my trip from XP to Linux...and back - a rant.

[Leeoniya]

Let me start by saying i'm not a hardcore advocate of open source in that i do believe that good software and/or good support is worth paying for. nor do i favor either OS camp based on what others say.

I've worked with XP for a long time in pretty technical capacities such as deployment/unattended installs, PE environments, boot imaging etc. so i'm not what MS would qualify as their target consumer audience.

Vista is actually quite a solid OS with a fantastic deployment implementation, that is if you dismiss the dismal UI shell, and vLite it properly to remove or disable 60% of the default services (which you wont be needing for 95% of your work).

I think Vista took a gigantic step back in usability by technically able people. Displaying the same information in Explorer now suddenly requires 3x the screen real-estate...all filled with useless padding and graphics, none of which can be turned off, resized, or rearranged. The ability to manage toolbar buttons that used to exist in XP...gone. They did improve several areas, such as the full-line select in detail view, as well as multi-column sorting. but i wanted those features with the old UI, not new bloatUI.

I felt that switching to Linux could assist in some of these deficeient areas and perhaps give me something like Total commander for my default file manager, and give the ability to custimize everything. After trying Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Fedora 10 snap2, it seems that for all GNOME (GTK), KDE(QT), XFCE(GTK)..based systems, the file managers are as integral as explorer is to windows. and few take the cake. Krusader is great, but try removing Dolphin/Konqueror and Kbundu will crumble, otherwise assigning a directory node to open in Krusader works...but only sometimes. all GTK-based systems have gigantic padding on buttons (that cannot be changed) which wastes as much space as the Vista UI - even changing the font size, keeps the enormous relative padding. KDE cannot part with Dolphin. There are always 20 tools to do one job, when 2 and often 1 would suffice. the Fedora distro is enormous DVD-sized.

the closest i have come to something workable is XFCE, even though it's GTK based, it still offers quite a bit of cutomizability.

perhaps Fluxbox is the answer...but then i hear it doesnt work well with PulseAudio....and i still need to run apps with the GTK and/or Qt libs installed, so the interface will be far from uniform.

is there a theme/way to make ANY linux resemble the XP's explorer UI, but give the functionality of Krusader for example, while replacing the defaults?

i might try Mint or Mint Fluxbox, but i'm starting to run out of ideas....maybe there is some kind of black magic i'm missing here.

anyone want to help me out with my woes?

thanks...sigh.
Leon

[SkittleLinux18]

Is this just another form of advertisement for Microsoft? This guy Just Joined!, posted one thread, went straight to knocking Linux and praising Windows, and yeah. Like, what's the point? What is he trying to prove or express or accomplish? So what? Who cares? Seriously, this is just MS combating their competition. What a joke!

[arinlares]

Is this just another form of advertisement for Microsoft? This guy Just Joined!, posted one thread, went straight to knocking Linux and praising Windows, and yeah. Like, what's the point? What is he trying to prove or express or accomplish? So what? Who cares? Seriously, this is just MS combating their competition. What a joke!

they're asking for help.

[Leeoniya]

advertisement? did you even read anything other than the thread title?

i am in fact looking for a good alternative to XP, because despite being a solid kernel and base, vista is a huge step backwards in what i would consider a good UI, or a non-resource intensive, responsive, clean OS.

i am having a hard time finding an X window manager that can fit half the things on my screen that Explorer can do....mostly because of very large icons, too much padding, or inability to be as modular as i hoped linux would be.

SkittleLinux18, pull your head out of your 18 year old ass before starting flame wars. if you don't have any constructive advice, dont waste your time responding.

[L4Linux]

I don't think it is an advertisement at all to bash Vista in favor of XP. That has probably done more damage to ms, compared to bashing Vista in favor of Linux.
Anyway, check these files managers. Maybe one of them is for you. XFE in particular is similar to windows-explorer, so maybe this is what you are looking for.

[daark.child]

I think if you are looking for help, then ask direct questions. If you rant or just ramble before asking anything, this can put off some people from helping you or participating in your thread.

The reason why you cannot remove Konqueror (or Dolphin if using a KDE 4 based distro) is because they are part of kdebase, so they are required in order for KDE to function properly. You can use other file managers if you wish but they may not be as integrated as the native ones.

As for Fedora, you do not have to use the DVD. You can use a small bootable image to do a network install. You can also use the single cd live versions to install it. The same applies to Mandriva, openSUSE and others. As for the number of tools, whats included in a distro depends on the distro maintainer. Most distros I have seen these days include only one tool for one job, so blame your distro maintainer instead of Linux as a whole.

As for what you should use to replace XP, it really depends on you. Try out a few distros, desktop environments and window managers. Stick with the ones that you think work best for you. If you are not pleased with them, then maybe XP is best for you.

[Leeoniya]

it's too bad that it's near-impossible to customize gnome and kde to utilize my screen space efficiently, everything looks nice and crisp with large icons, but for me, i'd rather have smaller icons and use my full 1440x900 res. i feel like i'm wasting pixels every time i open GIMP in XP because of GTK. and since gtk and qt are pretty much the application norm in linux, most apps are not designed for window managers that can be configured to do what i'm looking for (fluxbox i think might pull this off...but even if it does, the app choices will be minimal at best)

[Roxoff]

It's strange that you cant find the tools to customise your display. I run Fedora 9 on my Eee PC with a 1024x600 display. I have adjusted all the fonts, browser layouts, toolbars, backgrounds, desktop icons, title bars, etc to be minimally sized but still usable.

I think the place you need to start is with the Gnome fonts tool. The only thing you have to remember is that if you're going to run with both Gnome and KDE installed, then you need to configure the font sizes in both seperately. It may be more convenient to have just one place in Windwos to configure the desktop fonts, but the downside to that is you're saddled with the utterly horrid Explorer desktop, cant change it.

If you want to try a 'Windwos-like' distro, you could try PCLinuxOS. Check out Distrowatch too for other alternatives.

[GNU-Fan]

If you want a system like Windows with a few modifications and don't care that much about Free/OpenSource aspect, I would suggest it sounds more promising to start with Windows and tweaking it than starting with GNU/Linux and making it look&feel like Windows.

The statement that Windows's shell, a part of the Explorer, cannot be replaced is not true, btw. It is a userspace program, too. There is an Free Software replacement for Explorer available as part of the ReactOs project. So you may want to take this as a start for your own modifications and enhancements and finally install it as the default shell on your system.

[Leeoniya]

i have actually been monitoring the Cairo Shell project (Cairo: Windows Shell Alternative Home) for a while but there is still no public beta. i do know about several shell replacements for explorer, but most of these replacement projects are not actively developed and contain numerous bugs and i believe most dont implement the full win32 api, so special plugins need to be written to run software.

on the other hand perhaps i will try Emerge or LDE as well.