RE: FN-FORUM: Microcock / Linux / Ramblings of a fat man

date posted 20th August 2003 19:30

Dan Norcott:
> Spoke to a geekier chum, who used various linux GUIs for a year, and his
> general feelings were that they're not quite there yet, but it was about a
> year ago he made the switch back to windows.

I'd be inclined to agree with that.

> How many of you actually use
> linux as a development environment - through GNOME or whatever -
> and do you like it? It is stable?

I use Linux as a development environment, mostly for Java, but I do all of
my development in the console using JED - I only use X (and GNOME) for web
browsing, checking that stuff looks OK. I haven't found a GUI editor that I
get on with yet.

> Is there a reasonably easy to configure
> setup that delivers functionality comparable to windows without the whole
> 'pay bill' scenario, or hours of tedious configuration?

Depends what you mean by 'comparable to windows'. I find Linux to have a
much nicer 'feel' as a development environment compared to Windows, but I'm
not sure I'd use it full-time as my 'home desktop'. Little things would piss
me off after a while, like clipboard support, the fact that applications
might use one of three different toolkits (typically), etc.

In summary, I think Linux is great, but X is horrible - KDE and GNOME are
just trying to polish a turd.

> Are there big lists of things that you can and can't do?

Yes. :oP
Feel free to shout me off-list if you want a more helpful answer.

- Nick Grimshaw
{ if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate. }