[ILUG] Konqueror problem

[Rick Moen]

Quoting David Neary (bolsh at gimp.org):

> So you consider ORBit et al to contribute nothing of value to
> GNOME, or DCOP for KDE?

Well, those haven't yet done much for _me_, since you ask.  (They 
may very well do so in the future.  Component software and reuse are,
after all, Very Good Things, tra la.)  

But that isn't what I was saying.  What I was saying is that new users
increasingly misunderstand their systems, because of the way they
conceptualise the "desktops".  They erroneously assume that they must
"run KDE" in the whole-shooting-match sense of starting kwm and the 
default bundle of X11 clients, in order to have access to kword,
korganizer, or konqueror.   They make a corresponding error regarding
gnumeric.  And they refuse to believe that, for example, I can run any
of those things perfectly well, under any simple window manager of my
choosing -- until I sit down and show them otherwise.  Sometimes, not 
even then, because they "know" about the two desktop suites.

I have a stnadard demo I give to such people:  Put just
"/usr/bin/X11/xterm" in a user's ~/.xinitrc file.  Do "exec startx".
Point out what is missing from the xterm's borders and from the general
environment.  Run "ps auxw".

Then do "/usr/bin/X11/wmaker &".  See the Window Maker controls and
menus.  Start up "/usr/bin/konqueror &".  Start up "/usr/bin/gnumeric &".
Show the process list.  Now "killall wmaker".  Now
"/usr/bin/X11/blackbox &" and observe what does and does not change.
And so on.

And eventually they notice which parts of system functionality are
provided by the window manager and which by individual X11 clients --
and stop being afraid to take charge of their graphical environments and
run (only) what they actually _want_ to run.

My point is that achieving this latter step is an uphill battle, because
they've been misled about how their systems work.

Now, if they want to go on from there to run someone else's idea of a
"desktop" consisting of some raft of X11 clients, libs, a CORBA broker,
and utilities, that's fine by me.  But I prefer to help people who enjoy
understanding their systems -- and this persistent conceptual block,
even among them, surprises me.

> The value of the desktop environment is the consistent framework for
> intercommunication between the "motley collection of X11 clients" as
> you call them. 

That is a matter of opinion and perspective, is it not?

-- 
Cheers,     "Learning Java has been a slow and tortuous process for me.  Every 
Rick Moen   few minutes, I start screaming 'No, you fools!' and have to go
rick at linuxmafia.com       read something from _Structure and Interpretation of
            Computer Programs_ to de-stress."   -- The Cube, www.forum3000.org