Re: Alternatives to Metacity?

On Sun, 2002-09-22 at 16:39, Rodd Clarkson wrote:
> On Sat, 2002-09-21 at 19:25, Kurt wrote:
> > So far I have tried Red Hat 7.3 with Ximian gnome-smapshots, Red Hat
> > Null, and Mandrake 9.0rc2 and while they look nice with the new icon
> > sets they just aren't good enough yet to justify an upgrade.
> 
> If your just upgrading for the icons, you're missing the whole point of
> Gnome-2.  Speed, greater consistency, anti-aliased text, accessibility
> and a host of other features are what make Gnome-2 truely worth the
> upgrade.

No, I wouldn't upgrade for the icons, I get the point of Gnome-2. I am
just finding support for Metacity only a bit of a drag.
> 
> > Don't get me wrong, I like the theory behind the move to Gnome-2 and
> > Metacity. I have almost always exclusively used Gnome for my desktop.
> > However, the way it stands, right now, I think I would rather stick to
> > Gnome-1.4 or even switch to a KDE desktop. Even Gnome
> > http://www.gnome.org/softwaremap/projects/Metacity states of Metacity,
> > "Originally an experiment, it's now turning out to be halfway usable..."
> > Unfortunately it still seems to be still halfway usable.
> 
> Metacity isn't ever going to be the bloated mess that sawfish was.  I
> stopped using Enlightenment because sawfish was light weight, and I've
> stopped using sawfish because metacity has done the same.

I come from the days where anything over 16k was bloated. I did not have
all that much of a problem with bloat for either Sawfish or
Enlightenment. However, that said, I can also see a need to have
something a bit more streamlined, especially for the business market.
> 
> The reason why you don't see sawfish in the packages is because support
> for sawfish sucked and nothing was getting done.  The guy who maintains
> sawfish clearly isn't that interested in maintaining sawfish, and the
> code is so convoluted that it would be faster to rewrite than to
> comprehend.
> 
> Metacity documentation could use some cleanup - things aren't as bad as
> they seem.  On the plus side, Metacity uses GTK2 so it no only responds
> to UI changes in Gnome-2, but it means that Accessibility and other
> features are part of the Window Manager.

Documentation? From my point of view Metacity came out of nowhere, and
now, suddenly, it is not only the default window manager, it is now
difficult for the average user to switch to a different one. Newbies
just switching to Linux will not even know that they are available.

> 
> > I would sure like to see Gnome-2 support for other window managers
> > besides Metacity, at least until Metacity is *much* more mature. If
> > stuck with just Metacity I might sit out upgrading for a while.
> 
> Gnome-2 isn't Metacity dependent.  You can download sawfish from
> elsewhere and use it, just don't expect any fixes any time soon.
> 
> You could also write you're own WM for Gnome-2, is you would like.

Yes, I guess I could, I can even write a script or caplet to switch my
desktop window manager for me. I have been taken a bit aback by just how
suddenly Metacity has been adopted and the others apparently tossed
aside.
> 
> > I know Sun withdrew development help for Sawfish. What about other
> > window managers besides Metacity? Anyone have any experience with
> > Gnome-2 and Sawfish, Enlightenment, IceWM, Window Maker, etc.; either
> > good or bad?
> 
> Sun withdrew developent help for sawfish because they needed a A11Y
> compliant WM and sawfish couldn't cut it.  Metacity on the other hand
> could and other features, like Xinerama, would be easy to add.
> 
> > Will Metacity be "finished" by the release of the current beta distros
> > with Gnome-2?
> 
> Redhat seem to think it's ready enough.
> 
> Gnome has never been reliant on a single WM, or at least not for some
> time.  Any WM can be made gnome compliant and there's no guarantee that
> metacity will remain the default.  Time will tell.

I am not as hostile toward Metacity as I might seem. If Linux is to
survive it will undoubtedly need to make some more hard decisions that
will lob off some or other nice piece in favor of the greater
advancement toward world domination. I just think it would be nice for
the commercial distributions to make the transition a little less harsh
and at least include window manager selection utility, even if it is
tucked away somewhere a naive user is not likely to find it.

> 
> > Anyone with profound insight to the Linux desktop wars please fill me
> > in.
> 
> No profound insight, just a little time listening to chatter. ;-]

So far, your listening and insightful thought and comment has helped
give me a bit more insight to why certain decisions have been made. I
hope we don't get too much of a backlash from developers outside of
commercial Linux interests that may not agree with some of the business
oriented decisions. http://www.linuxisforbitches.com./

> 
> 
> Rodd
> -- 
> Rodd Clarkson <[email protected]>
> redfish bluefish [creative]
> 
> 
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> 

Thanks Rodd,
Kurt


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