What's your desktop environment like? (desktop thread)

[ephan]

I recently moved to Awesome WM, and then I moved to Arch with Awesome WM, and I just love it.

[allynfolksjr]

You still have bash as your default shell? Fail.
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[Ashbad]

Finally went and organized mine! I went through some time planning how to make every function I use at my fingertips at either just a simple click in the taskbar, or a few keystrokes in command prompt. I wrote about 50 batch scripts for starting up each application I use often exactly the way I like it ("tf2" starts Team Fortress 2 in a psuedo-fullscreen mode, plus a few other things like typing "dark" puts my screen brightness at 14%). Three cheers for organization!


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-Ashbad

[willrandship]

I think the main reason linux usually has such uncluttered desktops is because the default location for most file saves is either the home folder or downloads.

It makes cleanup easier, too. I just go through downloads, ctrl-a, ctrl-click anything I still need (most has been copied to other areas, or extracted, etc.) and go shift-delete.
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[technomonkey76]

willrandship, most OSes have fairly standard save locations, though for third-party applications, it can vary greatly. Using Linux has nothing to do with having an uncluttered desktop; it's simply whether the user removes old files or not. Though Linux tends to be used more by the geekier types of people, not every geek makes a great effort to keep their desktops and folders uncluttered. There is no real correlation between OS preference and organization; it varies greatly on a per-user basis.

Ashbad, that is what I like to see: a clean desktop with a pony wallpaper (). I personally prefer dark backgrounds for my computers, especially if I use a higher brightness setting. It lowers the strain on one's eyes. I find the concept shared by you, me, and many other Cemetechians of making applications and settings easily accessible highly appealing. Not much separates your desktop from other Windows 7 users, but unless one of us uses a UXTheme patcher, the Windows UI is going to be fairly standard among the Windows users here and elsewhere.

Also, though I am quite late for this, I am going to insert a lame joke here: Nikky likes to bash bash, eh?
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[juju2143]

Well, Windows is pretty much the only OS where most, if not every app will try to put their icon directly on the desktop when you install it, like if the Start Menu wasn't enough. There's an option to hide the icons though. Mac and most Linux distros, by convention, don't really put their icons on the desktop, only leaving the icon for the CD when inserted and the home directory. Of course, it won't keep the people who likes to put all their stuff on the desktop from doing so.

And I totally agree with the dark desktop, most of the time when I use my computer, there's no or minimal lights on outside the computer screen, so a black wallpaper helps reducing the strain to the eyes.

Oh, also pretty wallpaper is pretty.
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[KermMartian]

A delayed thanks for showing me that archey program, Ephan! I discovered that if you run under Ubuntu it displays the Ubuntu logo instead and still works, which is quite handy. I'll have to post screenshots from my office desktop one day.
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[elfprince13]

15 pages later, my desktop really hasn't changed.
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[Aes_Sedia5]

haha. I will post a SS of mine if I get time. and remember.. I am using Fedora now, so things have changed.
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[comicIDIOT]

[benryves]

[seana11]

I've finally gotten used to having my taskbar on top, which really wasn't too much of a change after I realized that I used alt-tab even more than anhything else. I'm trying out compiz at the moment. It's great, although it does have issues with Xdamage (Resulting in stuff like this: http://img.removedfromgame.com/imgs/top.png) Other than that, I like the smoothness and the prettiness it adds to my desktop (at little to no preformance hit, which was the big thing for me). At this point, I just need to find a nice theme for compiz, and fix the xdamage issue, and I'll be set for a great environment.
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[comicIDIOT]

My integrated graphics went out so I'm using my iPad as a ghetto monitor for the time being. Once I finish the work I need to get done in my computer, I'm backing up the second hard drive and taking my Mini in to be replaced. Then I just got to restore it from the last hourly back up \o/


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-Alex

[Aes_Sedia5]

Wait. you do hourly backups? Either you have a massive HDD, or I am missing something..
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[Tari]

Incremental backups require very little space.
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Ask questions the smart way · タリ

[elfprince13]

[Spyro543]

Yay here's my desktop!

I need to get that recycle bin icon off of my desktop though...It ruins everything!
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[seana11]

[technomonkey76]

Spyro, I love the old Apple logo, from when Apple's systems were innovative and a fairly decent price for the generation's technology. Granted, the largest leaps in technology so far have been witnessed, and it's not as easy to innovate. Apple does what they can to enhance the user experience. I only wish that they would allow user-serviceable parts and drop the prices. If they did that, I would definitely buy Apple products. I do like the UI, the OS is a Unix-based one, and the hardware can work fairly quickly [though sometimes overheat... (looks at iPad "3" which is actually referred to only as the "new iPad" for some reason)]. The only things holding me from Apple products is the restrictiveness and the insanely high prices.

You know, if Apple couldn't get patents so easily, we'd have great alternatives for lower costs.

However, one thing I do feel is actually innovative despite the issues is the Magic Trackpad. If you want to game, get a mouse, but if you don't, its multi-touch gesture capability can enhance the user experience, even on a desktop.

However, before I get too far off-topic... I am leaving my desktop environment as a dull, non-unique thing to access programs and files until Ivy Bridge arises and I get a new computer with that (the unlocked "K" i5 chip), a Z77 chipset motherboard, and a Kepler GPU.
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[turiqwalrus]

Here's mine, with my new wallpaper (sorry 'bout the large image)

As you can see, this is openSuse... As with most others with linux, it's kept relatively blank. I keep my 'quick links' to the left, though(minesweeper, firefox, etc.)
The whole thing with icon sizes and whatnot is Plasma Workspace; it came with my specific distro, and I haven't found a way to change it away yet, short of installing something different. It's cool, but slow
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