Debian bookworm/sid has vino *and* gnome-remote-desktop, just to be on the safe side. (Both are optional.) Lennart can possibly comment on how this bears on his workflow.

On Thu, Jun 09, 2022 at 11:00:07AM -0400, Michael Hill via talk wrote:

Debian bookworm/sid has vino *and* gnome-remote-desktop, just to be on the safe side. (Both are optional.) Lennart can possibly comment on how this bears on his workflow.

I don't use gnome (since they totally ruined it), and I pretty much never use remote desktop stuff (I just forward X over ssh if I need to run something remotely). -- Len Sorensen

I don't use Gnome since years ago. I use Cinnamon on my personal computer and Xfce on the corporate one, they are very good. I used fluxbox when I had time to fiddle with it. One of those days I will find time and build Cinnamon on redhat... On Thu, Jun 9, 2022, 15:22 Michael Hill via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:

Hi Lennart,

On Thu, Jun 9, 2022 at 1:55 PM Lennart Sorensen <lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:

...

I don't use gnome (since they totally ruined it), and I pretty much never use remote desktop stuff (I just forward X over ssh if I need to run something remotely).

Just kidding, I knew all that. I thought you might know some arcane reason Debian still ships vino.

If you're ever inclined to investigate whether GNOME is still "ruined," Fedora provides a pretty pure experience.

Mike --- Post to this mailing list talk@gtalug.org Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk

On 2022-06-10 14:56, Lennart Sorensen via talk wrote:

I don't feel like ever putting up with an rpm based distribution ever again. Having made both rpm and deb packages over the years, I am not surprised that the package quality is much higher on deb based systems. The rpm format is simply a bad design in comparison. I gave up on redhat around version 7 due to quality problems (that would be version 7 back before there was a RHEL thing) and have no intension to ever look at it again if possible.

I put up with opensuse at work because that's what they standardized on, and the yocto stuff I work on is using rpm but we don't actually really use the packages at all in that case, and it is automated by yocto. I definitely don't need anymore of it.

And given all I want a linux desktop to do is display windows, let me minimize, maximize and resize the windows in a normal way, and be able to launch programs by hitting alt+f2 and typing the name, I tend to just stick with xfce which is nice and lightweight. I don't want a file manager of any kind nor do I care to have menus for launching things. :)

Defiantly a case of YMMV. I have no time for debs or Debian and its derivatives in general. I got tired of having to apply security patches and rebuild kernels in a production environment so I went back to RH and never looked back. I find RPMs trivial to rebuild and deploy. But that is just me. -- Alvin Starr || land: (647)478-6285 Netvel Inc. || Cell: (416)806-0133 alvin@netvel.net ||

This is an interesting thread. It is great to hear what works for other people. | From: Lennart Sorensen via talk <talk@gtalug.org> | And given all I want a linux desktop to do is display windows, let me | minimize, maximize and resize the windows in a normal way, and be able | to launch programs by hitting alt+f2 and typing the name, I tend to just | stick with xfce which is nice and lightweight. I don't want a file | manager of any kind nor do I care to have menus for launching things. :) I like Gnome, ignoring any load it adds to my machine. GNOME has a nicely sparse desktop. Good. If I wish to run a GUI program, I just type the Windows key and start typing the name. By the time I'm a few characters in, it shows me that it knows what I meant and I can type ENTER to start it. Surely easier than ALT-F2 (I almost never type function keys -- too far from the home row). I can cycle between GUI programs that are running using Windows-TAB. I have started to use the file manager (GNOME Files, a Nautilus descendent) in the last couple of years. I've recently incorporated its search capability into my workflow and find it more convenient than locate(1) or especially find(1). As far as the load GNOME adds to my machine: it seems to be in the noise. Even on my netbooks. Mind you, GNOME and Windows are miserable when loaded on a hard disk. On the surface, GNOME is simple. Underneath is a bit of a mystery to me. It sure seems complicated. That makes me a little uncomfortable, but only when something doesn't work or doesn't work the way I expect. I really like that Fedora comes out of the box in a pretty much usable state. I change a very few things. I just don't waste any effort creating the perfect desktop environment. Conceptually, I dislike large complex code bodies. But I feel stuck with them. - web browsers - video drivers - kernels - desktop environments - spreadsheets and word-processors - database systems I have a friend that turned his back on this and uses Plan 9. I don't have the energy for the simple life. I suspect Lennart is trying to only use things that he understands. I've mostly given up that requirement.

Hi Hugh, On Sat, Jun 11, 2022 at 11:19 AM D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:

I have started to use the file manager (GNOME Files, a Nautilus descendent) in the last couple of years. I've recently incorporated its search capability into my workflow and find it more convenient than locate(1) or especially find(1).

Have you come across the file chooser behaviour where the search field takes the focus instead of the filename field? Example: in Firefox, I want to save a series of article pages that were uploaded as jpegs, but I want to rename them to page numbers instead of 40+ random-digit-filenames. If I click on the previous saved page, its name appears in the filename field with the digit (not the dot or the jpg extension) highlighted. If I type the next digit in the sequence, I'd like it to replace what's highlighted so I can press enter or click Save. Instead the new digit appears in a new search field. To put the focus where I want, I have to drag the mouse over the highlighted digit (even switching focus with Tab or ESC would be better). I asked about this and was told it's shared GTK code between the file chooser and file manager, and it's expected behaviour. It is or is like GTK issue #2638. Mike

| From: Stewart C. Russell via talk <talk@gtalug.org> | On 2022-06-12 12:18, Michael Hill via talk wrote: | > | > Have you come across the file chooser behaviour where the search field | > takes the focus instead of the filename field? | | I have, and it's supremely annoying. I haven't found a solution that doesn't | involve view source and calling rename(1) lots of times I don't understand file chooser. I use it superstitionsly. And it doesnt' work the way I want. | It's up there in annoyance with Gnome's modal dialogues, which limit all | interaction with that one file chooser. You can turn them off. How do you turn that off?

| From: Stewart C. Russell via talk <talk@gtalug.org> | On 2022-06-13 14:35, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote: | > | > | It's up there in annoyance with Gnome's modal dialogues, which limit all | > | interaction with that one file chooser. You can turn them off. | > | > How do you turn that off? | | Tweaks -> Attached Modal Dialogs: Off Tweaks -> Windows -> Attached Modal Dialogs: Off Thanks. Why would someone want it to be on? What does it improve? I guesss: if you bring an obscured window forward, you would want to realise somehow that there was an outstanding modal dialogu. Isn't there a better way to accomplish this?

I also find the behaviour of the text entry box very annoying and have read others complaining online. Part of the issue is that if the devs simply *must* keep this behavior, they should change the visual cue of highlighting to act according to convention. For example in the adapta gtk theme, highlighted text is white on blue background. If I select text in the URL bar in FF, it is thusly highlighted. However if I then give focus to some other window, it changes to grey text on white background (or the inverse depending on context). So even if I get confused about where the focus is, the non-active highlighted text is distinguishable from currently active highlighted text. However, in this filechooser, the selected text is always white text on blue background, even when focus is given to the search. I think this has the effect of misleading the user. I haven't installed it but there is this project https://github.com/lah7/gtk3-classic that might be of some help? And as to the specific issue of downloading a lot of sequential files, maybe it would be worth it to just grab the list of URLs and use wget. I did that with some magazines someone scanned. You can use wget noclobber to number them or just download in order, sort by date and rename with numbering in nautilus. When I am lazy I use this webpage https://zimtools.xyz/wget to generate a line for wget but a config file is better. Unless you are only downloading selected pages of course in which case manual naming the only way to go. All in all I think xfce4 is totally fantastic and I have far fewer complaints about it than comperable components of windows or mac, gtk3 inclusive. :) Likewise firefox vs safari, chrome etc. Maybe, counterintuitively the fact of being free/libre and open leads users to having much higher standards and less complacemency than with monolithic proprietary packages where development has not even the veneer of community accountability. And therefor you get nitpicking like the preceding. max On Sun, Jun 12, 2022, at 4:18 PM, Michael Hill via talk wrote:

Hi Hugh,

On Sat, Jun 11, 2022 at 11:19 AM D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:

...

I have started to use the file manager (GNOME Files, a Nautilus descendent) in the last couple of years. I've recently incorporated its search capability into my workflow and find it more convenient than locate(1) or especially find(1).

Have you come across the file chooser behaviour where the search field takes the focus instead of the filename field?

Example: in Firefox, I want to save a series of article pages that were uploaded as jpegs, but I want to rename them to page numbers instead of 40+ random-digit-filenames. If I click on the previous saved page, its name appears in the filename field with the digit (not the dot or the jpg extension) highlighted. If I type the next digit in the sequence, I'd like it to replace what's highlighted so I can press enter or click Save. Instead the new digit appears in a new search field. To put the focus where I want, I have to drag the mouse over the highlighted digit (even switching focus with Tab or ESC would be better).

I asked about this and was told it's shared GTK code between the file chooser and file manager, and it's expected behaviour. It is or is like GTK issue #2638.

Mike --- Post to this mailing list talk@gtalug.org Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk

On Fri, Jun 10, 2022 at 01:07:27AM -0400, William Park via talk wrote:

OK, how about in XFCE? What's the builtin or recommended VNC server in XFCE?

For VNC client, I tried Remmina on Xubuntu 22.04. Easy as "krdc" on KDE.

No idea. As I said, I forward applications, not desktops. I don't find a desktop inside a window on another desktop to be a nice way to work. I even do that when connecting from a windows work laptop. X410 running as X server, and then ssh with X forwarding and run the linux application (if I need a graphical one which is quite rate) that way. It simply appears as another application with no indication it isn't even a local windows application other than being a bit slower to respond. -- Len Sorensen