Newbe questions - comp.os.linux.misc

Hello! I recently started working at a new place on a LINUX RedHat workstation after almost 10 years of working as a chip designer on Sun boxes under SunOS+OpenWin and later Solaris+CDE. At home I still use OS/2 WARP3 on my 9 years old PC. At work I got quite used to keeping 40-60 apps open with most of them being iconized into a specific location on the desktop. About 2/3 of them are simple textedit-clones of various files which stay open for months and most of the rest are about 10 cmdtools in which the most frequently used command is "!!<ENTER>". My perception is mostly graphical - I just remember almost by heart icon at which location represents what. After all, after seeing for years the perfmeter at the top right, the mailer next left, browser next left, .cshrc bottom right, .alias above .cshrc, ... it's easy to remember. As for the text edit, I mostly love the textedit clones for the user-configurable menus (through .textextras-menu) allowing me to activate Perl scripts on a selected text. I value this feature so much I can do without text highlighting if I'm forced to choose between the two. But now I'm new to the RedHat LINIX on KDE and the default behaviour of KDE is too much windows-like: when minimizing an app. it creates an icon at the panel instead of on the desktop, thus changing from two-dimentional app-selecting tool (CDE desktop) into one-dimentional app-selecting tool (panel or apps-list). Sometimes there is a second "dimention" on the panel when many instances of the same app are started but that requires clicking on more than one place which wastes time. What I would like to know is: 1) Is there a way to configure KDE so that a minimized app will turn into an icon on the desktop instead of on the panel? Is there a way to start an app with geometry args (like CDE) which'll result in an iconized app with icon at specific coordinates? That's important for returning all apps icons to their places (with a script) after some lame sysop tells me I have to reboot after merely few months of uptime. I noticed that placing a file (or a link to it) in the KDE desktop directory creates an icon and I can edit the coordinates but that's not an app - it's a file (object?) with which an app is associated (somewhat similar to WARP3) and the icon stays weather the app is open or not. If there isn't such a way, what other win-managers can do that? Now that I have many hopes to persuade our IT guys to install anything other than GNOME or KDE but who knows... I visited http://xwinman.org/kde.html and also kde.org but I can't judge from the screenshots weather the icon is from a file placed in desktop folder or from a minimized app. 2) Searching for a simple editor with user-configurable menus I currently selected "nedit". It has a user configurable menus (in some ways even better than textedit) but the "copy-paste" behaviour of nedit isn't 100% deterministic: not always a double click marks a string and tripple click marks a line, while in textedit it was rock solid. Also, attempting to create a menu with few hundreds of elements (approaching what I used to have with textedit) I caused a segmentation fault of the nedit and had to give up on menu items to make it shorter. Another drawback of nedit menus compared with textedit: nedit loads the menu once at a start time, which means: editing the menu file doesn'r affect already opened editors. Is there any other small and simple editor for LINUX that has user-defined menus similar to "extras" of textedit? It doesn't have to be complicated (surely not the monster like Xemacs). It also should work fast with HUGE files: today I opened a file merely 20MB with nedit and waited 2-3 seconds for it to open while textedit works very well with files up to 2GB and it doesn't looks like length of the file affects anything (except save or search or replace). 3) The terminal shell used in KDE seems to have a low limit on the scroll history: I don't remember the value but it's orders of magnitude lower than 200MB scroll-history buffer I used to open the "cmdtool" with. Are there other shells with HUGE history buffers? THANKS IN ADVANCE FOR ANY HELP ! ! ! ****************************************************************************** * Arie Kazachin, Israel, e-mail: ariek@attglobal3.14159265358979323846.net * ****************************************************************************** NOTE: before replying, leave only letters in my domain-name. Sorry, SPAM trap.

Arie Kazachin wrote: > Hello! Hi Arie, and welcome to Linux! > > I recently started working at a new place on a LINUX RedHat workstation > after almost 10 years of working as a chip designer on Sun boxes under > SunOS+OpenWin and later Solaris+CDE. At home I still use OS/2 WARP3 > on my 9 years old PC. Better than coming from windows; you at least know the command line etc... > > At work I got quite used to keeping 40-60 apps open with most of them > being iconized into a specific location on the desktop. About 2/3 of them > are simple textedit-clones of various files which stay open for months > and most of the rest are about 10 cmdtools in which the most frequently > used command is "!!<ENTER>". My perception is mostly graphical - I just > remember almost by heart icon at which location represents what. After > all, after seeing for years the perfmeter at the top right, the mailer > next left, browser next left, .cshrc bottom right, .alias above .cshrc, > ... it's easy to remember. As for the text edit, I mostly love the > textedit clones for the user-configurable menus (through .textextras-menu) > allowing me to activate Perl scripts on a selected text. I value this > feature so much I can do without text highlighting if I'm forced to choose > between the two. > > But now I'm new to the RedHat LINIX on KDE and the default behaviour > of KDE is too much windows-like: when minimizing an app. it creates > an icon at the panel instead of on the desktop, thus changing from > two-dimentional app-selecting tool (CDE desktop) into one-dimentional > app-selecting tool (panel or apps-list). Sometimes there is a second > "dimention" on the panel when many instances of the same app are started > but that requires clicking on more than one place which wastes time. > > What I would like to know is: > > 1) Is there a way to configure KDE so that a minimized app will > turn into an icon on the desktop instead of on the panel? > Is there a way to start an app with geometry args (like CDE) > which'll result in an iconized app with icon at specific > coordinates? That's important for returning all apps icons > to their places (with a script) after some lame sysop tells me > I have to reboot after merely few months of uptime. > I noticed that placing a file (or a link to it) in the KDE > desktop directory creates an icon and I can edit the coordinates > but that's not an app - it's a file (object?) with which an app > is associated (somewhat similar to WARP3) and the icon stays > weather the app is open or not. I don't know about KDE, but I would probably give windowmaker/afterstep a try. You will also find here a text editor called "textedit" which I believe may well be the same one you used on Sun. > <snip> > > 2) Searching for a simple editor with user-configurable menus I > currently selected "nedit". It has a user configurable menus > (in some ways even better than textedit) but the "copy-paste" > behaviour of nedit isn't 100% deterministic: not always a double > click marks a string and tripple click marks a line, while in > textedit it was rock solid. Also, attempting to create a menu > with few hundreds of elements (approaching what I used to have > with textedit) I caused a segmentation fault of the nedit and had > to give up on menu items to make it shorter. Another drawback > of nedit menus compared with textedit: nedit loads the menu > once at a start time, which means: editing the menu file > doesn'r affect already opened editors. Give textedit a try; I haven't used it, so can't verify it myself. > > 3) The terminal shell used in KDE seems to have a low limit on the > scroll history: I don't remember the value but it's orders of > magnitude lower than 200MB scroll-history buffer I used to open > the "cmdtool" with. Are there other shells with HUGE history > buffers? Under "Settings" on konsole, click on history. Set size to "unlimited" which should be pretty much what you're after. However, I don't know whether you'll have easy access to konsole if you use afterstep, so you might have to set something else in the new terminal... > > THANKS IN ADVANCE FOR ANY HELP ! ! ! > No problems. Cheers, -- ** Matt van de Werken -- Cricket, Unix, Electronics Enthusiast ** ** Linux -- Dual Athlon MP1800+ -- Tue, 07 Dec 2004 7:05PM ** Smartness runs in my family. When I went to school I was so smart my teacher was in my class for five years. -- George Burns

Arie Kazachin wrote: > Hello! > > I recently started working at a new place on a LINUX RedHat workstation > after almost 10 years of working as a chip designer on Sun boxes under > SunOS+OpenWin and later Solaris+CDE. At home I still use OS/2 WARP3 > on my 9 years old PC. [snip] > What I would like to know is: > > 1) Is there a way to configure KDE so that a minimized app will > turn into an icon on the desktop instead of on the panel? > Is there a way to start an app with geometry args (like CDE) > which'll result in an iconized app with icon at specific > coordinates? That's important for returning all apps icons > to their places (with a script) after some lame sysop tells me > I have to reboot after merely few months of uptime. > I noticed that placing a file (or a link to it) in the KDE > desktop directory creates an icon and I can edit the coordinates > but that's not an app - it's a file (object?) with which an app > is associated (somewhat similar to WARP3) and the icon stays > weather the app is open or not. > > If there isn't such a way, what other win-managers can do that? > Now that I have many hopes to persuade our IT guys to install > anything other than GNOME or KDE but who knows... > > I visited http://xwinman.org/kde.html and also kde.org > but I can't judge from the screenshots weather the icon > is from a file placed in desktop folder or from a minimized app. Coming from your background, you might like to look into 'olvwm', which is supposed to look like OpenWin (IIRC). Some of the other simpler window managers like 'fvwm' would also be in keeping with your previous computing experience. I don't know much about CDE, though, since my SunOS experience was before CDE's time. However, if you really want CDE on Linux, you can buy it (US$49.95): http://www.xigraphics.com/Pages/DeXtop/CDE-GUI.html

In <kml4pc.4km.ln@mail.binaryfoundry.ca> John-Paul Stewart: [Snip...] > Coming from your background, you might like to look into 'olvwm', which > is supposed to look like OpenWin (IIRC). (olvwm: OpenLook Virtual Window Manager) I agree strongly; I used olvwm/olwm for years in engineering on Suns and still like olwm better than CDE adopted on Suns later. I'm using olwm at the moment, in fact, but on SuSE x86 rather than Sun. > Some of the other simpler window managers like 'fvwm' would also be in > keeping with your previous computing experience. Both olwm and fvwm are much faster and reliable than KDE or Gnome on the same hardware, IME. Personally, I prefer olwm to fvwm, but it's a matter of personal choice, of course. CDE was too much like Gnome, and fvwm too much like Windows, for me--YMMV. > I don't know much about CDE, though, since my SunOS experience was > before CDE's time. I didn't care much for CDE over things like olwm on Sun, but probably as a matter of style more than anything. I'm just not much into computation and complexity for what's desktop eye candy to me. :) FWIW, olvwm/olwm is included with the SuSE distro (which I use), but I'm not sure about its availability elsewhere at this time. -- Regards, Weird (Harold Stevens) * IMPORTANT EMAIL INFO FOLLOWS * Pardon any bogus email addresses (wookie) in place for spambots. Really, it's (wyrd) at airmail, dotted with net. DO NOT SPAM IT. Kids jumping ship? Looking to hire an old-school type? Email me.

In message <41b573e3$0$21872$61ce578d@news.syd.swiftdsl.com.au> - Matt van de Werken <mvdw@swifrtdsl.com.au> writes: Thanks Matt, Harold, John-Paul (and whoever elses replys are in the pipe), I saved the replys and will start checking what's applicable. Had it been my own PC installing another win manager would be easy but at work I'll have to see if I'll be able to persuade out IT people to install on my workstation something other then the two standard managers (KDE and GNOME). ****************************************************************************** * Arie Kazachin, Israel, e-mail: ariek@attglobal3.14159265358979323846.net * ****************************************************************************** NOTE: before replying, leave only letters in my domain-name. Sorry, SPAM trap.

In <41b61c29_3@news2.prserv.net> Arie Kazachin: [Snip...] > but at work I'll have to see if I'll be able to persuade out IT people > to install on my workstation something other then the two standard > managers (KDE and GNOME). It may be helpful to reassure them you're not making a lot of extra work for them, and most of the alternate packages are stable and secure after years of debug/use. The upside for them is it may provide them with some alternate means to get "obsolete" desktops online and working, without a lot of expensive upgrading/support. Just a thought... (I have X and olwm working with 14 MB under SuSE 6.4, believe it or not) -- Regards, Weird (Harold Stevens) * IMPORTANT EMAIL INFO FOLLOWS * Pardon any bogus email addresses (wookie) in place for spambots. Really, it's (wyrd) at airmail, dotted with net. DO NOT SPAM IT. Kids jumping ship? Looking to hire an old-school type? Email me.

In <41bca404_4@news2.prserv.net> Arie Kazachin: [Snip...] > 1) Have I downloaded the correct sources? If not, where to find > the correct ones? Hard to say at this point; I built olvwm from source *many* years ago on a Slack install. Your packages sound vaguely familiar and ISTR It wasn't a cakewalk, but it was doable. I quit fooling with source compiles generally after moving to Turbolinux and then RH and SuSE years ago (olvwm comes as a precompiled RPM). There might be better package compile support in RYO distros like Gentoo. There could be precompiled binaries for RH, Debian, etc. (I use SuSE and haven't looked elsewhere), but specific distro forums should be a better place to ask. Getting olvwm to compile and link might be more than you want to do. The other lightweight manager (like icewm, or fvwm) might be a easier to get installed and working, from either source or precompiled binaries. > 2) How can I know that the OLVWM and xview sources are for LINUX? > Is there any configuration file which creates the "Makefile" > with one of the OS options being LINUX? Yes; IME, it's in the configure file and/or the Make file setups. You'll at least have to correct the compiler setup to be your local c/c++ (most Linux installs have something like /usr/bin/gcc). There could be symbols unset and other bugs which appear during things like "make install" such as where you want the executable to reside. You generally won't know the problems until you try a compile. Look for things at the top of configure and Make that stand out--that is typical after unpacking and looking at READMEs or INFOs sitting around. > Assuming I'll solve these problems and get OLVWM ready to run, > > 3) What is the LINUX boot order with respect to selecting > which window manager to start? I remember that when the IT > guy made the initial setup there was a menu with window I'd not even worry about this at all until you get a workable lighweight window manager installed. If nothing else, you can always start one from the CLI on Linux console 8 with something like xinit /starting/at/rootslash/your/FULL/path/to/olvwm -- :1.0 (Linux console 7 on :0.0 is of course used as default X login console) Again, you can do this from CLI with other managers like icewm and fvwm. I wouldn't spend to much time fighting an olvwm compile/link--ask again. -- Regards, Weird (Harold Stevens) * IMPORTANT EMAIL INFO FOLLOWS * Pardon any bogus email addresses (wookie) in place for spambots. Really, it's (wyrd) at airmail, dotted with net. DO NOT SPAM IT. Kids jumping ship? Looking to hire an old-school type? Email me.

In message <slrncrbt60.p7j.wyrd@aces.localdomain> - Harold Stevens <wookie@aces.localdomain> writes: > >In <kml4pc.4km.ln@mail.binaryfoundry.ca> John-Paul Stewart: > >[Snip...] > >> Coming from your background, you might like to look into 'olvwm', which >> is supposed to look like OpenWin (IIRC). > >(olvwm: OpenLook Virtual Window Manager) > >I agree strongly; I used olvwm/olwm for years in engineering on Suns and >still like olwm better than CDE adopted on Suns later. I'm using olwm at >the moment, in fact, but on SuSE x86 rather than Sun. > OK, back again to this issue: I downloaded OLVWM at work from http://home.nyc.rr.com/twopks/olvwm/ Reading the above page, I saw that I also need "olgx" libraries so I went to http://ftp.x.org/R5contrib/xview3.2 , saw that the site had been reorganized, went to get http://www.x.org/pub/R5/contrib-3.tar.Z and saw that the sources for the I386 target are only for SCO and I saw no LINUX mentioned in the README, so I paused and decided to get back to this NG to ask some more questions: 1) Have I downloaded the correct sources? If not, where to find the correct ones? 2) How can I know that the OLVWM and xview sources are for LINUX? Is there any configuration file which creates the "Makefile" with one of the OS options being LINUX? Assuming I'll solve these problems and get OLVWM ready to run, 3) What is the LINUX boot order with respect to selecting which window manager to start? I remember that when the IT guy made the initial setup there was a menu with window managers selection (KDE, GNOME). Which files should be changed in order to add OLVWM option? Which of them require superuser permissions? TIA, ****************************************************************************** * Arie Kazachin, Israel, e-mail: ariek@attglobal3.14159265358979323846.net * ****************************************************************************** NOTE: before replying, leave only letters in my domain-name. Sorry, SPAM trap.