Re: I really prefer Linux over everything else

["Fred @ Planetary Server" <user=1474@nabble.blu.org>]

On Mon, 2008-01-21 at 01:13 -0500, Jarod Wilson wrote: 
> On Sunday 20 January 2008 01:13:52 pm [hidden email] wrote: 
... 
> > Hope you don't 
> > have a video running. Hope no one else is using it while you want to. 
> 
> I suppose not. But really, the only applications I typically run remotely are 
> command line anyhow, which works just the same on both Linux and Mac OS X. 

In my brief experience with the Mac on one engagement, I was annoyed 
with how it's command-line console works. It's not quite like KDE at all 
-- differences in the keyboard shortcuts, copy and paste, and other 
things drove me nuts. Not to mention getting the console windows 
perfectly aligned. 

Also, for multiple monitors, the Mac behaves in the way Xinerama does on 
Linux -- tries to treat all your monitors as though they're one -- with 
the obvious annoyance that your desktop bar exists only on one monitor. 
It's very annoying to have to drag the mouse across 3 monitors just to 
launch another application. Windows also has the failing. Neither 
Windows nor Mac give you the option of having a desktop bar on *all* 
monitors like XWindows does.   

I guess I am used to the way KDE does things, and have customized my 
Konsole environment to be attuned to the fact that I may be logged into 
various machines remotely. I've written this nice login script that 
changes the Konsole Schema on the fly when I log into a remote machine 
or even when I run Emacs, and changes it back when I'm done. I'm a 
stickler for this because too many times in the past I've accidentally 
shut down a production server when I meant to shut down my local 
machine! 

I suppose it's possible to do something similar on the Mac, but have not 
had the time to figure it out. BTW, if anyone's interested in my 
automatic Konsole Schema switcher, let me know and I'll make it 
downloadable somewhere. There are other examples of this already 
available, though. 

I do have one nit about Konsole -- whenever I add a new Schema, it seems 
to get confused with schemas it's already using and typically will 
display the wrong one. Anyone know of how to get around that? 

I must confess that 70-90% of my productive KDE use is as a glorified 
console manager. The other windows usually have Emacs running in 
them! :-) 

While we're pounding the pavement with personal preferences and 
opinions, perhaps we can get into a Emacs vs. vi debate. I'm a definite 
Emacs person and love having some of its advanced features available 
when I need them. I know systems types like vi better, but since I have 
to do *some* systems, I always try to install Emacs when I can, and only 
use vi when I have no option. 

I love Emacs' language modes and wouldn't know how to get along without 
them. :-) Also, Emacs used to be lauded as a "resource hog" -- but that 
was in the days when a Megabyte of RAM was "the sky". Today, I find 
Emacs to be far less resource intensive than, say, Eclipse. I used to 
play around with Eclipse and other major IDEs in the not-too-distant 
past, and I always find they tend to get more in the way than they help, 
though they can be VERY helpful with class browsing -- which was the 
main feature I used them for. Debugging was a mixed bag-- and in many 
cases the debug mode would introduce effects not present during normal 
runtime. I find that I can tailor Emacs to do what I want; not what the 
IDE wants, and that other IDEs tend to be more limited on the 
configurability side of things. 

-Fred 



-- 
This message has been scanned for viruses and 
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is 
believed to be clean. 

_______________________________________________ 
Discuss mailing list 
[hidden email] 
http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss