The last time I switched my usual GUI:
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Ubuntu Natty/Unity (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, just upgraded to Ubuntu Natty last week and am trying to get used to the Unity interface. There's a lot I like about it, and also a lot of small things that are very irksome, but nothing so bad that I'd want to go back to Gnome Classic. The Mac-style top bar with pulldown menus works for me although it takes some getting used to. It's a lot faster to get to the menu since getting at a menu item you want doesn't require you to make the mental effort to aim. Sliding to the top gets you there right away. I only wish it was consistent across all apps. I also like how the Windows 7-ish taskbar/dock is on the left side, saving vertical screen space in these days of 16:9 aspect monitors. Some of my irks is that a large application like Firefox always starts up maximized. I never got used to running applications maximized like that, and I do wish that some update will soon fix this. Another annoying thing is how many applications, like a Gnome Terminal or Emacs, will start up with their bottom bit just beyond the lower edge of the screen. With Emacs this is particularly annoying, since the minibuffer appears at the bottom, beyond the edge of the screen, unless I move the window. This is also annoying for Gnome Terminal because once you've filled up the window, the last line (where the command prompt will wind up being!) is beyond the edge of the screen. I imagine there must be a setting somewhere that controls window gravity, but I have no idea where it is.
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How ironic. Everyone I talk to hates Unity. IMHO It is a fall back to "trying to be the other interface". If it wasn't for the "workspace switcher" and tabbed terms in gnome terminal I wouldn't have been able to use Gnome classic either. I don't know how people can stand searching around for minimized applications instead of just switching to a location on the desktop to a place where the application (and the other related applications) is open. Do people really only use one application at a time? I'l
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Unity is the reason why I switched from Ubuntu to Xubuntu last week. It's the first time I've tried xfcd, but so far I like it just fine.
Hates them, we does! Nasty Window Managers! (Score:2)
My Ubuntu box got Unity as part of the upgrade last month, so I marked "1-4 weeks ago", and then last week it decided to change to the "Unity with the menu bar in black on black" version, or something very much like that - maybe it was the "too skinny to see" version instead. I haven't had time to fix it. I'm likely to switch to Xubuntu or Lubuntu or maybe go heavyweight with Kubuntu just to avoid Unity.
Meanwhile, my other Linux boxes are mostly non-GUI, and I talk to them via ssh or browsers. And my Win
Re: xfcE (oops!) (Score:2)
Ha! Sorry... typo!
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If you go to the Ubuntu forums or a site like omgubuntu.co.uk, there are a LOT of people who like Ubuntu. It's hard to tell if they're blind Ubuntu fans or are more capable of learning and dealing with a new GUI, but they're out there.
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I use the same editor that I used 20 years ago.
A good tool doesn't necessarily need to tossed out like last season's overpriced fashion accessory.
Forced change is stupid. I should be able to keep using a software tool because "software doesn't break". If I happen to like a new tool, I should be able to switch to it because I happen to like it and I find it useful.
People who like to create artificial churn should be tarred and feathered regardless of what excuses they give to themselves or others.
That said.
Unity made me switch (Score:2)
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Another annoying thing is how many applications, like a Gnome Terminal or Emacs, will start up with their bottom bit just beyond the lower edge of the screen. With Emacs this is particularly annoying, since the minibuffer appears at the bottom, beyond the edge of the screen, unless I move the window. .
A real emacs user doesn't need to see the minibuffer. They keybindings should just flow from your subconscious. In fact, I've been using emacs for so long that I rarely even look at the screen. Most of the time I stare out the window while editing code. I'm more productive this way.
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Sliding to the top gets you there right away.
Its OK on a laptop but I gave up on it as with a large monitor I just felt like I was spending 3/4 of the time sliding the mouse to the top of the screen.
Alt+tab is good if your hands are on the keyboard, or if you're using a trackpad - but it's a bit of a pain if you're using a mouse.
Does Using Two Systems Count? (Score:2)
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Similar situation here. Windows XP at work; Windows 7, Slackware Linux and Mac OS X on the personal laptop. Android on my phone, Vista on my set top box.
If the focus of the poll is to reference the GUI of the OS I'm working in, well I regularly drop out of Xfce into the bare terminal on Slack, as a lot of the work I do in that OS is easier to accomplish on the prompt and it avoids distractions.
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I have an ION nettop with Win7 on it for a single app: namely AnyDVD.
The rest of the time, I use GNOME on Ubuntu and just connect to the WinBox with RDP as needed to rip stuff.
Machines are cheap enough (and even small enough) now that this is not such a big deal.
The nettop and the BD drive both sit on the top of one of my towers with room to spare.
There's a Mac under the desk too... a decommissioned MythTV box.
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Did Handbrake stop making the Ubuntu port? It's a great alternative to Windows DVD rippers, it's free, and it works on all three major desktop platforms. There are a few other DVD rippers for Ubuntu, and for that neglected Mac too.
I do understand though; I have a friend who refused to upgrade to Windows 7 because it didn't fully support the copy of Cool Edit Pro he's been dependent on since 2001. When I showed him Audacity he finally made the jump and hasn't looked back.
Not since OS 9 to OS X (Score:2)
I "upgraded" from OS 9 to OS X 10.0 (a true work in progress) in 2001, but I was still dual booting between the two quite often until 10.1 came out later in the year. It's been all Aqua goodness ever since then.
I switched from Kubuntu to OS X (Score:2)
...not lookin back
Yes, I'm a refugee from GNOME's demise. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm a forced refugee when GNOME vanished from Fedora. I don;t consider the tablet based GNOME3 to even be in the same linage since it is so different and incompatible with the past project's work.
Guess folks got wind of Windows 8's similar tablet/touch based interface and the tail lamp chasin' was on. Ubuntu's Unity is the same iPad/Android look. Kinda pointless since the odds of ever getting installed onto a tablet are near zero and the whole tiled/touchme thing is kinda wastefull of space on a twenty inch display with a mouse.
But now I'm getting happy with XFCE and life goes on. The takeaway lesson here is that the next time some pinhead pontificates about how we should be pushing all the desktop projects to come together into one single project (to bring about The Year of Linux on the Desktop of course) the proper response is to punch em in the nuts. Diversity is the only that can save us when a project's leadership goes off its trolly.
Just having minor glitches getting previously working launchers working with XFCE, other than that it's all good. Launchers firing up remote X clients vis ssh fail because they aren't getting the environment varables for the ssh agent unless I add an otherwise useless terminal. Stuff like that. As we refugees flood in I'm sure XFCE will evolve pretty fast in the next few months.
Re:Yes, I'm a refugee from GNOME's demise. (Score:5, Insightful)
Another vote for XFCE, and I'm glad to see how it's moving ahead. 4.8 just came out and added some nice improvements (the biggest for me is that now it's much easier to manage multiple monitors), but it still didn't need any major, revolutionary changes. Same old panel, same old window manager (which works beautifully, I might add), same old desktop. Nothing that needs to be changed. Does exactly what a DE should in my opinion - it allows me to get my work done, and stays out of the way otherwise -- the perfect balance of simplicity, customizability, and user-friendliness.
In fact, around my university there are quite a few kiosks for web browsing, and they all run Xfce on Fedora. That should say one thing: it gets the job done.
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Also forgot to mention the stability - very stable too. It shouldn't be that surprising though - greater simplicity, less room for bugs. Very nice...
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Gnome 3 was well under way before Windows 8 previews were out. Claiming that Gnome 3 is taillight chasing an unreleased operating system is a bit disingenuous, just because you don't like it. Besides that, when I first saw Windows 7, I thought, wow that looks a lot like Linux, most like KDE.
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XFCE here too. On all my machines (home and field) Gnome3 was unable to be correctly initialized and with that: one gets a desktop that is as useful as... (I have nothing good to say here so I wont.) The whole Gnome3 sidestep was for me the last straw because I wasn't overly happy with gnome since 2.18 or there abouts... (Fedora 8 I believe.) After that it felt more and more like they insisted on shooting themselves in the foot. With Fedora 14 I ditched metacity for Compiz+emerald but was never fully satisf
Re:Yes, I'm a refugee from GNOME's demise. (Score:4, Interesting)
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If I wanted my computer to look like a smartphone, I would plug a monitor into my Nexus.
I also went to Xubuntu. XFCE is simple and clean. Of course, being less popular, there are a few limitations. For example, Dropbox doesn't interface well with Thunar, neither does Mercurial. There are workarounds, of course.
I switched to OS/X (Score:3)
Several weeks ago I switched from Ubuntu to OS/X on a Hackintosh. I hadn't owned a Mac since my 512k in the 1980s. I had always hated that Mac because I couldn't find the command line. However, having got an iPod Touch and then an iPad, I thought I would give OS/X a shot.
I hated it. I couldn't get used to it at all, and the feeling lasted for a long time. Why is the menu bar at the top? command-tab switches applications, but not windows within applications. You can never tell what's running without a bunch of effort. Then, my wife asked me an interesting question: why does Word start quickly sometimes, and other times it is really slow to start? I began thinking of how to explain this goofy situation that the application doesn't actually quit when you close the window, and then I realized the truth of it. Sometimes Word starts fast, and sometimes it's slow. Don't worry about it. Just click. You don't know where your photos are when you import them into iPhoto? Don't worry, just click. Every application you ever started today is still running? That's what the VMM is for so don't worry, just click.
Now, I'm a real Mac user. Well, I paid the price of an iPad for my desktop, so I suppose I'm not a true Mac user. However, I have come to truly love the abject simplicity of using a Mac. I love the dock, the app store, all the shortcut keys, all the stuff that works that way when you try it... This abomination could really take off.
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Bind exposé to a hot corner, and your problems with finding windows will be over forever.
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Bind it to a hot corner? Just use the four finger downward swipe if you have a multi-touch trackpad.
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You're turning me on.
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Here's the best way to navigate a Mac: Spotlight. Just type what you want and click enter. Type Word + Enter and Microsoft Word will open. Office + Enter and LibreOffice will open. It's 10x faster than using any GUI. It's like a command line if you didn't have to be specific (like the ones you see in cheesy 80/90s movies where it was almost like there were no commands, the computer just understood English) -- I've had a 100% success rate with it. Whatever program, file, or folder I need I can find it as fas
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I will never buy a Macbook until they get rid of trackpads.
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His point was that Macbook trackpads are so far ahead of any other (it's even better than a mouse for anything besides gaming or precision photo editing or the like) it's ridiculous... I felt the same way you did until I tried one. I mean really tried one, not just casually in an apple store, and customized in a way that suits me.
And I can't stand trackpads on any other computer I've ever tried. But now I can't see myself buying anything but another macbook pro - not just because of the trackpad, but it's a
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Command+Tab switches Applications, and Command+` switches between windows within an application. Word does some font cacheing stuff that can make it take a very long time to start up sometimes. In older versions at least, turning off the font live previews made startup a ton faster.
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That shortcut took me literally years to figure out by myself... no kidding.
For the rest I'm also the kind of guy who likes to figure out stuff by himself, not asking for help (well a Google search sometimes) especially when it comes to using applications.
And definitely not help desks. I have asked questions to help desks after I really couldn't work out how to do something (and being convinced that it IS possible), only to have the whole help desk unable to answer my question. I actually have the same p
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I just look at the dock and can see what is running there. I'm not sure why this is complicated. I've rarely every needed to open up the activity monitor.
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Define "GUI" please (Score:2)
I switched my GUI 0.4 seconds ago from my console window to my firefox window.
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Wow you type fast!
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Can't we have a GUI that doesn't loose keystrokes? (Score:2)
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I get the impression he doesn't want an absolute rule. He wants "politeness".
"No window can steal focus until X seconds after last keystroke in the currently window, after which the window that tried to steal focus should be brought forward"
Do GUI versions count? (Score:2)
jdb2
Always switching? (Score:2)
I have two macs, a couple PCs, several linux boxes with a few flavors and a couple virtual servers running on my WinDoze box. I've switch 3 or 4 times today not counting CLI.
Or...I could say that this is my "usual" GUI setup and haven't switched anything in ages.
switched? (Score:3)
Does this mean switched for good, or does it count if you switch temporarily for testing or experimentation? Or if you use different GUIs on different machines? On my main home box, I'm still using FVWM, but I frequently play with other GUIs on it. My main menu even has a Window Manager section with five entries at the moment (E17, Fluxbox, FVWM, Ratpoison, Window Maker). If we count other machines, then I switch between FVWM, GNOME and Windows all the time.
So my answer is either A) within the last week (daily, actually), B) 1-12 months (last month, actually), or C) over 5 years (more like 12), depending.
Usually just when I get a new machine (Score:2)
*{nix|BSD}, I tend to use either on very old machines, or on servers with no need for a GUI. My Arch server doesn't even have X installed. My other box, a "rescued" computer about a decade old, can't handle m
POKE 53280,0:POKE 53281,0 (Score:4, Funny)
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Why so dark?
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More often than 4 hours (Score:2)
Not since... (Score:2)
Not since my computer was stolen two years ago. I had been using LiteStep on my XP machine and the standard layout for my Ubuntu laptop. Thieves seemed to have missed my laptop., which was and is broken. They took my PC though. I had insurance out for theft in the house I was living at. I got a check for 1k and got my self a new Windows 7 based PC and that's when I changed my GUI. I really wish LiteStep worked on windows 7 :(
Openbox (Score:2)
Last month from Ubuntu to Crunchbang Linux
Escaping the instbility (Score:2)
Kubuntu (Score:2)
Switched to Kubuntu last week, and not looking back. Everything works together so much better than it did in Ubuntu/Gnome2. I was also surprised to find out it has desktop effects even without hardware acceleration.
Gnome 3 seems like a nice interface for tablets, I might use it when I get one later this year. No idea why anyone would want Unity, since Gnome3 seems to do everything it does, but better (in both visuals and functionality).
At Every Eyewink (Score:2)
I code on a Mac (love it), the code runs on a VM with Ubuntu/Gnome (good enough), I test on XP (have to).
I get the keyboard shortcuts (e.g. Ctrl-C vs. Cmd-C vs. Ctrl-Shift-C) right almost every tenth time.
Back to XFCE (Score:2)
Tried Unity and didn't like it. Went back to traditional gnome and decided that it was pointless to hang on to something that wasn't going to stick around since Gnome3 is their future. XFCE does everything I need and gets out of the way.
Question (Score:2)
Does switching from Emacs 22 to Emacs 23 count?
What Do You Mean "Switched"? (Score:2)
Funnily enough in all three environments I mostly use the GUI to launch command line shells and Emacs. Even after all these years I still feel most comfortable with the command line and fumble around a bit when trying to accomplish the same tasks through the GUI.
FVWM 4EVA! (Score:2)
Still using FVWM here. Have been for a decade plus. This means I don't waste time relearning the UI every few years and instead can focus on being productive and actually doing the work I want to do. Same keystrokes, same menus, same mouse movements.
Only in the computer world is constant relearning of the human-machine interface considered "progress".
I changed it on my phone. (Score:2)
Just happened to ask at the right time. (Score:2)
I just changed from GNOME to KDE and am exploring other options too. Before that it had been about 5 years or more...
Makes no difference to me (Score:3)
The "About" entry says it's GNOME - I really don't care.
PUIs! (Score:2)
Switch my rump. You're all using Xerox Parc User Interfaces-- PUIs!
Every upgrade. (Score:2)
Where is the "When Mark Shuttleworth force-fed Unity down my throat" option?
Been playing with tiling window managers. (Score:2)
an hour ago (Score:2)
windows at work, mac at home...
I miss Sawfish(mill) and OpenLook (Score:2)
Both did nothing except what I told them, and both were readily scriptable for new menu items.
Further, neither wasted real estate for tool/menu bars; the entire root window was a "menu bar".
Sawfish even had Gnome support to make it easy to run those tools. Although KDE tools didn't have quite the same level of integration, they did work.
Same GUI for over ten years, or one (Score:2)
For about a year, I have been using Window Maker and GNOME. Just not GNOME's window manager.
Before that, I used only Window Maker. And that's since the late '90s. Before that I used Afterstep briefly.
I have Window Maker's more NeXTly features disabled.
I can not stand a window manager that hides the resizebar inside the title bar, like Metacity (GNOME) and MS Windows do. I start dragging the resizebar when I was aiming to drag the window around. Hiding controls is just bad UI design.
Window Maker also has win
GUIs are for... (Score:2)
WIMPs, surely!
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(and I don't mean Weakly Interacting Massive Particles)
Define GUI (Score:2)
20 years with twm (Score:2)
I started using twm in 1991, and I have yet to find a reason to switch. All the newer window managers seem to insist on controling things. I want control over where my icons go. I want control over what all my buttons do. I don't want some control bar or other clutter.
Updated KDE (Score:2)
Since then I've had countless problems with my KDE sessions, audio playback, VirtualBox and more. Yay stability!
Interesting that nobody changes Windows shells... (Score:2)
I've been using Emerge Desktop for more than a year now on Windows 7 and it's awesome. Takes a little bit to set up, but so much cleaner than Explorer. Plus, you can actually make the right and middle mouse buttons useful for something other than getting Display Properties. Right mouse is a fully customizable menu of shortcuts, program folders, whatever you want. If anybody remembers OpenWindows, it's kinda like that. It also has a system tray, quick launch, and can handle virtual desktops as well.
KDE 3.5 to 4.4 (Score:2)
I just upgraded from Debian 5.0 to 6.0, which for me also meant going from KDE 3.5 to 4.4. That may not technically be a change of GUI, but it was quite a noticeable change.
Also, I have "Unity" on my Ubuntu netbook, and an iMac, so I guess I change GUIs whenever I change computers.
October, 2009 (Score:2)
I love Start Search, Aero Peek, Aero Snap...
On the otherhand, I'm not too happy with how MS combined the Task Bar with the Quick Start area. Grouping application windows on the task bar kind of bothers me. I wish I could group and ungroup application windows quickly, so I didn't have to chose between grouped or ungrouped. Pinning documents to icons in the Quick Start area is an odd metaphor. I think recent documents/files bel
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I actually missed the bashing and heard very little about it, and finally tried it recently.
I almost like Unity. Sadly it still has a few deal breakers for me, and I honestly don't like the old school Mac "menu bar at the top" design. I was willing to look past that though, that I could get used to.
The main problems that I had:
I use firefox with multiple profiles at the same time. Unity deals with this poorly in a couple of ways.
By default ( I found the config option after I decided I had to ditch unity but
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I used it for about 20 minutes on a 9" netbook (Dell Mini 9) before installing e17. *huge* performance difference.
It isn't a *bad* UI, and is definitely better for small screens than large screens IMO, but the real hit is in the performance/responsiveness, especially on slower systems like the 1.6GHz atom in my netbook. The performance improvement from switching to e17 was very significant, without a serious usability hit.
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Myself, I used Unity 2D on my laptop (Pentium M, 512 MB RAM) for a few hours on the weekend and while I did notice a performance hit, it wasn't horrible. My largest concerns with that are the bugs like the launcher covering the leftmost inch of anything maximized and the general difficulty in manually sorting icons on the launcher, the unintuitiveness of the main menu and so on. I also didn't like the large launch icons - seems like it's designed too much for touchpad. I *DID* like the main menus being part
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unity is shit even on smaller screens. this is due to its instability, bugs, and general non-intuitiveness. for eg, how would a new user make the dock go over to the right side, or the top or the bottom? no way to do that. maybe there exists a way but the devs have succeeded in hiding it so well that i couldn't find it in 15 min of frustrated fiddling.
also, it will fuck up your color scheme by imposing its own colors in some places, sometimes.
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But anyway, even if we all agree to limit this to just desktop environments, I don't think you can call yourself a power user these days if you're limiting yourself to one OS.
The last time I switched my usual GUI:
I use Windows 7 the plurality of the time, therefore it is my "usual" GUI, and has been for about 1 year.
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Indeed, a minute ago I changed workspace to check my mail in Lotus Notes - completely different GUI from Firefox.
However I interpreted the question as "change or make major changes to one of your OS's window managers [ != GUI, but sufficiently close for most people]", which falls within 1-12 months for me.
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That's a good point. I've just upgraded a computer and, with the new GPU I'm using a different framebuffer. Does that count?
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This is news for nerds - you're expected to know your TLAs* here. Gutteral Ursan Inflection... who doesn't know that? (just kidding - Graphical User Interface)
*since this was obviously posted by a non-nerd, TLA means Three Letter Acronym, but if you were a nerd, you knew that already.
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I switched from windows98 to KDE in 1999. I changed my background wallpaper last week. Where's the "all of the above" option?
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Always remember 42 - Cause asking the right question really is the hard part.
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My problem with this poll exactly. My usual GUI is I guess Windows because my work requires it, but about half of the time or more I am logged in to Linux VMs running KDE, so my usual GUI is Windows running a VM running KDE on one of my two Monitors. I then use the right monitor for Linux and the left for Windows (which is basically only used to read/send mail and surf the web to be honest)
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In a situation like that, some upgrades of OS GUI software would count as more of a "change" than others. I haven't really spent much time in Vista, and next to none in Win7, so I can't really say how much of a (or even if it is a) change that would be. Is there much interface difference? Most of the comments I've heard about Win7 is that it's a lot faster and more stable than Vista, but nobody has really said anything comparing the interface.
For example, moving from Win95 to Win98 to WinME to Win2000 ha
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Great, I just went from KDE to Gnome because KDE took some "getting used too" that I didn't appreciate.
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Weakly Interacting Mouse Pointer?
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The solution in Fedora is to just install the rpmfusion repo (there are others, but this is the most likely to keep you stable). There you can get everything you need.except for libdvdcss, which requires installation of the rpm.livna.org repository.
As to the question at hand, I just switched 2 minutes ago to XFCE, and it is looking likely that I am going to stay here I couldn't take the Gnome 3 "You are currently working on application A, therefore all other applications are distractions and I must make it
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Same here (even 1991). Much of my config file is still the same, with a few lines probably unchanged from the default from the Sun 3s that I first used back then.
I keep the title bars, but no borders. I have added a few keyboard shortcuts, but probably fewer than you.
My points of frustration:
*) A few applications do something weird with their icons such that twm doesn't manage them as icons.
*) I can't tell twm where to put icons by default for a given application (especially ones that don't take '-xrm' op