Windows users covet my Linux desktop
 

OK, item 1, I have a new job.

But more than that! It turns out that I had a choice in this new job, of a Windows or a Linux desktop. I chose the latter.

On top of the standard Fedora Gnome desktop I installed Beryl, the hot new desktop manager which gives your system a whole new look and feel. Now my windows wobble when I love them around. Any window can be made partly transparent. Wing the mouse up to the upper-right corner, and you get a task switcher that shows thumbnails of all your tasks.

Here's a little preview of what it looks like, the vid takes a little patience

http://youtube.com/watch?v=6XRVdmDOEV8

I can rotate a cube around to reach different virtual desktops. I can push windows around to the desktops by dragging them off to the right or left. When I minimize something it gets visually sucked down into the taskbar.

And much more. And now the Windows ppl are finding me and this other gent running these weird setups, and it looks all cool and stuff and they covet it.

It's more than cool, it's more productive too. And when I go home and work on my old XP system, it seems clunky and old.

Maybe the Vista people have this, but I have it now, and it looks and works great, for free.

I'd like Linux on my old 2k pro box. But I'm kb cmd dumb. + I don't need the bells and things you have. Guess live cd or dvd till I just might understand better?
Also need a psu and a few other things for it.

w00T!!!:celebrat:

Way to go!!

Double woot!

My next PC will be linux.

Congratulations. Let me know when you get one of these (Popular Mechanics sneak preview of Microsoft Surface) ...

When I move them around.

What's the problem? love move love? I bet J loves the way you move! hehehehee... Not to mention the wiggle and the wobble. ;)

Freudian fat-finger.

Oooooh purty screens... Reminds me of Minority Report.

Congrats on the new job, UT!! And hey, wasn't there supposed to be a wedding sometime soon here? Or did you let it slip quietly by without any fanfare?

That's a sharp eye fob.

For now, various unrelated family dramas are preventing things from moving forward.

So I guess the FUD-bomb dropped by Microsoft about hundreds of intellectual property violations in Linux didn't scare your company's legal department? Good for them.

The used laptop I'm running my Ubuntu Linux on has a video card but only 256MB on board. I'm not sure if I could get any kind of performance with the graphics I saw in that demo.

Also, installing the wifi drivers is an extra step I have to take with each new operating system install so I'm not ready to switch.

Very cool screen switching, though.

A J O B? like.... you have to leave the house in the morning...possibly wearing a tie...and drive to an office?

The same $12 Lands' End t-shirt I have always worn, is fine for this office.

oooooo...the hateful ride down 422....i hear it every morning on kyw..... how long does it take you to get there?

as this turns into gabbly chat... that's remarkable triangulation by you.

until the end of the week i have a shortcut that winds over valley forge mountain. after that, the new place is okay with time-shifting and my counter-part is covering early hours, so i may go to a 9:30 start time "late shift" to try to get around it.

Now I know who to bitch about all those damn commercials to. Cool.

I think Microsoft kind of forgot about that in light of this.

Google is building programs that can be used through your browser when not connected to the net? I don't get the application, stuff to compete with msWord and office stuff?

That's what I gathered.

My guess is that Google is going to build a compilation of "The Greatest Hits of Open Source" into one bundled app. Think Open Office on steroids. At least that's my guess.

In my experience, there's no such thing as a family drama that's "unrelated." :worried:

This all looks very snazzy, but, well, so what? I've always regarded this kind of stuff as window dressing (pardon the pun)--I've rarely come away with any impression that "user interface improvements" like this were anything more than cosmetic. Convince me I'm wrong.

In X number of years, the "interface" with computers will be invisible. We won't have a "computer" sitting on our desk, we won't have to think about utilizing peripheral devices in order to laboriously perform tasks. That is why "user interface improvements" are important as slow, incremental steps.

If Google can do for Office-type software what they did for webmail, then hold onto your shorts. It'll be awesome.

Make that TWO puns, buddy.

Wow. My boss left the WSJ article about this on my chair for me to find this morning. I'll be happy to volley back a link. Thanks.

Windows users covet my Linux desktop; and now I covet my own, as my home XP system is no longer Good Enough.

My workplace desktop is currently Fedora 7 + KDE + Beryl; there are a few annoyances, but the advantages outweigh them.

And now, when I run the old XP at home, it's really sad. I constantly wish for my workplace desktop. Not because it's Linux, but because there are features in it that just aren't available to me on XP. Stuff that makes me more productive.

So, at home, I'm switching to a dual boot system - where when my system boots I can choose between XP and Linux. I'm buying another hard drive and putting Fedora 7 on it so I can use it at home.

I'm going dual-boot because I still want to run a few Windows games. Most of the rest of the time, I'm running in stuff that runs on Linux anyway.

Sweet. Once you go dual-boot, you'll have to wear different clothes and live a different lifestyle.

*Seinfeld on if he went to an orgy he would than have to be an "orgy guy" ...

Why in the world would you name something *Beryl*??????

All the good names are taken by now?

Because they're verrry pretty.

I like the birthday cake on that link.

I thought that might be borderline nsfw, but I let it slide.