# software got worse over time



## ayleid96 (Oct 9, 2022)

But literally, what exactly changed for better in the last 10+ years?

I cleaned the dust of my old laptop with FreeBSD 9.1 installed. It has nvidia 6200, GNOME 2 installed and some ancient version of wine. Its more usable than anything i used in the last ten years(i am speaking for both bsd and linux). 

GNOME 2 is just amazing and functional, i can change so many settings, file manager is awesome, i can configure many important aspects of the system using GNOME's GUI tools(Something i am really angry about with *nix devs, is it that hard to make something like that? People can feel like home). GNOME 2 thinks like user, its so functional and light and pretty and literally has everything you need. And no, MATE is not nearly as good as GNOME 2. It lacks many many stuff and it just became so bloated over time.

I can easily play world of warcraft here and couple of other games i like. These ancient version of chromium and firefox still render pages nicely enough to be usable.(I am currently writing this on chromium version 23). Torrent works, the original XMMS port is still present.

Why did we move on? For what? This laptop was buried in time for about 12 years and its still just awesome both in hardware and software. Everything just got worse.

Now we have latest drivers, latest web browsers, latest desktop enviroments that are minimalistic(GNOME 3) and not functional at all, i can't configure literally anything system-related on that soulless shell. And you need tons of RAM to run it all.

I feel incredibly awesome using this little time capsule and i think i will stick with it for quite some time.


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## Alain De Vos (Oct 9, 2022)

If you want something bloated use chromium-browser & kde-desktop.


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## ct85711 (Oct 9, 2022)

Software was also written and tested well before releasing, so you had a mostly bug free experience; now days they are pushing versions out as fast as possible not caring if anything screws the system up or anything.

Sad part is, people (including admins) are getting used to if some software or service crashed multiple times, they don't even care anymore and just restart and go on like it's an every day occurrence (probably is for some software).


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## Alain De Vos (Oct 9, 2022)

Lennart will forgive me but you can restart automatic pulse-audio after it crashes.
The idea that software should not crash in the first place is a bit forgotten.
Lennart will forgive me but systemd has all the features to restart crashing services.


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## hunter0one (Oct 9, 2022)

ayleid96 said:


> Why did we move on? For what? This laptop was buried in time for about 12 years and its still just awesome both in hardware and software. Everything just got worse.


Because of tablets and smartphones, KDE and GNOME want to make sure their applications and desktop environments can work on them. I can't stand to use either one, no KDE is not any better with Baloo and Akonadi crap and those Plasma widgets. TDE would be a good port, I think its a better fork than MATE is to GNOME 2.


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## Alain De Vos (Oct 9, 2022)

Don't forget nepomuk & strigi. Ubuntu once had the "feature" to send the data you search for to central servers.


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## hunter0one (Oct 9, 2022)

Alain De Vos said:


> Don't forget nepomuk & strigi. Ubuntu once had the "feature" to send the data you search for to central servers.


Oh yeah, argh!

I'm currently using KDE Plasma because I can't decide on the desktop anymore. MATE is not the best, but I still think its ahead of Xfce. I will probably just compile TDE soon.


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## Alain De Vos (Oct 9, 2022)

I'm using xfce4. I think mate is also good.
[ I dropped labwc-wayland because of a bar problem. A minimized window is "lost"]
[ I dropped wayfire-wayland for the same reason]
[Sway does not has this problem as it is an i3 clone]


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## hunter0one (Oct 9, 2022)

I like wayland, but then I lose nice things like xscreensaver. In Wayland, the compositor must have its own solution for screensaving and its usually just a lock these days. I use a lot of Athena applications that are guaranteed to need XWayland so I'll probably stick to Xorg for the foreseeable future.


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## ayleid96 (Oct 9, 2022)

I never stumbled upon tablet/touch usage that includes KDE/gnome. They literally destroyed themselves for nothing, not like android would adopt their DEs.
 Look at windows, it has kiosk mode that enlarges taskbar a little and they added some swipe menus without touching traditional look and feel.

GNOME 3 is just too ambitious. Standard installation takes over one 1gb of ram for literally animations and one top panel. XFCE lacks administration tools, LXDE is feature-less, MATE tries too hard but fails and also lacks administration tools.

I literally want to fork latest GNOME 2 source and make it possible on modern systems... I could take that as my hobby project.


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## ayleid96 (Oct 9, 2022)

Also, tap to click works out of the box, I don’t need to decipher tons of xorg’s manual pages to get stupid thing working.


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## hunter0one (Oct 9, 2022)

Can I ask whats different in MATE than GNOME 2? It was forked from the latest version too. It uses GTK3 now is the only big difference I can think of.


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## kpedersen (Oct 9, 2022)

Sadly my only suggestion to computer environments is to simplify. Possibly get used to and get proficient with the command line and simple window manager.

They provide similar functionality to a full on DE but most importantly, there isn't much interest in those things from the "open-source community" so there isn't much there that they can damage with their naïve shitty faux user-friendly ideas.

Yes, they will try to damage it with Wayland which cuts away our ability to use a light window manager but I don't see Wayland as ever taking the majority in our lifespan. It is fairly useless without the XServer plugin and much of the proponents around Wayland don't realise this. They don't (or don't know how) to disable it.


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## hunter0one (Oct 9, 2022)

ayleid96 said:


> I never stumbled upon tablet/touch usage that includes KDE/gnome. They literally destroyed themselves for nothing, not like android would adopt their DEs.


They do have a use-case in Linux phones and tablets like the Pinephone or Pinetab, but I just think smartphones are cringe in general.



ayleid96 said:


> Look at windows, it has kiosk mode that enlarges taskbar a little and they added some swipe menus without touching traditional look and feel.


Windows is doing the same thing as KDE for example, it feels very much like I'm using a mobile device when I touch it. Thankfully we have alternatives in the UNIX world.


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## sidetone (Oct 9, 2022)

I get it, but I don't understand how people have a stubborn stance, of let's add more useless software to it with little gain of features. Let's make it so it needs 3 compilers and countless additional build utilities.

For instance, why does adding SVG functionality need as many dependencies as it does, compared to any other image functionality? Why are portaudio and sndio so simple compared to libcanberra? To make 1 little ding sound?

See how a port in FreeBSD which is made for RedHat Linux utilities needs so many of its own custom dependencies just for their make and configuration files.

They won't admit what you're saying.


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## Alain De Vos (Oct 9, 2022)

Windows Embedded Compact, iOS, Android OS, will also have been a driving force.


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## ProphetOfDoom (Oct 9, 2022)

My pet peeve is all the instances where developers have “improved” a desktop environment by making you move your mouse pointer three times as much and click things three times as often. The rot really set in around ~2010.
Say I want to shut my computer down. I want to _shut it down. _I don’t want to click a menu of some kind, then click “leave”, then choose the type of leaving I want to do (lol) such as “restart” or “sleep” or “shut down”, then be confronted by a dialog that says I will do my leaving in 60 seconds but hey, if I click yet another button, I get to leave straight away!
Thanks, I’m enraged now.


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## shkhln (Oct 9, 2022)

I press the power button.


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## Voltaire (Oct 9, 2022)

Wayland could be a major improvement when fully finished. Linux used to have strong screen tearing on Nvidia Optimus laptops that was usually not easy to fix. 
Not so much positive has happened in most other areas. KDE 4 was in my opinion more polished and a visually nicer desktop than the new KDE Plasma 5.
I find that cmus has the best audio quality of any music player on FreeBSD. 
Browsers have objectively become better (faster) than before.
I like Telegram on FreeBSD. On the other hand, Freenode has disappeared which I thought was one of the best social channels.
What BSD and Linux miss most on the desktop is a decent desktop environment that is visually appealing and efficient and stable. Unity 8 was well on its way to becoming a modern desktop in my opinion, but it received a lot of unfair criticism in my opinion, and then like many Ubuntu projects it was stopped halfway through.
FreeBSD specifically lacks browsers on the desktop, eg Brave would be nice if it worked _natively_.


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## hardworkingnewbie (Oct 9, 2022)

ayleid96 said:


> But literally, what exactly changed for better in the last 10+ years?


Electron was invented. So many lazy/bad programmers tend to flock around that.


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## ayleid96 (Oct 9, 2022)

Best desktop ever


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## shkhln (Oct 9, 2022)

My memory of Gnome 2 is more along the lines of this: https://askubuntu.com/questions/584...een-unmount-eject-safely-remove-drive-and-the.


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## Hobbes (Oct 9, 2022)

A good point of view:




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						Using a framework can make you stupid!
					






					www.unixsheikh.com
				




And something that is often forgotten:




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						Code has to be simplified until it becomes absolutely correct
					






					www.unixsheikh.com


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## Holger (Oct 10, 2022)

kpedersen said:


> Sadly my only suggestion to computer environments is to simplify. Possibly get used to and get proficient with the command line and simple window manager.
> 
> They provide similar functionality to a full on DE but most importantly, there isn't much interest in those things from the "open-source community" so there isn't much there that they can damage with their naïve shitty faux user-friendly ideas.
> 
> Yes, they will try to damage it with Wayland which cuts away our ability to use a light window manager but I don't see Wayland as ever taking the majority in our lifespan. It is fairly useless without the XServer plugin and much of the proponents around Wayland don't realise this. They don't (or don't know how) to disable it.


I second this. In two ways:

1) Simplify your workflow: I emanicpated from using a particular desktop environment by specializing(!) on simple tools: Terminal + tmux + vim (for all software development) + some easy editor to keep track of documentation for myself (currently Geany). By using this setup consistently, I have been able to be productive in a professional workforce environment for years, which proves that this is no hobbyist stuff. I don't care anymore, if the desktop environment is Gnome 3 or WindowMaker; although I prever the latter since it's more ergonomic for what I am doing.

2) Wayland is a hoax: I recently had to implement monitor hotplugging for an emebedded device for a customer. The requirement was super-simple: Duplicate graphics output on all accessible monitor outputs, regardless when a monitor is plugged in (hotplugging). I tried different compositors, nothing worked. On the forums they said: „No, that's not implemented yet, nobody has yet bothered to. Do you want to do it?”. Yes, I would, but did not have the time for it. In the end, we switched to Xorg and everything worked like a charm. Product-Management (who did not care for nerdy stuff like what a particular windowing system was) was happy. Conclusion: Xorg is the better, because more mature, software.


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## mer (Oct 10, 2022)

ProphetOfDoom said:


> My pet peeve is all the instances where developers have “improved” a desktop environment by making you move your mouse pointer three times as much and click things three times as often.


I'm waiting for the dialog box that pops up "You moved your mouse.  Do you really want to move your mouse?  Click yes to continue" which moving your mouse to click yes causes another you moved your mouse dialog to pop up.  Of course they are modal dialogs so you have to click them.

I'm with the others that say/imply "Forget desktop environments, learn about simple window managers"  I've been just fine with WindowMaker for a heck of a long time.


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## Crivens (Oct 10, 2022)

https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/2.348001
		


I can't say it better.
And for those without access (like me), there are copies floating around. Just cast your net right.


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## mer (Oct 10, 2022)

Crivens can't agree with that article more.  
If one looks at the whole hardware/software system:
In the beginning, hardware was limited, so software (mostly assembly) was lean because that's all it could be (Forth is one of my favorite examples of this).
Then as software expanded, it forced hardware to expand (memory, cpu speed, etc), so we have a momentary breathing room.
Then software expanded to fill the hardware, forcing hardware to expand which lets software expand....
Eventually software expansion leads to bloat;  I'm defining bloat as added "features" that are used by maybe 1% of the user and poor programming practices simply because "it's easier".

I've done stuff on embedded systems, had people that "I just added this one thing, why is the board crashing?", I look, "because the system only has 1GB RAM and your image is trying to use 5GB?".  Then "The Response" is:  Well what are you going to do about it?  Just turn on Virtual Memory.
Luckily their manager, listened to both of us, turned to me and said "We'll fix this.  Thanks"


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## CuatroTorres (Oct 10, 2022)

It's not so much better or worse, or more or less efficient, but easy. Anything that can be easy should be easy.


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## W.hâ/t (Oct 10, 2022)

CuatroTorres Easy is almost never if not never the best path.


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## hardworkingnewbie (Oct 10, 2022)

Why was BeOS in the 90s such an insider hit? Because it was an OS which didn't carry a decade spanning legacy of old stuff with it, so without that cruft it ran pretty fast. Faster than people were used to when running the OS the hardware was meant to run, MacOS. People were in awe about the wonders their hardware suddenly could do with it.

Why didn't it became a success? Because the manager failed to sell it to Apple, and important applications never were ported to it.


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## Profighost (Oct 10, 2022)

Partially I agree with you, ayleid96, and I partially disagree with you.

Which software (OS, GUI, DE, IDE, editors, games,.... under what OS (Windows [I fully and unconditionally agree  ], Linux [which distri?], FreeBSD...?) do you mean particulary?

One cannot simply say software gets worse, generally.
One point you have to see is:
Is the software to be sold to computermorons, or is it for pros?
In the first case all what matters is the very first impression.
When the software is sold nobody gives a damn about how satisfied you are with it (games are the most best example.)
And of course nobody spent money, sometimes thousands of $ for some license, and then agrees he bought cr#p 
Especially when they don't know better, people tend to stay with the cr#p they know, and compare anything with it.

For pros software has to be above all one thing:
Efficient in usage - get the most output at the highest quality for the least effort.
Sadly it's a law of nature that this means learning effort.

Of course there are always still unsolved problems.
Like in any other project there are schedules to meet, which mean sometimes things stay uncorrected, sometimes forever.

Most of the times salesmen are in charge. When a thing is sold, in their eyes the job is done. Don't come a salesmen with such things as maintenance or even "we agreed to publish knee-jerked, but there are still issues unsolved that will come back badly if do nothing about it.
They don't even know what you're talking about. Your job is to do the next cr#p on the hoof.
Thus: Opensource, where experts are (shall be) in charge. There are also issues here, of course, like to solve one single, very individual prob only, or drop the sh1t unfinished, e.g. becasue if being p1ssed off, or overestimated of the amount of work, and the disagreement within a team about which things to do how.

And another not really solved issue with software since the dawn of computers is (nearly) no programmer neither want to do proper documentions (many misbelieve if the code runs their job is done), so that also 'lazy, incompetent morons' would understand it, too, nor are willing to accept that if the documentation is insuffiecient so is their software - worst case unusable at all.
Because if software is not made for personal private use only, nobody else can use it if the doc is incomplete, lags behind or is just bad.
And no annoying tooltips spam can fix that.

*I think*, it's not the software per se, which annoys you, and me, and many others, *it's the concept.*

I fully agree with mer
"You've moved your mousepointer! If you move your mousepointer, the mousepointer will not be on the same spot as it was before. If you don't to save the current position of your mousepointer, the current postion is lost forever?"  
Nobody not having already lost all his marbles has any use for such cr#p.
...but who knows what future software come up with...

App. 90% of all computerusers would say:"Why? What are you so p1553d about it? This is great!"
No. It's not. It's pure uselesses cattle fieces, that's what it is.
And modern -_ turn key_ - systems and browsers drown in such shit.
(I sometimes get the feeling, instead off to lay off the programmers not used anymore (or put them on some other project), they to make up useless features because for most customers the pure number of features is all what counts, thus trashing up formerly exemplary stuff.)

*What do I mean with 'concept':*

I've worked on many Windows machines on nearly all version until 7.
Then I turned my back on this sh1t and use FreeBSD only.
The things that p155ed me under Windows were many:

I do not need a 'waste paper basket'. If I want to delete a file I want to delete it, not having an argument with my computer. In the last 40 years I'm using computers I presumbly had three or four occasions when I was actually glad to have that 'waste paper bin'. But It would be no catastrophy either, because I had backups. But to serve this sh1t I had several hundreds thousands of times to click:'no, delete ist, but since there is only the bin, so yes, into the basket,' 'yes, empty it,' 'yes, I know, that's exactly what I want to do, so yes do it for f*§&$( sake!!'
I do not need several places where to start a program from (Start-Menu, Quickstart Bar, desktop icon, favorites, most often used, recently used, recently installed..).
I need one. And one only.
I do not need any menus trashed up with functions I do not need nor use, and always searching the function I want to use in them overloaded cr#p.
And I want to get rid off all this superfluid rubbish I do not need, I do not want.
I do not find the Windows environment intiutively usable. I find it unlogically structured, and it's trashed up.
I wnat to configure it to my needs.
But with Windows, you can't. You still have to think into something other defined for to suit everbody which does not.
I do not find most of Window's errors messages helpful at all. In many case they do net help me to solve the problem. Most often they only make me feel the system mocks me.
With every new version the cr#p is new structured, other look and feel, named otherwise, organized otherwise, more unlogical, and more trashed up, and you gaian need some effort to get into it (learning Windows new again and again. That's per se bs!)
And you cannot change it, really. You have to stay with it is as it were.
What you can do is change the optics. Great! There are zillions of options, how the sh1t looks like, colorsets, window decorations, wallpapers, and most view pioint of Windows is, that those a easily and quickly changed. (I need want and use a monocolor background, only, I have no need for 'artistic wallpapers', particulary no movies running in the background, and especially not the need to dowlonad more of this rubbish. I have to work with my machine, not look at it, or belive some kiddies would be impressed bay some gothic-metal-fantasy pic used to be the backgriund) I have no use for this. I need one single setup, and one setup only - _my_ setup, and I hope the way I configured it stays unchanged for as long as possible (decades, at best forever. [what is another reason for to not judge 'old' software as to bad because it's 'old', but see it to be mature, so reliable, proven to be useful, stays at it is, no need to care about already solved problems again and again, but focus on other, new probs - getting forward, not being held behind becuase you have to learn the same sh1t over and over again.])
I don't need all this. And I do not want this. I must not have it. 
But you cannot edit all this, drop out all the useless crap:"don't need that, don't want that, useless redundant, superfluid,..." and especially not change the concept of Windows at all.
This the concept of Windows - in my eyes (one my lengthen this list far more, but I do not want to talk about Windows, I want to talk concept, especially unix.

And since Windows is used on app. 90% of all computers, and app. 80% of all users never saw anything else and don't care,
sadly this became the gold standard.
So trying to copy this, even with the intension to make it better, in my eys is a bad fault.
You must not pimp up crep.
Crep is something you must get rid off, and focus on something else.

When KDE started in the late 90s the officially claimed intention for it was to create a DE (first under Linux), that feels more like Windows,
to make newbs coming from Windows feel more at home directly, not to scare them of.
And that's what you all still recognize when you do a default installation of KDE:
It's like Windows - the same sh1t.
A bloated, overloaded, unlogical, trashed up mess with waste basket, and menus, and start-menus containg serveral reduntend entries for anything and lots of verbiage.
I do not need twelve texteditors, I need one, only.
I do no need seven calculators, I need one, only.
....
At least with KDE you can throw out anything, you don't want, and add other stuff.
But it stays KDE.
Well, KDE has many satisfied users, but not me.
Way too much stuff I know hate about Windows.

Gnome - at least the 'older versions' I knew came up with another concept:
It has its own logical structure, differ from Windows, and it's trying to be a complete DE in a consistent gush: one editor, one calculator, one mediaplayer etc. all gnome.
At leat also with gnome you can configurate a lot, but it still stays Gnome.
Gnome has many satisfied users, but nor me.

So, one day I figured out:

There is (a lot) more than Windows, KDE and Gnome, only.
And one has to distinguish between a windowmanager and a DE. (To be complete you als have to distinguish between X and Wayland.)
I then worked with LXDE and xfce for a while, played a bit with Mate, and others (already all under FreeBSD, of course.)
And none of those really satisfied me:

There are still things I don't need/want, but cannot get rid off.
There still is a limitation how I may configure it to my taste.
I cannot change the structure - the concept.
Many of those DEs real configurations are often done within convoluted trees of XML-files. To me XML is a knock-out criteria. You must not use XML for anything but officefiles-cr#p (if even)! 
One day I realized:
I do not want/need a DE at all.
A windowsmanager would be fully sufficient.
Advantage: Not so much of a concept at all, but a great many choices to create one yourself.

I just need a GUI for some programs (e.g. firefox)
I appreciate the possibility to have well readable terminals, freely arrangable
I only get what I installed - bottom up: you start with a (nearly) blank sheet of paper, and add what you need, only. In the contrary top-down: you get a bunchload of cr#p installed, trashing up your desktop in the first place, and then need to cleam up the mess, get rid off all you don't need, and still needs to add, what you really want.
So I ended up with fvwm2.
There are many others, more or less complex, more or less easy to configurate (some had already mentioned in this thread.)
Give the one or the other a try!
If your primary issue is not that it looks most colorful ('exploded candy-shop'), but to be efficient in usage, and tailorable to the max. for your needs, those are your friend!

The disadvantage is, it's not autoconfigured, you need to dig into it.
But in most cases it's no rocketscience neither.
(And it's worth to dig into, because they stay.)
The advantages are:

You may get exactly what want, tailored the way you wants it to the point exactly.
You can end the endless, and unsatisfying quest of your search of the holy grail - the automatically preconfigured turnkey environment/system that exactly fits your individual needs exactly. Because having something that fits many but also perfectly you is quasi impossible.
So, *bottom line:*

My advice would be to *rethink the concept first:*

Define what you (really) need
What you don't need, not want to have
And then look for alternatives - bottom-up.
FreeBSD for me is the best platform I know to do exactly that. Because it's very nature it is bottom-up, modular, highly configurable, and tailorable to the point precisely.
But it does not come automatically, as I just explained. You have to dig into it.
With FreeBSD especially considering VMs you have nearly all possibilities to do anything with your computer a today's machine is capable of. You have a wide, at least absolutely sufficient choices of software you may pick from (even cr#p), (I daresay for open source nearly quite complete.[yeah, I know - don't start a discussion about that here, but there are way than enough choices.)

But _you_ have to define your concept.
And put a bit effort to it.

Last examples:
I was nearly unsatisfied with nearly any filemanager.
Then I realized, it's not there are no good filemanagers, the concept of a filemanagers per se sucks.
I do have a shell.
If you learned to use the shell (and I am far away from calling meself an expert, for sure not!)
you'll learn you don't need no fm at all.
For small tasks like copying, removing, renaming a single file - which is (at least for me) the most often task, I've already done the job, before the fm has even got up.
And for complex tasks, e.g. renaming twohundred files within a dir, you'll better use the shell anyway, with a fm you'll go nuts in no time 
So after testing out several fm I have none installed anymore.

Two weeks ago I got rid off my desktop calculators.
I now use wcalc (It's not that professionell mathematicians one like calc, but I simply don't need more. It calulates angles by default in degrees and not radiant [I did not figure out where in calc I could change that, if even] and it quits by just pressing 'q', not by typing 'exit'.)
But since most of the time I just need only two or three numbers quickly calculated, I am way quicker using a shell's calculater than driving mousekilometers within a GUI...)

For programming I often just need to quickly translate a hex-value to decimal, or vice versa.
I did not found any (me) satisfying tool (GUI Calculator, Web page... it's all very slow compared to a shell.
So I 'programmed' me two very small nano-scripts:
`#!/bin/sh
printf "%d\n" 0x$1
exit 0` hex2dez.sh

and

`#!/bin/sh
printf "%x\n" $1
exit 0` dez2hex.sh

and for each put an alias in my .cshrc
So now I just call that small command in the shell with a value and I get my translation quicker than consulting a calculator or even any webpage.
Of course, this is not to be ment 'great programming, dude...', nor to be usable for anybody.
The reason why I put this here is as for to be antoher example to think unix:

Grasp the concept of unix!
Don't you look for everything always for the finished available, turnkey solution (That's Windows' style.)
Become aware you are sitting on front of a system which origin concept is make the user capable of helping himself, tailor his own solutions, and offering lot of tools to do so.
This may not look always very well - if I want to know what's the sum of two values are, I don't care if the calculator looks like some retro-LED-display, I just need the value.

Often enough it's quicker to build your own solution than to search, install, deinstall.....

So again, grasp the concept of unix:
Learn those tools rather than search for software only.
My experience is, in the long term you will be more satisfied, and get a more powerful machine.

Grasp and define you concept first.
Be ready for to experiment and learn a bit (man pages are a goldmine!)
Test out some software, which suits.
Don't prejudge too quickly.
Do an proper evaluation process befor you install something.
Always consider:
Maybe the quicker and better solutions lies within you write a small script.
Else:
Give the software a chance - dig a bit into it, before you finally decide.
Be ready to let go learned concepts and be open for other concepts.
Do not challenge the software only, impeach yourself's concept.
Redefine your concept(s), again and again.
Impeach what you've learned, what stays, what new to be learned would be worth at least a try.

You'll find out quickly,* there is no all bad cr#p getting worse,* only.
There is a great many choices of really good programs, smart and clever.
And under FreeBSD you have the best starting conditions for that in the first place.

Sorry for that long answer, but I'm always thinking of other people with similar questions reading a thread on their quest for answers.
And some things (e.g. general statements) are not be answered shortly 

So, peace out!


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## PMc (Oct 10, 2022)

Nay, there is also progress. The ressource consumption, for instance, has changed in an impressive way.

When I bought new desktop in 2012, a decent i5-3550T, I thought it was far oversized. I didn't manage to use more than one core, and barely that.
It was two cores in recent years, but now with 2022Q4 and firefox-esr upgrading from some 9x to some 102, the switch in the settings to limit the "content workers" to two (instead of the suggested eight) has disappeared. And I looked into that, I found no way to actually reduce ressource consumtion, it always opens some 10-20 individual processes. And it does not properly run with less than four cores. (My environment has not changed, it was always icewm)

But, looking closer, the web has also changed. Webpages look very much different nowadays than they did 2010, which was very different than in 2000.
Then, when we come to the content, there is even more change. In 1990 the internet was brilliant - you got information and contacts nobody else knew that did even exist. In 2000 the internet was vibrant with great content, and we all thought that great and wonderful developments were on the rise.
In 2010 the internet was still good quality data, while today the information you find is more stupid than in the cheapest tabloid paper, and nothing you wouldn't already know - however, and that is also new, every page has a big spoiler reading "Give me your money!".


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## Alain De Vos (Oct 10, 2022)

My PC has 8-cores. I use 4 of them to compile quarterly. Just 1300 ports to go. But the 8-cores are nice, because the other 4-cores make my desktop xfce4 still responsive. Advance in hardware is a good thing.
When i look at the desktop usage of freebsd users , you see everything. From lean and small to bloated. So something from everyone as he likes. People use fvwm3 but also kde.
Advancement in wayland remains slow. I don't know why. But increase in functionality would be nice to have.


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## mer (Oct 10, 2022)

PMc said:


> But, looking closer, the web has also changed. Webpages look very much different nowadays than they did 2010, which was very different than in 2000.


True True True.  I remember "surfing the web on serial dialup lines at 115200" and thinking "the people designing these web pages are testing on a 10M wired network".


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## Alain De Vos (Oct 10, 2022)

I ppp through my modem(VDSL) and it still takes 30s to make connection. Which is still relatively slow in these modern times.


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## ayleid96 (Oct 10, 2022)

hunter0one said:


> Can I ask whats different in MATE than GNOME 2? It was forked from the latest version too. It uses GTK3 now is the only big difference I can think of.


MATE is sadly not a complete desktop environment. MATE lacks tons of administration stuff from GNOME.


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## hunter0one (Oct 11, 2022)

I built TDE today, and as much as I love its applications I must say using things like TDE and MATE make you realize desktop environments have had the same fundamental issues since the very beginnining. They often over-complicate things and for someone OCD like me its a huge damper on everything. Im also not a fan of either toolkit.


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## ProphetOfDoom (Oct 22, 2022)

mer said:


> I'm waiting for the dialog box that pops up "You moved your mouse.  Do you really want to move your mouse?  Click yes to continue" which moving your mouse to click yes causes another you moved your mouse dialog to pop up.  Of course they are modal dialogs so you have to click them.
> 
> I'm with the others that say/imply "Forget desktop environments, learn about simple window managers"  I've been just fine with WindowMaker for a heck of a long time.


I know all the cool kids are using standalone window managers. By “cool kids” I mean the Linux YouTubers I follow. But I feel like I’m in an abusive relationship with GNOME and KDE. They provide me with just enough comfort so I keep coming back to get bashed in the face again. If I was to go with a WM it would be a floating one. I just feel that someone who loathes vi and emacs as I do, would probably feel the same about some arcane WM with a bunch of obscure keyboard shortcuts? When I recently updated FreeBSD from 13.0 to 13.1 it messed up a config file and dropped me into vi so I could fix it. I nearly had an aneurysm...


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## tux2bsd (Oct 22, 2022)

W.hâ/t said:


> CuatroTorres Easy is almost never if not never the best path.


Incorrect.  I agree with CuatroTorres.  Easy does not mean restricted to being easy, VLC would be a good example - play, pause, volume - but there's a boat load more available to the user (that they may never need, but someone else might).


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## meine (Oct 22, 2022)

ayleid96 said:


> Why did we move on? For what?



Maybe we should ask _if_ we moved on.

Software is eating hardware improvements and bandwidth, while keeping user functionality at about the same level. When you skip the frills, indeed old hardware is still very functional.

I always wonder on my 1990 Mac Classic. Good working GUI and impossible to out-type the 8 Mhz CPU speed. Roughly said, nowadays the only improvement for an end user is a colour display.

That's why I like basic software, keeping it only to the level I need it.


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## mer (Oct 22, 2022)

meine said:


> I always wonder on my 1990 Mac Classic.


I had one of the original ones last year at college.  Huge 9 inch diagonal  B&W screen, inside of the case had the signatures of the design/development team embossed on the inside, floppy drive.  Ran like a champ.


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## meine (Oct 22, 2022)

mer said:


> Huge 9 inch diagonal  B&W screen


Realizing the huge 9" screen, I got myself a used 15" for running my main FreeBSD box. It's much more quiet and doesn't require much space on my desk. Switched to colour mode though ;-)


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## hunter0one (Oct 22, 2022)

ProphetOfDoom said:


> I know all the cool kids are using standalone window managers. By “cool kids” I mean the Linux YouTubers I follow. But I feel like I’m in an abusive relationship with GNOME and KDE. They provide me with just enough comfort so I keep coming back to get bashed in the face again. If I was to go with a WM it would be a floating one. I just feel that someone who loathes vi and emacs as I do, would probably feel the same about some arcane WM with a bunch of obscure keyboard shortcuts? When I recently updated FreeBSD from 13.0 to 13.1 it messed up a config file and dropped me into vi so I could fix it. I nearly had an aneurysm...


I felt the same way particularly with Trinity because I was attached to it for so long. I tried IceWM last year on FreeBSD as one of my first window managers and thought "This is terrible, I'm never using this again." Now here I am using IceWM to this day (I like to experiment but I always wind back up here). I used Openbox first but I'd recommend IceWM over it and others for several reasons: it has just enough to be like a desktop environment with all the benefits of a window manager, such as having its own wallpaper-drawing program (icewmbg), an application menu generator, and you can configure nearly all of it from the menu. You don't have to use keyboard shortcuts. The configuration is just KEY=VAL on different lines.

As someone else who doesn't really like vi/vim or emacs, I usually just use the Easy Editor or Featherpad.


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## Alain De Vos (Oct 22, 2022)

I've spend some time learning neovim. And like it alot. You can connect to language servers who correct you while you code.
Also vi does not have as much whistles-and-bells like emacs.
Two other simple editors are madedit & nedit.


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## hunter0one (Oct 22, 2022)

Truth be told, I'm a weirdo who likes editors/joe (Joe's Own Editor) and the unique Ctrl + K keybindings which come from it. I'm just used to it from Slackware. On FreeBSD when I'm doing CLI editing I don't bother installing JOE since Easy Editor is a decent editor in base, but I sure do miss the JOE keybindings.


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## hruodr (Oct 22, 2022)

Alain De Vos said:


> Advance in hardware is a good thing.


Powerful and cheap hardware thanks to bloat software, to windows "developing" and demanding more and more resources.
It is a pleasure to run old and oldest software in newest hardware. That should be a reason to write new old software.


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## Alain De Vos (Oct 22, 2022)

Like fvwm3.


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## mer (Oct 22, 2022)

hunter0one said:


> I tried IceWM last year on FreeBSD as one of my first window managers and thought "This is terrible, I'm never using this again."


The biggest issue with window managers/desktop environments/editors:  you get used to what you use and switching is a b****.
That means if you switch or experiment, you have to give it an honest try and that means (to me) at least a month of daily use.  First week you spend a lot of time learning the new keys/mouse clicks because your brain is wired to the old environment.  Then you spend a week tweaking the settings/preferences to get it to work the way you want (it's always the simple things like window decorations, right/left click, double click).  Then you have 2 solid weeks of just using it. 
That is an honest effort.

Example:
I've been using WindowMaker for a very long time.  First picked it because I liked the way it looks and discovered it works the way I want.  Trying anything else has taken a lot of time and effort for me, but I've discovered that while I keep coming back to WindowMaker, there are acceptable alternatives if needed.  awesomewm, xfce, lxde are useable for me.
Gnome (especially the latest iterations that work like a smartphone)/KDE are just too much overhead for too little return for me.


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## hruodr (Oct 22, 2022)

Alain De Vos said:


> Like fvwm3.


Or perhaps like `cwm`?

I could not test `fvwm3`, I get the error:



> # fvwm3
> ld-elf.so.1: /usr/local/bin/fvwm3: Undefined symbol "locale_charset"



I used fvwm2 with motif outlook on OpenBSD. I am using now twm, the only thing I miss is virtual desktops.

Other variations of `twm` are either bloated or not so stable,`vtwm` does not follow 
100% the configuration file of twm, and look:



> # ll /usr/local/bin/twm /usr/local/bin/vtwm
> -r-xr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  173024 Aug 12 06:00 /usr/local/bin/twm*
> -r-xr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  339752 Mar 13  2022 /usr/local/bin/vtwm*
> # ldd /usr/local/bin/twm /usr/local/bin/vtwm
> ...


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## hunter0one (Oct 22, 2022)

Fvwm3 has been infected by the GPL plague. I think fvwm2 in ports is from a GPL source, while fvwm2 in OpenBSD is under a BSD-style license.


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## hruodr (Oct 22, 2022)

mer said:


> Then you spend a week tweaking the settings/preferences to get it to work the way you want (it's always the simple things like window decorations, right/left click, double click).


You discover how comfortable `twm` is really after configuration. They are not just simple thinks.


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## kpedersen (Oct 22, 2022)

hruodr said:


> I am using now twm, the only thing I miss is virtual desktops.


You might be interested in vdesk.

I used it for the dtwm part of OpenCDE back in the day. It isn't virtual desktops but is very close. It tags the X11 windows and then based on a hotkey it minimizes and restores them to simulate switching between desktops.


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## hruodr (Oct 22, 2022)

kpedersen said:


> You might be interested in vdesk.


It looks very interesting, lightweight. Perhaps similar to the approach of cwm. I will see how to integrate it in the
configuration of twm.


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## meine (Oct 22, 2022)

hruodr said:


> Or perhaps like `cwm`?


x11-wm/cwm is cool. I use it for several years now. did a bit of extra config, but it stays a basic no-frills window manager. and it is fast.


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## drhowarddrfine (Oct 23, 2022)

There is no more comforting and relaxing display than when I have to switch from the browser or other graphics display to do some work in the terminal. A sense of calm and order takes over


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## hruodr (Oct 23, 2022)

hruodr said:


> I will see how to integrate it in the configuration of twm.



It seems, these bindings are enough:


> "1" = m4 : all : f.exec "exec vdesk 1"
> "2" = m4 : all : f.exec "exec vdesk 2"
> "3" = m4 : all : f.exec "exec vdesk 3"
> "4" = m4 : all : f.exec "exec vdesk 4"



Then I can change "desktop" with windows key + number.

All windows appears in all desktops, either as icon or open in the desktop it corresponds,
there is no big necessity of moving windows to other desktops with a vdesk command.


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## bob2112 (Oct 23, 2022)

hunter0one said:


> Truth be told, I'm a weirdo who likes editors/joe (Joe's Own Editor) and the unique Ctrl + K keybindings which come from it.



FWIW they came from the WordStar word processor. It was so widely used that its key bindings became a de facto standard for new editors in the 80's - even emacs had a wordstar mode.


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## sidetone (Oct 23, 2022)

x11/sxhkd works really well for hot keys, including multimedia keys. The configuration is simple too. Here's a config example:

```
XF86Audio{Mute,LowerVolume,RaiseVolume}
        mixer {0,vol -2, vol +2}
```


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## hunter0one (Oct 23, 2022)

bob2112 said:


> FWIW they came from the WordStar word processor. It was so widely used that its key bindings became a de facto standard for new editors in the 80's - even emacs had a wordstar mode.


JOE has a Wordstar mode that uses Ctrl + J, I was -20 in the 80s so I have no clue if this is what it used or Ctrl + K, but I really like the Ctrl + K controls.


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## bob2112 (Oct 23, 2022)

hunter0one said:


> JOE has a Wordstar mode that uses Ctrl + J, I was -20 in the 80s so I have no clue if this is what it used or Ctrl + K, but I really like the Ctrl + K controls.



What I meant is that those Ctrl + K controls, or at least the core of them, came from WordStar.


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