[clue-tech] Using a terminal/console for the desktop

[Michael J. Hammel]

On Fri, 2008-01-11 at 17:28 -0700, Nate Duehr wrote:
> Gnome/KDE/XWindows in general... bring very little value to the table 
> for a properly trained person using a Unix machine.  They get more done 
> from the command line.  :-)

Um, I wouldn't go that far.  I have GNOME with the workspace manager
configured on all my desktops (at work and home).  I use each desktop
with multiple terminal windows open in each workspace, plus some
graphical clients like a browser or mail reader.  I then bounce around
various source trees, do manual downloads, read files, launch command
line apps (xpdf, etc.) from the various terminal windows on each
workspace.  I don't iconify anything (Nautilus is useless to me, but I
don't suspect that's a common condition for desktop users).  I suppose I
could map a bunch of VT's to keys and do the same thing, but it's a lot
easier to do under X with a workspace manager.  FYI, I've been doing
things this way since the early days of FVWM and it's workspace manager.

At work I typically have 8 terminal windows open on the first two
workspaces just to bounc around multiple source trees.  Another
workspace is used for logins to remote hosts, as needed.  Another
workspace is filled with terminals used for system maintenance.  And so
forth.

Not to mention running XFce under cygwin to create a fully functional
development environment under Windows (which otherwise would be
completely useless) using the same workspace metaphore.

This is all far easier to do under X than under a non-X environment,
even if you're a master of "screen".
-- 
Michael J. Hammel                                    Principal Software Engineer
mjhammel at graphics-muse.org                           http://graphics-muse.org
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