Review: Spare and powerful desktops for Linux

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June 1, 2000
Web posted at: 10:46 a.m. EDT (1446 GMT)

by Nicholas Petreley

(IDG) -- If I were configuring a desktop for others, I might use something like the incredibly flexible Enlightenment desktop. It creates a specialized environment that feels more like an appliance than a computer. I'm not sure how to describe what I envision, but it might help to think of it as the PalmPilot approach to the PC desktop. I'm not talking about the precise way the PalmPilot implements its user interface; it's the concept of simplicity and specialization I'm after. Ideally, I would try to replace the traditional icons and cascading menus with a few simple visual gadgets that start only the handful of specialized applications my users need. I started thinking in these terms when the Stardock Corporation's Brad Wardell paid me a visit recently. Brad asked for a tour of Linux window managers and then showed me some of the Windows software he had in the works.

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In case the company name doesn't ring a bell, Stardock is best known for its OS/2 desktop-enhancement software package, called Object Desktop. Well, that's not strictly true; Stardock is probably most widely known for its OS/2 games, starting with the blockbuster hit Galactic Civilizations. But the Stardock product most relevant to business use is Object Desktop. The version for OS/2 is a set of object-oriented user interface tools that fill in all the gaps in the OS/2 Workplace Shell, and then some. Once people get their hands on Object Desktop, they can no longer live without it.

Once it became obvious that there wasn't going to be a boom in OS/2 desktop sales, Brad ported Object Desktop to Windows. Once again, anyone who gets ahold of this product will quickly become hopelessly spoiled on it. But the best is yet to come. Brad gave me a preview of the greatly expanded version in the works. It knocked my socks off and made them dance around the room. The product, which will probably sell under a name other than Object Desktop, works best on Windows 2000. So all of you folks who plan to standardize your companies on Windows 2000 for the desktop should keep an eye on Stardock's site (see Resources). I think both of you will be very pleased.

The Windows desktop enhancement software Brad showed me has more gee-whiz features than Microsoft has enemies. And I have to admit that at first I was a bit embarrassed when I couldn't show him anything quite like it running on my Linux box.

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I don't mean to say that you can't get a Linux box to look and run like his souped-up Windows. You most certainly can. Just take a look at some of the themes available for the Enlightenment desktop. (See the Resources for links to Enlightenment and for available themes.) In fact, I assume Enlightenment inspired many of the features Stardock put into its newest software, although Stardock deserves credit for taking the ideas farther and making the features much easier to use.

But as I sat there groping for ideas about how to demonstrate that you can make Linux much flashier than it is on my desktop, I realized that I don't even think that way anymore. This experience was an epiphany for me because Brad's software made me see that my priorities have changed quite a bit since I traded my beloved OS/2 for Linux. I have somehow transformed from a GUI power addict to someone who just wants the desktop interface to get out of my way so that I can get my work done.

It didn't help that we were talking about two different worlds. Stardock takes Windows and enhances it with a set of products. Linux users take Linux and patch together a desktop from parts, some of which probably weren't even designed to be used together. The closest thing to a comprehensive Linux desktop is KDE, and even that is composed of individual components that you can use by themselves in different environments. For example, you can run the KDE icon-based browser and file manager from within just about any window manager.

What really brought the message home was when Brad asked me if KDE had a virtual desktop pager that lets you drag and drop applications from one virtual desktop to another. I had to think for a minute before I could answer that question, because I use KDE's simple default virtual desktop pager, which doesn't have that capability.

The answer is yes, KDE does have a friendly virtual desktop pager that lets you drag applications from one desktop to another. I think it is part of KDE by default, but I'm not sure. I don't think that way anymore, because I've become acclimated to the way Linux desktops have developed. Any given open source desktop environment tends to be a collection of modules, developed by various contributors, many of which you can mix and match with other desktop environments.

For example, GNOME isn't a complete desktop solution by itself. It is simply a network object model environment built around a graphical user interface API called GTK (Gimp toolkit). What GNOME doesn't provide, it adopts from other sources. Its components, such as the panel, taskbar, and desktop pager, all run alongside a separate window manager. It uses a separate file manager called gmc for its icon-based desktop. It even borrows an X11 screen saver that was written long before GNOME came along.

When I run GNOME, I usually run it with the IceWM window manager. The default window manager used to be Enlightenment. Now it's Sawfish, formerly known as Sawmill. Some people use WindowMaker as the GNOME window manager. I prefer to run WindowMaker by itself, although I've enhanced it with a few docked applets I downloaded somewhere.

Losing weight

Linux (and Unix in general) has not only taught me to think modularly; it has taught me to think in terms of simplicity and efficiency. This week, I spent most of my time trying out a window manager called Blackbox. I like Blackbox because it is remarkably fast, runs in under two megabytes of RAM, and is all I need.

Blackbox is about as spartan an environment as one can imagine. Its desktop user interface consists of a pop-up menu and a relatively useless toolbar that lets you switch between tasks and virtual desktop workspaces. It has no icons. It has no file manager. It has no dockable panel. I could add these features by running modules available for KDE, GNOME, or other environments. But I generally don't bother. The most I add is a friendly virtual desktop pager designed specifically for Blackbox, and I only do that when I'm feeling really wild and frivolous.

Now here comes the shocking part. I've also switched from Corel WordPerfect as my default writing tool to an editor called NEdit (see Resources). If you are a longtime reader of this column, you know that I'm a WordPerfect addict. But NEdit happens to have exactly the feature set I need to write columns and short articles, and practically nothing more. It has all the basic text-editing features I need. It lets me customize key bindings the way I like them. It checks my spelling. And it gives me a word count. You'll still have to pry WordPerfect out of my cold, dead fingers when it comes to big writing jobs -- but I rarely work on big jobs.

NEdit also carries over the modular thinking that is Unix. NEdit uses existing Unix commands to provide some of its features. It uses the common wc command to get a word count. It uses the generic ispell utility to check a document's spelling. And it does a nice job of wrapping these external utilities so that you can spell check or count the words in selected text instead of the whole document.

It's not that Blackbox or NEdit is the "answer." It is the "all I need" part that is key. And if a power user like me can get off the bloatware feature wagon, perhaps most other users could benefit from a trimmed-down environment.

I'd like to know if I'm caught up in a trend toward greater simplicity, or if this is just a unique personal transformation. You tell me. Where do you want to go with your desktop and the desktop you provide your users? Do you want to pile on more features? Or are you considering dropping back to specialized, appliance-like behavior and simplicity?

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Stardock
Enlightenment
Desktop themes for Enlightenment
NEdit
Blackbox

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