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Why I Stick with the Linux Desktop

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Re: Why I Stick with the Linux Desktop

#81

Post by pjbrunet »

dhruvmittal wrote: post #79
pjbrunet wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since I switched to a window tiler, I never need to move windows unless I'm doing something complex in GIMP. I'm using pytyle2 (you can probably find something better) and mostly all I use is alt-c to rotate the windows, alt-h for "higher" and alt-l for "lower" and that's it. Now I rarely, rarely ever resize or click-drag a window. This works so well I totally stopped using window decoration. Having the extra pixels…

I've always loved tiling WMs on big screens, since it's a really efficient way to use all of that screen real estate. i3 really comes into its own on my multimonitor desktop setup. I've just never felt any real gain on anything smaller than 17". On my 13" macbook air, however, I find that as soon as I split the screen 50-50 neither window really has enough space to be comfortable. (I've tried using Amethyst[1], but t…

That's true. My next laptop will be bigger! For now I have good eyes to see the 7px fonts. And it was some real work to remove all the window decorations, editing config files to get a slim profile on everything. Usually I have my code on one side and a browser on the other side. When it gets tight I have 3 options: 1. zoom out the browser (not always an option for detail work) 2. flip the important activity to the bigger window 3. use the higher/lower hotkeys to give one side or the other more/less room. Typically I do not like to write code in the left panel because then my eyes are way off to the side. Took me years to get to this point with Linux but I feel very productive now when I sit down to work. I had to ditch Fedora/Gnome, figure out Crunchbang, pytyle2 was a pain to install, etc. But it was all worth it, at least in my opinion ;-)

Re: Why I Stick with the Linux Desktop

#82

Post by pjbrunet »

cenhyperion wrote: post #11
wtbob wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, what sort of issues do you have using Linux as a 'daily driver'? I ask because I've been running Linux-only on a daily basis since '99, and (obviously) haven't had any major issues to cause me to change that decision.

For me personally it's image editing software. I need to be able to collaborate easily with graphic designers and manage my personal photography. Adobe's tools are the industry standard and what I need to collaborate with others. That's the single thing holding me back. If I could have photoshop and lightroom on linux I'd switch in a heartbeat. Until then OS X will probably remain my main desktop.

I'm not a heavy GIMP user but it imports/exports PSD pretty well, right? I was a heavy Photoshop user from 1.x to 3.x and all the basic features are there ;-) Color curves, hue-saturation, feathered selections, 99% of what you need to get shit done is the same as Photoshop. Granted, digital art is not my day job. So I don't know what newfangled tools Photoshop has now. I hate layers in GIMP as much as I hated them in Photoshop, I'm oldschool ;-)

Re: Why I Stick with the Linux Desktop

#83

Post by ardemue »

wubbfindel wrote: post #24
ardemue wrote: post #5

What I enjoy the most on my Linux desktop is how it handles installing/upgrading software. It's just easy, and it works. When I'm on Windows I can't stand the google-download-execute-untick boxes-next-next cycles. This post is more about UI features though.

You should try out "chocolatey" on windows. It enough people adopt it, more packages will get on to it.

It looks good. But to me, until Microsoft does something about it, it's not really gonna take off. I thought Microsoft Installer would be it, but obviously it's not :/

Re: Why I Stick with the Linux Desktop

#84

Post by farresito »

orthecreedence wrote: post #43
farresito wrote: post #26

I've been using Arch Linux for a little more than two years, and it's probably one of the best decisions I've made in my life. Once you get used to the terminal, you will never want to touch a Windows computer (unfortunately). I have i3wm (tiling wm) + (rxvt + tmux + vim) + luakit (browser with vim keybindings), and some other stuff, and my productivity went straight up. Of course you might not want to go to that ext…

I'd have to agree with your decisions. I'm on Slack, but almost the same setup: i3, tmux, urxvt, vim. The setup is unstoppable. I've found that I no longer need quick launch links (just define/use shortcuts for whatever you need). Switching desktops is really fast and easy (you don't drown in ridiculous animations just by switching to the "browser" desktop), and floating/hidden windows make opening a quick shell real…

I've tried some other tiling wm's, and i3wm is the one I've liked the most. It just has the right balance. dwm is pretty nice, too, but didn't like it as much. I'm glad to hear some other people enjoying a similar configuration of his linux :D. The only problem I've found is when I go to public places; people just look too much. They are not used to such a lightweight and non-windows/non-mac system.

Re: Why I Stick with the Linux Desktop

#85

Post by atoponce »

I use Awesome as my WM of choice on both my laptop and on my workstation. It just works, and I can get stuff done _fast_.

Besides tiling windows as the major win, I really love the plethora of virtual desktops. I use these with ease. I have a triple monitor setup on my workstation, and have at least 3 virtual desktops in use on each monitor, and sometimes using 5-6 on each when really digging into work.

Middle-click is a must have on a GNU/Linux system also. I've seen people bitch about it on laptops, saying it should be removed, but Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows don't take full advantage of it. Pasting with middle-click is an epic win for the GNU/Linux desktop, IMO.

The largest win, however, is proper package management with Debian. This alone keeps me using GNU/Linux on the desktop, and it's nice to see Apple following suit with their App Store. Cloud package management is vastly superior to "hunt and download".

Re: Why I Stick with the Linux Desktop

#86

Post by farresito »

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #46
farresito wrote: post #26

I've been using Arch Linux for a little more than two years, and it's probably one of the best decisions I've made in my life. Once you get used to the terminal, you will never want to touch a Windows computer (unfortunately). I have i3wm (tiling wm) + (rxvt + tmux + vim) + luakit (browser with vim keybindings), and some other stuff, and my productivity went straight up. Of course you might not want to go to that ext…

Great choice. I use almost the same setup (on Slackware) except with uzbl as my browser (again a WebKit-based browser with vi keybindings) and dwm, although I alternate between WMs and DEs a lot. The Unix way in general just feels so much more natural. There are alternative WMs and DEs for Windows too, though. I haven't tried any.

I'm aware of some hacking you can do to make tiling wm's work on Windows, but if you really need to go to that point, then just go to linux, unless you have important apps than only work on Win. I've tried to learn uzbl. I actually installed it around a month ago, but really need to spend some time with it. I might change the config so it's similar to luakit. The only issue with luakit is it sometimes hangs, and I doubt it's lack of good hardware in my computer. How are you liking uzbl? Do you recommend giving it a try? I don't think it's going to be that different from luakit.

The first tiling wm I used was dwm. I can't really remember why I moved to i3. I think the config was way easier (I changed a lot of things, I must admit, and the fact I didn't have to compile it probably was the reason), but I remember seeing really beautiful screens on the archlinux forum. Maybe I will give it a try again, although I'm pretty have already with i3.

Re: Why I Stick with the Linux Desktop

#88

Post by wubbfindel »

lucajona wrote: post #58
wubbfindel wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should try out "chocolatey" on windows. It enough people adopt it, more packages will get on to it.

Or Scoop at http://scoop.sh (I made it).

Looks interesting! Will look into it more closely.
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