Windows XP vs. X11 GUIs [was: Re: [plug] [OT] Looking for cheap P4]

[James Devenish]

In message <412EDE9E.2060102 at postnewspapers.com.au>
on Fri, Aug 27, 2004 at 03:11:26PM +0800, Craig Ringer wrote:
> I have at various points used XFCE4, an open source window manager 
> and basic desktop environment that has some similarities with CDE.

Ah yes, XFCE's not so bad IIRC, though I can't distinguish quite well
between XFCE-related experiences and CDE-related experiences any more.
For the last year, you see, my non-Mac experience has mostly been using
the Debian woody versions of GNOME and Sawfish.

In message <412EE233.7010700 at westnet.com.au>
on Fri, Aug 27, 2004 at 03:26:43PM +0800, Luke Dudney wrote:
> I suppose I better qualify that... I tried to use CDE on a solaris
> workstation for a while (read: on and off for a few days), but became
> infuriated with trying to do even simple tasks. I'm just glad my
> experience was purely for interest's sake and I was not in a situation
> of trying to get anything productive achieved.

Interestingly, we seem to share the same opinion (generically) but from
the complete opposite point of view! By the sounds of it, I found Win XP
to be similarly intolerable. Since my level of experience is currently
"new user" / "learner", my experiences with it have only been for the
"simple tasks" so far. I have some experience with Windows 2000, so I
carry that with me when coming to Windows XP (maybe it is baggage?).

Of course, since Windows is an entire operating system, so I don't
attempt to compare it to GNOME or CDE at that level (and obviously CDE
doesn't attempt to solve all the problems that GNOME does and GNOME
doesn't attempt to solve all the problems that Windows does). But I
found rough edges using the XP GUI which I recognised from CDE and GNOME
1. So, it didn't strike me as being a noteworthy environment -- there
were so many rough edges and error/failure situations. I guess I just
have the same frustrations that first-time Linux users have. If you had
a fresh installation of a Linux desktop and you kept getting "not
responding" dialogues, information boxes that pop up where they can't be
read, and errors when logging in, font problems, and random behaviour of
a taskbar, you'd be as unimpressed with Linux as I have been with XP.
(Also, I apparently have a habit of inducing the 'Sticky Keys' popup --
I think I must habitually twiddle the shift keys while waiting for
things to happen.) I'm not saying that Windows XP doesn't *do* things,
so I guess I'm saying that it hadn't lived up to my implicit
expectations of coherence.