Gimme that old time interface...

[Ben Scott]

On Nov 14, 2007 2:12 PM, Ted Roche <tedroche at tedroche.com>
> what's the benefits and downsides of running with the desktop
> the distro defaults to?

  Things I like about my more minimalist approach:

A1. KISS.  Complexity breeds problems.  "Perfection is archived not
when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to
remove."  Etc.
A2. I can type "ps x" and not have my actual work lost in a sea of
mystery processes.
A3. I adapt the computer to my habbits, not the other way around.
Both KDE and GNOME make certain assumptions which cannot be easily
changed.
A4. Control.  Maybe it makes me more efficient, maybe I'm just a
control freak, whatever, I like it.
A5. Bling is distracting and takes up valuable screen real-estate.
A6. Responsiveness.  Even on the latest and greatest hardware, I find
the minimalist approach yields a more responsive system.
A7. It shows that I am a 1337 h4x0r.  ;-)

  Note that the above is highly specific to me, and not a universal.
Possible benefits to the "mainstream" approach include:

B1. Better supported in most distros
B2. More use means more testing means better chance of bugs being
found and fixed before you find them
B3. More familiar to many people
B4. Lots of GUI guidance to enable learning-by-discovery
B5. Auto-mounting and auto-play and such
B6. Files/folders/media as desktop icons
B7. Bling is oh-so-pretty!
B8. Allegedly better integration/interoperation between programs
B9. More pervasive drag-and-drop support
B10. Third-party documentation more likely to cover "mainstream" stuff

  Again, the above is highly subjective.  For example, I consider B5,
B6, and B7 to be drawbacks, but many people want them, and that's
fine.  Choice is good.  I did tag B8 as "allegedly" because I've heard
it said more than once, but I myself haven't really had much trouble
with that sort thing in the software I use.

> ... recent machine (say, two gigahertz of some CPU or two, at
> least a gig a RAM ...

  I'm gonna go cry now.

-- Ben

(BTW: I had to look up the "spelling" for A7, so I'm really just a poser.)