Ok, the answer on original question...

I use Linux. Current environment is: openbox for window manager, tint2 for taskbar/panel. Rox-filer for file manager/desktop.

Looks somewhat like this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fhunter200 ... otostream/

As for desktop environments: I have seen and used all of the big 3 (gnome 2, kde 3, xfce) plus LXDE. But that was some time ago, so I do not know of current state.

I also used window maker, fluxbox/blackbox and icewm window managers at some points of time.

PS. You forgot fvwm window manager, it allows theming and supports transparency.

fvwm supports transparency?.....thats' new . whenever i install it fhunter it looks so fugly.

something remeniscent of early unix themeing .

NB = I often wonder the rate at which we'd prolong our hardware if there werent so much bloat collected as a result from too many system updates breaking dependencies here and there.

honestly there should be no reason why a windows file explorer should slow down when im unzipping a file while multitasking.we have 7 cores. It seems like the art to code efficiently is gone.

foxytaur (imported) wrote: Thu Dec 06, 2012 4:12 pm fvwm supports transparency?.....thats' new . whenever i install it fhunter it looks so fugly.

something remeniscent of early unix themeing .

NB = I often wonder the rate at which we'd prolong our hardware if there werent so much bloat collected as a result from too many system updates breaking dependencies here and there.

honestly there should be no reason why a windows file explorer should slow down when im unzipping a file while multitasking.we have 7 cores. It seems like the art to code efficiently is gone.

For fvwm see here: http://www.fvwm.org/documentation/faq/#0.3 setting it up is not trivial. You can look at fvwm-crystal

http://home.gna.org/fvwm-crystal/screenshots.html

Bloat... well, someone in windows programming team failed multithreaded programming. That is a definite. And do not start me on this...

Better answer me, why M$ Outlook totally hangs in case of network timeout? Oh, and explorer crashes every time I drag a mail from outlook to some disk?

The art of code, in commercial software? With deadlines? It works - ship it.

I have seen my share of ugly hacks going in production due to deadlines. I even wrote some of them .

And remember, programming is like sex - one little mistake or hack, and you support it for the rest of your life.

PS. As for machine lifetime... when I worked as a sysadmin at the university, we had known good set of software. Mostly due to the fact that it tended to bloat with every version. It was outdated by a year or two, but it did its job on low end machines and did it well and fast. Well, one of the labs was not updated for 3 or 4 years, due to the fact that it had a fragile combination of software, that took some time to install and set.

And the machine lifetime isn't really long, hard drives/motherboards do fail, and it was easier to get money for replacement machines, than to get spare parts somehow. (Ok, we fixed some motherboards ourselves).

It can be beat by using diskless machines with network boot, but you need a fast server for this.

I heard some "Ugly Hacks" commenting on national events on the TV today.



Kinda couldn't resist that double meaning.

well fhunter i'll give fvwm crystal a try. if i decide i dont like it ill go back to joe's window manager.

though been playing around with rox filer. seems really easy to use with everything and even the window instance being treated as a icon. though its functions seem limited.