Spicing up a Linux desktop

HIS short essay describes a variety of ways which I have found to increase ‘desktop productivity’. It identifies and covers 3 aspects of customisation, albeit without much obvious connection. Think of them as streams of consciousness.

• Workspace: first and foremost, use virtual desktops. The site introduced and described them before and also outlined a way of taking full advantage of them.
• Panels and screen edges: another significant step, which I took over a year ago in all computers, is automatic hiding of all panels as to avoid distraction and visual clutter (many panels over here, 7 of them on one screen). The exceptions to automatic hidding: new mail notification widgets and a system monitor (minimalist display of processor usage, memory and swap, refreshed several times per second), among your other must-have widgets. Even a clock should only be made available on demand (e.g. when touching screen edges) as it otherwise becomes an unnecessary eye-catcher. Screen corners have no special significance, but in newer versions of KDE, movement between virtual desktop can be controlled by ‘pushing through’ the sides of the screens, which proves somewhat useful, yet can conflict with auto-hiding of panels. Be warned.
• Theming: lastly, choose colour schemes and background pictures that suit you best. An appealing environment encourages work. I personally prefer the nocturnal, dark-coloured themes (including widgets and window decorations). Also confer: old Windows 98 example; Linux example.

Is your operating system cannot attain some of the above behaviours (or does not permit it), you may wish to consider more flexible platforms and desktop environments. My favourite is KDE on Linux. It continues to evolve very rapidly.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 10th, 2006 at 7:02 am and is filed under Opinion, Productivity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.