Re: Best distro for "flashy" workstation?

From: Dances With Crows (danSPANceswitTRAPhcrows_at_usa.net)
Date: 03/19/04 

Date: 19 Mar 2004 02:44:48 GMT

On 17 Mar 2004 09:21:46 -0800, Isaac Kuo staggered into the Black Sun
and said:
> Dances With Crows <danSPANceswitTRAPhcrows@usa.net> wrote in message
> news:<slrnc5esiq.ial.danSPANceswitTRAPhcrows@samantha.crow202.dyndns.org>
>>On 16 Mar 2004 12:52:21 -0800, Isaac Kuo staggered into the Black Sun
>>and said:
>>>What's a good Linux distribution for a "flashy" desktop interface?
>>Any recent distro will include KDE 3.1 (or KDE 3.2, even better) which
>>can look quite flashy if you pick the right theme/window decoration
>>style in the KDE Control Center. Similar thing goes for recent
> I was thinking that maybe it might make a difference if I needed to
> add extra software packages like Fluxbox (I'm not really clear on what
> exactly KDE or GNOME is, vs what Fluxbox is).

Fluxbox is a window manager that's designed for high speed and a
minimalist interface. KDE and GNOME are desktop environments; they
include window managers (kwin and metacity) but they also have a lot of
extra stuff.

> So far, I'm only familiar with Red Hat style rpm's, which I gather is
> sort of a "kidified" way of installing Linux software. I gather that
> the typical Debian way of doing things is potentially able to result
> in a more efficient setup, but I don't even know what the Debian way
> of doing things is.

RPMs are not "kiddy", but the default Redhat way of handling RPMs can
lead to Dependency Hell, where you want to install FOO but FOO needs BAR
and BAR needs BAZ and QUUX and QUUX needs BLORTCH.... This can be an
annoying problem to solve when you upgrade an RPM-based system.
Fortunately, apt4rpm and similar tools exist now.

The Debian way involves using apt, which is a packaging tool designed
for better dependency tracking. There is one problem with using Debian:
Its "stable" version is often far, far behind the times and may not
support recent hardware. This is why many people use Debian testing or
Debian unstable. Also, installing software with non-Free or potentially
questionable components (like mplayer) can be difficult on Debian.

> I am unfamiliar with installing software packages via compiling them,

(download app-1.2.3.tgz)
tar xzf app-1.2.3.tgz
cd app-1.2.3
less README*
./configure --help
(read options, see if you need to add any)
./configure
make
su -c "make install"

>> > transparent animated menus, anti-aliased fonts, window shadows,
>> > transparent windows
>> First 3 are definitely in KDE. You'll have to clarify what you mean
>> by "transparent windows"; AFAIK, no desktop env/window manager does
>> this the way that MacOS X does.
> By "transparent windows", I was hoping for something like web browser
> windows capable of dynamically showing windows behind it with a
> certain transparency level.

I don't think Mozilla or Konqueror supports that. I think that'd *look*
neat, but be less-than-useful for real use.

>> "Transparent windows" are just a hack where you see your desktop
>> background behind the "transparent" window, not any other windows
>> that may be behind the "transparent" one.
> I do like the "fake" transparency of shell windows, but I was hoping
> for more. Still, I could really go for "fake" transparency in other
> apps--especially web browser.

If you think it'd be useful, you might want to put in a feature request
to the Mozilla team and search their Bugzilla database for
"transparency".

>> > clean interface (no "clutter" around the edges/corners)
>> ? You can get rid of/shrink the panel/taskbar if you want, or you
>> can make it look sort of like OS X's dock.
> That's basically what I mean (although I don't know what OSX's dock
> is).

Don't know what OS X's dock is? Where you been the past couple of
years? Ask any Mac user; they'll be glad to expound on it for as long
as you can stomach.

> What I mean is that I don't want any fixed clutter around the screen
> borders, like Windows's Start button and task bar. A popup task
> manager that completely disappears is good.

You can configure KDE such that clicking on the root window ("desktop")
with button 1 displays the applications menu ("Start menu"), clicking on
the root window with button 2 displays the window list, and clicking
with button 3 displays the Desktop menu or a custom menu of your own
design. KDE Control Center->Desktop->Behavior, Mouse Button Actions.

> Ideally, I'd want a popup which is activated by moving the pointer
> into a corner rather than an edge.

If this functionality is in KDE, it's not at all obvious how to activate
it. But see above.

> Besides the aesthetic value, I wish to prevent burn-in on my rear
> projection CRT based HDTV.

Another question you need to ask is "Does Linux support the TV-out
port on my video card?" Post the make and model of your video card, and
someone will tell you how to get it working if it can be made to work.

>> Konqueror or Nautilus, if you want eye-candy.
> What sort of eye-candy is possible in a file browser?

Lots. Icon previews for text/image/video files, custom icons for
various directories, HTML backgrounds for certain directories, animated
menus, animated icons near the cursor telling you you've launched
program X, etcetera.

> I typically configure my (windows) file browsing to be very basic. I
> eliminate all the space gobbling icons I can and stuff everything onto
> a single line if I can. My ideal file browser would be something like
> Windows Explorer, with a directory tree on the left panel and a file
> list in the right panel (view by "details"). Ideally, the window
> would have no menus or icons or other crap devouring screen space.

You can remove the toolbar, menu bar, and location bar in Konqueror, but
that may not do everything you desire. The location bar is essential
for me, at least, and I find I use the "up one directory" and "back one
in history" buttons in Konq an awful lot.

>>Bingo, instant remote access to myvncmachine. Set up sshd on
>>myvncmachine, enter fish://user@myvncmachine/home/user/ Presto,
>>instant secure remote access to myvncmachine's filesystem.
> This is perhaps less impressive nowadays since they use Windows XP's
> remote access capabilities all the time. What really impresses them
> is plain old fashioned FTP and HTTP server capabilities.

? Oh well, I guess if they're impressed by this, they won't grok the
security/convenience of fish/scp. A brief demonstration with ethereal
may convince them why it's a bad idea to use FTP, but then again, it
might not.

>> If you use KDE, execute "prelink -afmR" as root--you'll only have to
>> do that once. That'll cut a second off most KDE application startup
> Cool! That's exactly the sort of tip I'd never cull out of man pages
> and online documentation. Thanks again!

I first learned about prelink via Gentoo's online documentation, so I
don't know why you say you'd never learn things like this from online
docs. Oh well.... 

-- 
Matt G|There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see
Brainbench MVP for Linux Admin /    mail: TRAP + SPAN don't belong
http://www.brainbench.com     /                Hire me! 
-----------------------------/ http://crow202.dyndns.org/~mhgraham/resume