The Ubuntu Experiment

[Aart Koelewijn]

On Wed, 30 Jul 2008 13:58:09 -0400, Steve C. Lamb wrote:

> On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 02:15:51PM -0300, Derek Broughton wrote:
>> OK, I consider myself an expert - can you explain how it benefits me? 
>> I'm serious.  I've never found a decent use for those desktops, so I
>> wouldn't be able to convince a newbie.  The first thng I do on a KDE
>> install, is reduce my desktops from 4 to 2, so that I can get the panel
>> in half the height, but I practically never use even the second.
> 
>     It allows you to group like tasks together and be able to flip
>     between
> tasks.  For example when I am working heavily on a Linux workstation
> with 4 desktops I have the following divisions:
> 
> 1: Communications.  Email, IM applications go here. 2: Work.  All
> applications which I need for my work go here. 3: Scratchpad.  In case I
> need to open a terminal for some reason it goes here.
> 4: Web Browsing/research.  Browsing the 'net as well as long term
> documentation I want to just leave open remain here.
> 
>     So if I want to send an email instead of looking for my email
> application's entry in the task bar I just click on desktop #1.  While
> this might not be a big difference imagine having 2-3 programs set up
> just so to see all the relevant information on desktop 2.  Flip to
> desktop 1, fire off the email, now flip back and you're windows are
> right back where they were as you need them.
> 
>     Is it needed by everyone?  Nope.  Is it something that everyone
>     would wrap
> their brain around and integrate into their workflow?  Nope.  Is it
> something that a lot of people miss when they're confined to an OS which
> does not offer it.  Oh you bet'cha!

I started using multiple screens about 20 years ago on a Amiga 500, 1 
high resoltion black/white screen to do some programming, a low 
resolution colour screen to test the results. When that Amiga became too 
old, I had to make a choice between Windows 3.11 and Linux. I choose 
Linux because off multiple screens and stable multitasking (like the 
Amiga had). Soon I also used UUCP for usenet, which implied a mailserver 
and newsserver, all standard avalaible in Linux. I think shortly before 
that time a Bill Gates said something about the internet would never be 
off any importance and 640 Kb was enough memory in any foreseeable future.

Aart