Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 13:01:11 +0930 From: Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog@lemis.com> To: Jud <jud@myrealbox.com> Cc: Hostmaster@Video2Video.Com, mwvw@adelphia.net, FreeBSD-Questions@FreeBSD.Org Subject: Re: What do we need in a FreeBSD desktop? (was: Peter heads back to M$FT WinBloze [support groups]) Message-ID: <20020731033111.GK17787@wantadilla.lemis.com> In-Reply-To: <20020729215629.435b4356.jud@myrealbox.com> References: <00d301c23504$9bbe0c60$0a01a8c0@mswolf> <20020726210341.N20468-100000@earl-grey.cloud9.net> <20020728023016.GA51076@wantadilla.lemis.com> <20020729215629.435b4356.jud@myrealbox.com>
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[Format recovered--see http://www.lemis.com/email/email-format.html] Incorrect quoting. On Monday, 29 July 2002 at 21:56:29 -0400, Jud wrote: > On Sun, 28 Jul 2002 12:00:16 +0930 > Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog@lemis.com> wrote: > > [snip] >> So what's in instant-workstation? Currently I have: >> >> acroread >> bash >> cdrecord >> dos2unix >> emacs >> fetchmail >> gs >> grip >> gimp >> gv >> gpg >> ispell >> startkde >> mkisofs >> ... >> mutt >> netscape >> >> My questions to you: is there anything missing? Has anybody >> tried instant-workstation? I'd be interested in suggestions >> about how to improve it. > > I haven't tried instant-workstation, so of course I'll rush in > where angels fear to tread. > > One of the instant-workstation ports I have not tried is mutt, > though I've read much praise for it and no negatives that I can > recall. It's not perfect. It does strange things on the screen. > I wonder, though, whether a gui mail application might be a good > choice for this "target market," in addition to, instead of, or as > another choice besides mutt. Sylpheed happens to be the one I > prefer, and it seems to be well liked by many other users. Speaking > as someone who didn't know a thing about Unix a couple of years ago > (and hasn't improved on the situation all that much since:), it was > very easy to learn. That's a good point. I've added sylpheed to the list. > Another place where options might be appreciated is browsers - > perhaps Galeon, Opera, Mozilla? And Lynx I think is excellent for > getting around on the Net at times when one doesn't want to or can't > be in X. See http://ezine.daemonnews.org/200208/ports.html when it appears in a couple of days' time. Basically, I can't find one good browser, but with a combination, I can do most things. > Perhaps that's taken care of by w3m (I don't remember ATM whether > that's part of the default emacs install)? That brings me to my > last and likely most controversial thought. Emacs does everything > but bake blueberry muffins, but it might be more intimidating (or > puzzling - took me awhile just to understand what "M-x" meant) than > useful to someone fairly new to Unix. It does take a while to build > and install (and download, for those of us on dial-ups). And the > configuration options! - not exactly 'instant.' If it's part of the > install, it seems to me users will try it, and may wind up thinking > "Jeez, this stuff is hard" as a first impression of FreeBSD. Well, Emacs is still basically an editor. For all the complexity, it's the only one I can put complete beginners in front of and have them be able to use it. But it's not a browser. The instant-workstation had Netscape, and it has Konqueror from kde, but I've now added Mozilla and Opera. Greg -- When replying to this message, please take care not to mutilate the original text. For more information, see http://www.lemis.com/email.html Finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key See complete headers for address and phone numbers To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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