Re:Two years after Vista launch, 71% of business PCs still r...
by revorad on Monday February 02, 2009 @06:46PM
(#463157)
Thanks, those links look great.
You're lucky with the gf mate. Mine just keeps asking me, "What are these secret clever things you keep doing with the computer?"
The reason I want to move away from Windows is to learn more about how Linux works and use it to do more fun things. I've used Ubuntu a few times and I liked it. But I find because it's deliberately aimed at non-geeks, it has too much fluff.
And that's why I like xfce. It's a really minimal, simple desktop - less distraction for me. You should try it.
Re:Two years after Vista launch, 71% of business PCs still r...
by joeyo on Monday February 02, 2009 @08:51PM
(#463331)
And "minimal" here doesn't mean something necessarily aimed at power users like fluxbox, ratpoison or awesome.
I've always thought of xfce as a sort of gnome-lite-- it looks just as pretty and has all the gui toolbars and widgets that you would expect, but uses a tiny fraction of the resources. It's a great desktop environment for laptops and older computers.
I was lucky in that my girlfriend was much more deeply into Linux than I was when I decided to get rid of Windows altogether almost two years ago now. She was a big help. If I didn't know something, I'd just ask her. Unfortunately, I can't offer my girlfriend as a resource. ;-)
Even though I consider myself a geek (and you sound like you are as well), this book, Ubuntu for Non-Geeks, helped me out:
http://www.amazon.com/Ubuntu-Linux-Non-Geeks-Project-Based-G...
Since you're using Debian, a lot of that will apply, too.
I also just read a whole lot of man pages and used the great Ubuntu Guide site:
http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Intrepid
And I used the Linux command reference PDF here:
http://fosswire.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/fwunixref.pdf
And of course a lot of Googling.
It does bother me that Ubuntu is coming to mean "Linux" to a lot of people, but it is a good distro.
What do you like about xfce? Never tried it myself.