new desktop full o' funk-ass flava....

[symbioidlj]

hmm...

So, today, I fucked around with my Mandrake Linux and got it all prettied up!

I now have a pretty boot screen, a couple new backgrounds(one for each desktop), and some new icon sets. I installed I believe the Liquid theme(which looks like the old candy-style Mac OSX)

I also added a google toolbar to Firebird(the fast/efficient mozilla based browser)



ripped a few more CD's...

I'm very happy with the way my desktop looks now.

The only problem I can tell is that occasionally the kicker(like the windows taskbar) has some shearing effect, where the icons on it kind of lop in half, but once I open a new window it's fixed. I think it may have to do with some of the eye-candy I have turned on(specifically the drop-shadow effect)

Of course, once the freedesktop or ouvert comes out, I think there'll be a more natural approach to translucency and shadows in the X kingdom... Once that happens, these ugly hacks will be no more.

I can't wait until KDE4, and kernel 2.6, and XFree86 v5(???) I think linux can start to really look pretty then(IMO, it already looks more pretty, or can be made to look more pretty, than winXP)

I read Linus think it'll be another 10 years before Linux is ready to compete for the Home Desktop, and I think he's right. Some of the geekier people say "Oh it's ready now! People are just lazy." whatever... that's some comments I've seen on osnews. But ultimately, the one thing that I think holds linux back(and you've read this from me by now, if you've read any of my linux posts) isn't how "pretty" it is.

We've got anti-aliased fonts. Yes, some more compatibility with certain progs in the windows world would be nice, but it's pretty solid now. And I'm sure one of these days there will be an open source way(not the crossover plugin, which is pretty proprietary), that's easy to use to get WindowsMedia and QuickTime to play in linux... That's one problem.

Speed is another issue, but it sounds like 2.6 helps a tremendous amount in that department, as well as KDE4, which apparently looks better, but loads quicker than 3.xxx(I believe this is what I've read from early reports)

Once things can speed up, that'll be a tremendous booster.

But the ultimate problem with linux is software installation. This is what I've posted about before many-a-time. I don't know what the solution is. There are various hacks to get it to work. I think the most elegant way is the gentoo portage(based of the FreeBSD Ports system, which itself is very slick from what I read) This is certainly somewhat limiting, because it requires software to be built into the repository. I don't know how it all works. But basically it's a tree that allows you download the latest version of a software and all the dependencies are worked out automatically. Maybe I just know how to use RPMs properly, but I swear it's a big pain in the ass at times to get stuff working. Many times, I just end up compiling on my own if I can't get an RPM to work. I'm still learning, as I should always be doing about stuff...

I'm enjoying it. I know I bitch alot, but it's rewarding to see the final results of my labors.

NOTES on shots: Notice the drop shadow on the windows(the livejournal client shows a drop-shadow against the background of my "friends" page)

I have two pics of the backgrounds, so you can see them. Also, I have the weather in the lower right, and my new icon schemes showing.

The lain image is my bootscreen:

Comments

[vesicular.livejournal.com]

Linux needs what OS X has for installing. Just drag the app to wherever you want it and it's installed. No installers, no "registries", none of that crap. I think they also need to innovate a bit. Everything on linux seems to be ripoffs of Windows or OS X. I doubt it'll ever take over on the desktop, though I'd like to be proven wrong.

That OS X theme looks pretty old BTW. Doesn't look much like that in Panther anymore. I like the "See, Hear, Speak no Evil" desktop though. ;)