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Old 10th December 2013
harishankar harishankar is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by IdOp View Post
I agree. I think that's why we see such a large number of WM's / DE's today. Many of them are very different from each other, because everybody wants something different. I don't think it would be possible to create a single (POSIX BSD-focused) WM/DE and have more than 10% (or whatever) of the users happy with it. So we may be stuck with porting Linux-isms, or developing niche solutions (e.g., cwm).
I don't think it's as vague as that. I think at least the following are expected of a desktop system as opposed to a mere graphical workspace for GUI applications that a WM provides:

* tighter integration with some essential OS level services providing a consistent interface, exposed via GUI tools like network management, display and power management, screen management, filesystem monitoring, device management etc. (i.e. automated way to detect and support plug-and-play external drives, devices, configure printers, scanners etc)
* a minimal or common set of utilities for file management, web browsing, personal information management, e-mail, image viewing, document viewing, multimedia player, text editing, calculator etc.
* provides session management i.e. remember previous user sessions, User interface settings etc.
* provides a consistent graphical look-and-feel for applications including information sharing mechanisms (clipboard management etc).

Note that I'm not even talking of features like 2d or 3d video acceleration and desktop compositing, which are just visual frills.

All the above make it easier to use a personal computer or a laptop as opposed to having to revert to command line or console for achieving the desired results, which is the case with mere window managers. This usage is clearly separate from what people would need in a server-based system.

I think most users would tick at least a couple of the above to mean a desktop as opposed to a WM or a graphical workspace.

Last edited by harishankar; 10th December 2013 at 04:20 AM.
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