[ale] Ximian

[Fulton Green]

While I don't run Ximian, I do typically run the latest GNOME packages from
Red Hat. I've also recently downloaded KDE 3 from RH as well, so ...

On Tue, Apr 23, 2002 at 09:15:48AM -0400, Eater wrote:
> I've been considering migrating from KDE to the Ximian desktop.  I've been 
> fairly happy with KDE, but I still experience occasional instability problems 
> and enfuriating inconsistencies in the interface moving between programs.  
...
> My reservations are this:  
> 
> Is Ximian truly a solution for these issues?  

Not necessarily. While recent GNOME stuff appears to be decently stable,
some of its interfaces between programs seem to be maddeningly inconsistent.
Maybe it's just the two or three apps I constantly run. I'm thinking
specifically of menu items. YMMV.
...

> Will the forthcoming KDE 3.0 release provide an equal, if not better desktop 
> than Ximian?

This question is the one that triggered my response ... having been a die-
hard fan of GNOME for the past few years, I was blown away by KDE 3. Some
of the visual aspects of the new interface are Mac OSX-like, the "special
effects" are much more customizable, and even the sound cues are better
quality. But what I think might really sell me on KDE is that I keep hearing
from other programmers that its development paradigm is cleaner than
GNOME's. While I'm still using GNOME out of habit, I'm probably going to
start playing around with KDE more.

> I'd be eager to hear anyone shed some light on these points.  I'm also 
> curious if anyone has experience with commercial X servers as an alternative 
> to XFree86.  

The only commercial X server I can think of (for Linux, anyway) is the
Metro-X server from Metro Link ( www.MetroLink.com ). Unfortunately, my
only experience with them was negative back in 1998, when Red Hat was in the
5.x stage and Metro-X was included in the shrink-wrap boxed version of Red
Hat. The installer recommended I install Metro-X's "performance-enhanced"
server, so I did. It didn't work, so I reinstalled with the also-included
XFree86. It worked. Never touched Metro-X again. I think they're getting
away from the desktop market these days, anyway.

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