Why has everything become so complicated?

[hazel]

When I started with Linux in 2004, it was nice and simple. You had the kernel, the shell, the X-server, a window manager and some daemons. That was your system. Everything else was apps. Configuration was just a matter of a standard text file in /etc and a personalised text file in $HOME. Oh, yes, and there was Gnome but it wouldn't run properly on the sort of hardware that I had so I didn't use it.

Now I have what (for me) is a high-end machine, so I run Ubuntu with Gnome and Open Office. It seems silly not to take advantage of all that processing power. But I don't understand how Gnome works, I don't understand what the hardware abstraction layer is or why I need it, the whole thing has become as cryptic as Windows.

And it's all so closely integrated. Once you could simplify your system by scrapping all the programs you didn't use. Now if I try that, I'm told that I can't deinstall anything without deinstalling the Ubuntu desktop too. So I don't do it.

I get nervous when I can't understand things. It doesn't feel like Linux anymore.

[oz]

I think it's become overly complicated in an effort to simplify things. All these nifty little GUI add-on utilities put new links in the chain that can easily be broken and cause havoc.

Just my own opinion, of course.

[RobinVossen]

Yea, if you'll run xfce its still easy

[Oxygen]

I don't mean to insult your inteligence or anything, just assuming you've made the same mistake I did. On Ubuntu, the ubuntu-desktop package is just a metapackage you can remove, all it does it rely on other packages so they get installed.

[towy71]

You could just install Linux without any gui at all and run Lynx, Mutt and irssi from the cli
I suggest you get debian netinstall image and give it a go

[Ogion]

Or you could Arch for that matter. There you really have only a very basic system after Installation, so it is completley up to you what you install.
Of course this is possible with Debian too

Ogion

[hazel]

You could just install Linux without any gui at all and run Lynx, Mutt and irssi from the cli

I'm not puritanical about GUIs. I use them most of the time - after all I can always drop back to cli when I want to. And I certainly prefer Firefox to Lynx. It's all the complications with Gnome et al. that I don't like. Maybe I'll take Robin's advice and get xfce or even fluxbox.

[danbuter]

Removing teh desktop will not hurt Ubuntu at all. However, when Hardy Heron is available, you will need to reinstall it (along with the other programs you delete) before you can do teh upgrade. It's takes a little longer, but it's pretty easy.

[Dapper Dan]

I'm not puritanical about GUIs. I use them most of the time - after all I can always drop back to cli when I want to. And I certainly prefer Firefox to Lynx. It's all the complications with Gnome et al. that I don't like. Maybe I'll take Robin's advice and get xfce or even fluxbox.

Hi hazel...
Might I also suggest you have a look at IceWM. Based on your first post, I think you might like it's simplicity and blinding speed.

[Tsarevich]

Ice WM needs to be checked out. But I still say that CLI is much better. I love GNOME though, but on my aged machine has to take pain. I still can't figure how to switch to CLI. X apps don't work then.