I think we need a discussion

[Ranjan Maitra]

On Tue, 30 Aug 2011 11:47:19 -0500 Tom Horsley <horsley1953 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Tue, 30 Aug 2011 11:26:59 -0500
> Ranjan Maitra wrote:
> 
> > Does a linux user really care for a Trash can?
> 
> Not me, especially not one that conforms to the insanely
> cryptic freedesktop.org trash standards.
> 
> Personally I use the simple window manager FVWM, and I use
> it with my own, built from scratch, .fvwmrc file that doesn't
> get changed out from under me in every release.
> 
> However, on each new release, I am constantly panting around
> after gnome trying to discover what new daemons gnome programs
> rely upon so I can start them in my .xsession file.
> 
> (The gnome developers appear to have the philosophy:
> "never call a subroutine when dbus communication with a
> separate daemon can be substituted, and never start a daemon
> on demand when it can be running 24/7 instead even if
> you only need it once a week." :-).

Hi Tom,

I salute you for your perseverance in sticking to FVWM. I did so, too
but finally gave up in 2007 in favor of XFCE. In late 2009, I switched
to LXDE.

I gave up simply because it became increasingly difficult, but not
impossible perhaps, to keep track of these new daemons. And I am not a
particularly sophisticated user, wanting my computer to actually keep
resources available in order to work for me:-) Also, I wanted to
popularize linux amongst my students, and it does not make any sense to
have them do something so totally different from what I was doing.
Unless someone gives you a hand-me-down fvwm, it can be quite
forbidding. Also, most people will not change a thing, because the
simple act of doing something new is forbidding to them, so burned are
they by their Windoze experience.

I have found both XFCE and LXDE to be fairly adequate for my needs.
LXDE is particular is more configurable, just as like fvwm. Sometimes, I
program some additional things I want, other times I get them from
looking around. (This mailing list has been incredibly helpful to me,
also.)

Personally, I think the "base" of any distribution should be
low-resources and functional. LXDE may perhaps have been a far more
evolved product if some distribution had adopted it as its default. I
look forward to a distribution which has good number of packages, etc
in the repos, but also has a low-resource philosophy.

Best wishes,
Ranjan

Best wishes,
Ranjan