Re: KDE or Fluxbox, IceWM, XFce (SOHO or not to SOHO)
- From: CWO4 Dave Mann <misterfixit@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 10:22:00 -0600
ray wrote:
On Wed, 22 Mar 2006 15:58:09 -0800, Kersus wrote:
The only apparent difference between VectorLinux and VectorLinux SOHO
seems to be the KDE or Fluxbox, IceWM, XFce. Maybe there's more,
please enlighten me. Regardless, what is the difference? basically
I've only seen KDE vs Gnome discussions and I'm not sure I totally
follow them except KDE is supposed to be more windows like?
In a nutshell (since no one else seems to be answering the question) KDE
and Gnome are more 'fully featured' desktops - they will not be a huge
surprise or a big change to one who has worked with MS though they are
certainly not clones of MS desktops. Since they are fully featured, they
tend to use a lot of resources, hence can be rather slow on older
equipment. The alternatives you mention are 'lighter' desktops - not so
full of features and eye candy, but much faster on older equipment. They
usually operate somewhat differently in how they bring up application
menus, and other desktop uses. For a real hoot boot up the Elive Live CD
(boots and runs from the CD - no install necessary) to see a blindingly
fast desktop with a totally different feel. It runs very nicely on a P166
with 64mb RAM.
There are several Live CDs available with more than one desktop, and it's
work it to boot into several. See, for example, the Knoppix DVD and it's
available 'cheat codes'.
I'm a little late with this discussion, but here is my experience.
Last year, after "trying out" Linux off and on since 1993, I converted my
business systems to all-Linux.
In preparation for that move I made a list of those tasks which I used the
computer for. They boiled down to:
1. Invoices
2. Business accounting
3. Checking accounts (+30 of them) management
4. Internet banking
5. Internet on-line research
6. Photo management of digital cameras used on the job site
7. eBook and pdf file reading
8. Send and Receive eMail
9. Participate in newsgroups
10. Accurate calculation of certain weights, measures, centers of gravity;
1. My invoices are straight forward ... fill in the blanks, pull an address
from a file or type it in, mail it out, get a cheque in return mail. I
tried a couple of Linux native invoice programs but was not happy with
their complexity. I use Open Office to build a form with values which
could be typed in, then printed, then saved with a serial number (Invoice
060101-01, Jan 1st, 2006, invoice #1). Works without a problem.
2. I tried both KMymoney and GNUCash for #2 and 3 and found that for my
purposes, KMymoney was perfect for checking and escrow account management.
My accounts are simple checking accounts for various rental and lease
properties. GNUCash, being what I feel is more sophisticated, I set up
with the capability to render reports, cash flow, asset aggregation and
liability accounts. I print monthly reports for my clients and for myself
from each application and have gotten comments back that the reports done
by KMymoney and GNUCash are easy to read and helpful.
3. and 4. Checking account management and Internet was a bit more
difficult. The actual checking account scribbling, keeping track of checks
and so forth was done easily by KMymoney. Accessing the accounts on line
was another and more difficult issue. I use Firefox as my browser, and, I
went through quite a few discussions with the second and third tier help
people at several banks. Using the capability of Firefox to masquerade as
Internet Explorer helps in some cases, but not all. Finally, I issued an
ultimatum to the bank, either they fixed the problem or my business would
go elsewhere. After a conversation with some dolt "Senior Vice President
for Internet Banking", I realized that I was tilting at windmills, they
being solidly MS entrenched. Hence, I moved all of my accounts -- over 40
in total -- to another bank (a smaller local bank) which worked with me at
the CEO and CIO level to make sure everything clicked. In the past 9
months I have had NO problems.
5. Internet on-line research is essential for my business, I have several
tabs open at all times in Firefox with various research sites on them. No
problems here.
6. Digital camera capture is also a non-problem. I plug the camera into
the USB cable which sits on my desk, the icon on my desktop blinks and a
little green arrow comes on and I open the folder, then downloading the
images to a temporary folder on the desk top.
7. eBook and PDF files were a bit of a problem until I standardized upon
one reader. For a while until I figure it out, I would open a pdf and
depending upon the attributes of that file it would open in one of several
pdf readers. Actually that was my fault because I never set the attributes
of pdf to be opened always by one application. My bad.
8. For eMail I use KMail. I tried ALL of the other Linux compatible
applications and settled on KMail. No other reason than I liked that one.
eMail in Linux is a no-brainer. It did take me several weeks of reading to
discovered that I do not need the sendmail daemon running.
9. Newsgroup participation, I use KNode and when I need to grab multi-part
files from groups such as alt.binaries.aviation and
alt.whipping.oh.my.god.the.humanity! I use PAN, which does the job.
10. Doing complex calculations without my slide rule and a piece of graph
paper was one place that I was a little worried. Until I found KmPlot.
Now here is my system, all purchased and built by me with parts from
Computer Renaissance:
750 Mhz Athlon CPU
2GB RAM
No-name MoBo
ATI Rage 128 video card
21" Dell LCD monitor
Sound Blaster sound card
lots of speakers
2x 200GB IDE hard drives
1x Iomega 100MB Zip Drive
1x Plextor DVD/CD/RW/DVD-RW drive
3x Homebuilt 200GB firewire external drives
Fedora Core 3 and KDE; I use yum update and upgrade regularly
KDE right now has 12 windows set up; there are 7 open right now with various
applications. Window 12 has Krell, and I have posted a binary screen
capture to alt.binaries.test so you can see it.
I hope this helps a little. I know from experience that moving from one OS
to another is daunting. I started out with CP/M, then DOS, then Windows 3
then onward. Linux is impressive, even more so when everything on my
computer was obtained for free. Now, I have used Paypal to give donations
to those developers whose products I use. The KMymoney and GNUcash, I sent
each $100, why not -- their efforts helped me make money and they did their
jobs with no expectation of reward.
Whew, I do go on, don't I...
HTH! YMMV, LSMFT
Dave
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