30

If your minimalist desktop is just terminal space, why bother with X?

Because you can fit a lot of terminals on a modern display. Aha! you say, just use tmux. tmux is great, but I like the feel of a tileing window manager more than tmux.

Well, you could always go with dvtm [1] and skip X11.

[1]: https://www.brain-dump.org/projects/dvtm

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