[CS-FSLUG] Re: [Foss-cafe] NI: OfB.biz: I GNU It!

[Jerry VanBrimmer]

On Sat, Jul 23, 2005 at 08:44:35PM -0500, tbutler at ofb.biz wrote:
> 
> Want to know what really changed my mind? I decided I was working for the
> computer, rather than the computer working for me. When I realized I had 
> lost
> all the joy of working on computers, KDE lost its appeal. I realized I 
> wanted
> to get my work done and have time to work on some creative writing or read a
> book... While, for the moment, I'm a IT guy, I'd like to move on, and when I
> do, I'd like to quit fixing computers and spend my time just using them. A
> start is finding a system that doesn't require tweaking and repairing.

Tim - that right there is why I *almost* gave up on Linux. I was sick
and tired of updating this, and patching that, just to get the system
to work the way it was *supposed* to work. And then, just before I
jumped ship, I tried Slackware. Voila! It just worked! Everything just
worked! Amazing! Finally I was able to just *use* the system, instead
of spending my time tweaking and patching. I never have liked Gnome, so
at first I was using KDE with Slack. But, over time I came to realize
that KDE was getting in my way of using Linux the way it was meant to
be used. I also got tired of the Windows-like menu system. One of my
reasons for moving to Linux was to get away from the Windows way of
doing things. Maybe it helps Windows users to feel more comfortable
while trying out Linux, but I was getting tired of it. Also, KDE has one
very annoying quirk that I just couldn't cope with any longer. The
stinking desktop icons won't stay where I put them! Set them up just
where I want them, log out, log back in and they're all over the place!
Yuk! So, I tried various other window managers and have settled on
Fluxbox. Fluxbox has a simple elegance all of it's own. You can even
add icons to it if you want to. It's menus are easy to edit, so you can
add as many apps to the menu as you want. I know you can do this with KDE,
but with Fluxbox it's really simple. Though I've never used an Apple
computer of my own, I do know they are, as you say, very elegant. For
now, Slackware and Fluxbox meets all of my needs. The thing I like
about Slackware is that it "stays put", if you know what I mean. It
doesn't do anything I don't explicitly tell it to do. And, if something
doesn't work, it's most likely because I haven't configured the config
file correctly. Once in a while you get a broken app that needs fixed,
but that's not Slackware's fault. So, I now have a Linux system that I
can *use* every day to get real things done, and I can tweak on it, if
I *want* to.

[Sorry for hijacking this thread, but I've been wanting to say that for
a long time. :-)]



Jerry



-- 
Godspeed,
Jerry
The KING is coming!..................Rev. 1:7
The bottom line......................John 3:3-7
Linux User #153217..................http://counter.li.org