[clue-tech] nifty linux desktop graphics tricks

[Dave Price]

I Agree with you Matt - nice graphics won't bring new users to Linux. 
And I own and love a mac - seriously looking at the new intel
powerbooks because it should make it even easier for me to have:

 - all the great FOSS tools that I have come to depend on.

 - a portable platform with an OS that is rock-solid and perfectly
integrated with the hardware it runs on - power management, display
and sound being at the top of my list there.

As much as I love my Mac, and my Linux desktop, I cannot always tell
my clients, friends and family that either a Mac or Linux is ideal for
them.

Novell's work in the area of a desktop is encouraging though.  I hope
we will see more of:

- Hardware detection driver installation - SUSE 10 is on my plate to try.

- A really seemless desktop (I use OpenOffice on Mac and Linux) - Even
on a Mac, I have to "know" that OO is needed, for example to view
certain email attachments - when Linux makes this "knowing" as
transparent to novices and and attention-deficit users as MS-Windoze
does, we will have made a great step.

I love all the choices in Linux, myself and "more-than-one-way"
appeals to me, but some obvious defaults for common situations would
help more people than it would ever "get in the way of".

- A real replacement for MS-Outlook / MS-Exchange that is easy to
install and support, and woks as well (from a user's perspective) as
Outlook with Exchange does when all the hard work has beendone to set
it up in a corporate environment
What will bring users to Linux - besides just being fed up with

... okay. I am done ranting ...

aloha,
dave

On 3/18/06, Matt Gushee <matt at gushee.net> wrote:
> Hex Star wrote:
> > I like GUI special effects, to me it adds to the elegence of the OS
>
> Yeah, many people do. And nobody's saying that nice graphics aren't
> nice. What bothers me (and, I think, Jed too) is that--as everyone knows
> who's ever tried it--nice graphics take a lot of effort to develop. And
> some people appear to believe that having more and better eye candy will
> attract new users en masse to Linux, which is probably untrue.
>
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