__/ [ Kier ] on Sunday 19 March 2006 12:57 \__
> On Sun, 19 Mar 2006 08:50:52 +0100, Sandman wrote:
>
>> In article <pan.2006.03.18.22.18.54.699420@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
>> Kier <vallon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>>> Had some trouble with my old Dell PC, so I took it off the network, and
>>> fiddled around for a while trying to diagnose what was wrong. On a whim,
>>> I decdied I might just as well install some of the distros I haven't got
>>> into much, because it wouldn't matter much if it croaked, since I'd
>>> backed up all the data.
>>>
>>> After some screwing around with Mandriva's partitioner (best tool for the
>>> job, IMO), I gave the Elive CD a try. First, 0.3, but then I downloaded
>>> 0.4. This Dell is by no means fast - P3 600 processor, and 256 meg ram,
>>> with only a 32 meg Riva TNT video card - but it works very well. The 0.4
>>> installation was very simple and straight-forward, and I was soon
>>> enjoying the eye-candy offered by E16 and 17, both of which are really
>>> cool-looking window managers. On a fast, modern machine they'd look
>>> awesome.
>>>
>>> Nvidia graphics are automatically configured, and synaptic takes care of
>>> just about all your computing needs. Elive is basically
>>> Enlightenment/Debian, with all the packages you could want. E17 itself is
>>> still being developed, but it's very usable as it is, and looks great. I
>>> look forward to seeing how it appears in its final form. Just wish it
>>> woukd recognise my laptop's wireless card, or onboard lan, as I'd install
>>> there in a second.
>>
>> Ok, so Enlightenment is still alive? I somehow got the impression that
>> the people from Enlightenment moved over to Gnome?
>
> Dunno about that, but yes, Enlightenment is still alive and kicking as far
> as I can see. The Elive project is some sort of off-shoot from it, a way
> of bringing Enlightenment to the desktop without the need for compilation.
> Both E16 and E17 are well in advance of the version Enlightenment provided
> by most distros that I've tried.
I loved Enlightment. I sometimes wish I was still using it. Been about 4
years...
>> I remember back in '94 or '95 when I was using AfterStep and tried to
>> install Enlightenment but my machine wasn't up to it. I moved to
>> WindowMaker instead. :)
Nasty (in my humble option *smile*). 'tleast judging by appearance, which is
unnecessarily important to me.
>> Back in those days, it was cool to edit flatfiles for making menues in
>> the GUI :)
>>
>> AfterStep/WindowMaker (which were quite similar) were my favorite
>> window managers at the time. Much because they looked a lot like
>> NeXTSTEP and it wasn't a blatant "Look as much as Windows as
>> possible". This was before KDE and Gnome changed all of that :)
>
> Personally, I never thought either KDE or Gnome looked very much like
> Windows. Though any WM that uses taskbars/panels and desktop icons and
> such is going to seem vaguely Windows-like. But I do like GUIs that are
> different from the more conventional approach of KDE/Gnome.
Why on earth would anything as such be compared to Windows? Microsoft copied
the UI elements from Apple, whose inspiration was probably Xerox. Just
because Windows is prevalent is no reason to argue that all other operating
systems are uninspiring imitations. It is also no reason to deter developers
from implementing something which is both effective and familiar to many new
users. Being uniform is beneficial, as a general rule.
>> Enlightenment was, at the time, the coolest GUI on the planet or
>> something, but it demanded a lot from the hardware. What's tyhe story
>> today - is enlightenment still faking transparencies? I remember that
>> transparent terminal windows (was it called eterm? rterm?) was the
>> thing back then - but the backgrounds where just copies of the
>> background image put as an opaque background in the terminal [1].
>
> I believe fake transparency is still the order or the day, but it doesn't
> take such hefty hardware to achieve good results. I'd imagine
> they're aiming for the real thing too.
>
> Give Elive a spin, I think you'll find it a pleasant experience.
I'll remember you advice, Kier. I have tried many distributions, but Elive is
a newcomer which I hear more and more about, but have never tried for
myself. Slackware is another.
Best wishes,
Roy
--
Roy S. Schestowitz | "I regularly SSH to God's brain and reboot"
http://Schestowitz.com | SuSE Linux ¦ PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
1:05pm up 11 days 5:42, 11 users, load average: 1.93, 2.00, 1.94
http://iuron.com - Open Source knowledge engine project
|
|
