Comments on: How I ended my trial of Gnome 3

By: Bill Dwyer

Bill Dwyer — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 15:20:44 +0000

Yes, I’ve heard of Ratpoison, It’s really not a rebellion against WMs, more like Gnome killed a good standard for something unproven. I think everyone would have been happy if they had kept G2 and called G3 the lite version or web version. I did try Elinks text based browser the other day, it was on my Ultimate Edition 2.9 OS, it was different for sure! One thing, ever since Intel and ADM ended the “speed race”, outside of multi-cores, there really haven’t been any significant changes in desktops, no reason to upgrade. Don’t get me wrong, I could find a use for a tablet to carry with me, but I’d still have to come home to my desktop in the end. As I say, I think of a tablet as and enhancement to or accessory to a desktop, but not a replacement for one. Guess I’ll always be a producer! My roommate spends most of her time on Facebook, she has 6 bros and sisters, and checks Craigslist, but every now and than, she does print receipts and cards, etc. Also as you get older small things don’t seem to work as well as larger things, she even has problems with her cell phone at times, so I don’t see desktops dieing out any time soon.

By: Xaprb

Xaprb — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 13:06:04 +0000

BTW, the other desktop environment I used to use for a long time was ratpoison. Now that’s minimalism. If you’re rebelling against window managers and desktops and stuff, that’s about as far as you can go unless you just stop running X at all. Of course, everything I did was in a terminal, and I even used lynx for browsing.

By: Xaprb

Xaprb — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 13:04:01 +0000

When Apple released the Macbook Air and claimed it was the thinnest and lightest laptop ever, I checked the specs against a Toshiba I used to own in 2003, and they were wrong. Nothing’s really new.

I have a Nook Color tablet now. The best way to explain the difference between the usefulness of tablets and “real” computers is that tablets are for consuming, and real computers are for producing. The list of things you mentioned earlier — video editing, etc — is all producing.

By: Bill Dwyer

Bill Dwyer — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 01:12:14 +0000

Very true and every one forgets the economy isn’t exactly in great shape, either. Sure, I’d like an i7 based, 32 G RAM, 2 2T HD system, but hey, I’m retired, I can’t afford that, at least not now! You know, I’m a retired electronics tech, I can do most hardware upgrades myself, like adding that extra HDD, so unless my mother board dies I probably won’t be in the market for another desktop for a couple of years. I guess with the new tablets, you’d have to subscribe to 4G service as well. Tablets may be here to stay or may not, but as an enhancement or accessory to a desktop, not a replacement. That was one thing that OQO I mention tried to push, use it to replace your laptop. Ha, not as slow as that was! I tried it once with mine, oh yeah, USB 2.0 was out for about a year previous and it had USB 1.0! Toshiba sold a LifeBook that used the same setup and was about the size of a netbook several years back. So, netbooks and tablets are nothing new at all!

By: PJ Brunet

PJ Brunet — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 00:56:58 +0000

“what if a college student need to write a paper, or if you were a graphic designer”

Exactly, most accountants won’t edit spreadsheet on tablets, architects won’t design buildings on tablets, mechanical engineers won’t design parts on tablets, manufacturers won’t run CNC machines from tablets, professional video editors won’t edit video on tablets, that list is a mile long.