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On Desktop GUI Minimalism

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Re: On Desktop GUI Minimalism

#31

Post by alwayslikethis »

shric wrote: post #20
alwayslikethis wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For many people, the limiting factor of this is visual acuity though. I personally can't see it useful to have more than 2560x1440 equivalent pixels of space on a 27 inch monitor. For a larger monitor, you have to sit further back, so it is effectively the same. If you want to see more clearly, you'd need to get closer, but that causes issues since you are still limited by your available field of view.

I'd probably agree with the "useful" but I find higher resolution more aesthetically pleasing, especially text.

I too think text looks nicer at higher dpi but I had bad experiences with fractional scaling on Linux in the past, and 4K monitors are more expensive, so I didn't bother getting one.

Re: On Desktop GUI Minimalism

#32

Post by 0x38B »

> Shortly thereafter my family gained access to broadband internet and I was able to delve into Linux again, this time thankfully without obliterating my computer's access to the outside world.

As a teenager, my first experience with Linux (a Fedora book & CD combo) was formatting my main Windows drive with all my data on it. Good times.

Re: On Desktop GUI Minimalism

#33

Post by mixmastamyk »

0x445442 wrote: post #28
alwayslikethis wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For many people, the limiting factor of this is visual acuity though. I personally can't see it useful to have more than 2560x1440 equivalent pixels of space on a 27 inch monitor. For a larger monitor, you have to sit further back, so it is effectively the same. If you want to see more clearly, you'd need to get closer, but that causes issues since you are still limited by your available field of view.

It’s interesting you mention this. The way I use my desktop I always have my applications maximized and I just alt-tab to switch contexts. I also am in the terminal a lot and use Yaquake but not in maximized mode because I don’t want to focus in the bottom left corner of my screen. I also put the task bar left vertical because I don’t care about the horizontal space. Doing all of this still felt cumbersome and then i…

4:3 is pretty rare but finally... finally you can get screens from 16:10 to 3:2 now without too much trouble.

Re: On Desktop GUI Minimalism

#34

Post by Skyywalker »

bstar77 wrote: post #27

Two years ago, I transitioned to a minimalist tiling window manager (WM) despite my initial reservations about them. This change was prompted by my desire to experiment with high-end hardware and a 4K multi-monitor setup in a tiled environment. Surprisingly, the switch turned out to be a game-changer, boosting my productivity significantly, with around 90% of my tasks now occurring in the terminal. Traditional critic…

Which terminal app do you use? It sounds like one I would like to try. Thank you.

Re: On Desktop GUI Minimalism

#35

Post by 0x38B »

colordrops wrote: post #13

Speaking of minimalist desktops, I'm really loving the unix-y philosophy behind sway/i3/hyprland/xmonad. Instead of an integrated desktop environment, you start with the simple window manager (Sway in my case), and pick and choose the tools you need for various things, such as a status bar, notifications, launcher, etc. Unless you really trick it out, there is usually very little on your screen other than the apps yo…

Sway is fast, minimal, and flexible. Their recommended tools/addons are worth a look: https://github.com/swaywm/sway/wiki/Useful-add-ons-for-sway

From that list I use greetd + tuigreet as my login manager, sway-launcher-desktop for FZF-powered app launching, and wob for lightweight brightness and volume display (send '50' to the wob socket and it'll show 50%; it doesn't get simpler).

Re: On Desktop GUI Minimalism

#36

Post by jwells89 »

40yearoldman wrote: post #29

Minimal desktops are productivity boosters. On top of that ones that can be controlled by keyboard input are super important. 99% of the time you just want information. Text. The chrome does not matter. Yet modern desktops and web pages make humans hunt and pick through poorly designed interfaces to get the info we need. I use EXWM. It’s a time saver. I have no desktop because I am either using the full screen for a…

I believe this is kind of thing is highly subjective as well as dependent on hardware. Point in case fullscreening anything but an IDE or graphics editor on a 27"+ monitor drives me crazy because most things don't make good use of the extra space. Similarly I find tiled smaller windows irritating because they often size themselves incorrectly, ironically making for more manual window twiddling and micromanagement than I'd be doing with a boring old floating window manager.

Re: On Desktop GUI Minimalism

#37

Post by jwells89 »

alwayslikethis wrote: post #31
shric wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd probably agree with the "useful" but I find higher resolution more aesthetically pleasing, especially text.

I too think text looks nicer at higher dpi but I had bad experiences with fractional scaling on Linux in the past, and 4K monitors are more expensive, so I didn't bother getting one.

It's too bad that displays designed for 2x UI scaling are so rare outside of Apple stuff. Even on Windows which is probably the OS with the best fractional UI scaling, 2x looks visibly better.

Re: On Desktop GUI Minimalism

#38

Post by netdoll »

Skyywalker wrote: post #34
bstar77 wrote: post #27

Two years ago, I transitioned to a minimalist tiling window manager (WM) despite my initial reservations about them. This change was prompted by my desire to experiment with high-end hardware and a 4K multi-monitor setup in a tiled environment. Surprisingly, the switch turned out to be a game-changer, boosting my productivity significantly, with around 90% of my tasks now occurring in the terminal. Traditional critic…

Which terminal app do you use? It sounds like one I would like to try. Thank you.

I believe most of the things OP mentioned have to do with the shell and not the terminal. At the very least, most of the things thus mentioned can be configured in zsh (I don't know how, as I haven't looked into it really)

Re: On Desktop GUI Minimalism

#39

Post by et1337 »

There’s no accounting for taste… I disagreed with just about every single preference the author expressed. Which challenges my normal wishful thinking, which is that somewhere out there is a perfect GUI that satisfies everyone’s needs.

Re: On Desktop GUI Minimalism

#40

Post by 40yearoldman »

jwells89 wrote: post #36
40yearoldman wrote: post #29

Minimal desktops are productivity boosters. On top of that ones that can be controlled by keyboard input are super important. 99% of the time you just want information. Text. The chrome does not matter. Yet modern desktops and web pages make humans hunt and pick through poorly designed interfaces to get the info we need. I use EXWM. It’s a time saver. I have no desktop because I am either using the full screen for a…

I believe this is kind of thing is highly subjective as well as dependent on hardware. Point in case fullscreening anything but an IDE or graphics editor on a 27"+ monitor drives me crazy because most things don't make good use of the extra space. Similarly I find tiled smaller windows irritating because they often size themselves incorrectly, ironically making for more manual window twiddling and micromanagement tha…

Tiling -- split left and right or up and down... This is the case within in Emacs.

Given I use a much larger screen I can assure you it works well.

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