WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF HAVING TWO DESKTOPS IN LINUX

[OBLAMA2009]

I JUST INSTALLED XUBUNTU. CAN SOMEONE TELL ME WHY IT HAS TWO DESKTOPS?

 

[xSauronx]

First, please dont use all caps. Its really, really annoying.

Second, having multiple dekstops (the number can be much more than 2, i usually have 4 and use 2 or 3 regularly) allows you to organize and arrange your work and applications. I can more easily alt+tab through 3 or 4 apps per desktop over 2 or 3 desktops than i can go through 8 or 10 apps on one desktop.

i also find its very helpful on systems with small monitors, such as laptops, where screen real-estate is valuable.

example: ill keep firefox and pidgin and a terminal open on one desktop, do multimedia (watch a video, play/organize music, whatever) on another, and open up miscellaneous stuff on a third as i need it (say, a word processor or some such). I have a 14" laptop, so this is a necessity. if I had a 19" LCD i wouldnt use the feature *as often* but i still find it useful for organizing what im doing.

 

[Nothinman]

I usually have 8 or so with each desktop having a specific app or two in it. It's much easier to manage than having everything overlapping on one desktop.

And you should really look into fixing the caps lock key on your keyboard...

 

[silverpig]

I find myself using 2 right now. I have pidgin and firefox on one, and deluge and my terminals open on the second one. Flipping is as simple as moving the mouse to an empty part of the desktop and using the scroll wheel.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

thanks for the replys you guys they were very helpful and interesting

 

[Brazen]

Virtual desktops are probably the biggest thing that I can't believe Microsoft has never picked up on. As has been said, it is much easier to organize your applications in groups on separate desktops when you are doing heavy multitasking.

Also, I know there is a Powertoy that enables virtual desktops on Windows, but it was very slow and buggy when I tried it.

 

[yuchai]

Originally posted by: Brazen
Virtual desktops are probably the biggest thing that I can't believe Microsoft has never picked up on. As has been said, it is much easier to organize your applications in groups on separate desktops when you are doing heavy multitasking.

Also, I know there is a Powertoy that enables virtual desktops on Windows, but it was very slow and buggy when I tried it.

I too tried the Powertoy and was very disappointed. I have since found VirtuaWin which was much, much better

http://virtuawin.sourceforge.net/

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: yuchai

Originally posted by: Brazen
Virtual desktops are probably the biggest thing that I can't believe Microsoft has never picked up on. As has been said, it is much easier to organize your applications in groups on separate desktops when you are doing heavy multitasking.

Also, I know there is a Powertoy that enables virtual desktops on Windows, but it was very slow and buggy when I tried it.

I too tried the Powertoy and was very disappointed. I have since found VirtuaWin which was much, much better

http://virtuawin.sourceforge.net/

Well, I will certainly have to give that a try then.

 

[Modelworks]

Multiple desktops is really something MS needs to look at.
It is great for having email open, web, laying out pdf files or images when working. It is a must have to me.

Virtualwin works great in windows. It even lets me display video full screen on one desktop and switch between without problems. I have 4 desktops configured horizontally ,with it and set to autoswitch when the mouse reaches the screen borders. There is also modules you can download to do even more. Great for a free application.

 

[designerfx]

With compiz (for expo) I usually keep 4-8.

Without, usually 2. It's just a great way to be able to have programs running and not on your "current screen", is the simplest way I can say it.

 

[crontab]

organization.

the pager much easier to manage than a cluttered task bar with dozens of apps/shells running.

at work i have sets for dev/qa/prod machines, for scripting, veritas, whatever. have one desktop for my personal stuff/browser/email. etc...

 

[KillerCroc]

I generally use for on Mandriva - one for e-mail & IM, one for web surfing, another for games, and the last for OpenOffice projects

 

[QuixoticOne]

We need "workspace bookmarks" where you can save the arrangement and state of entire virtual desktops, and minimize / maximize / rearrange
them easily.

Something like gnome-session save or whatever is a step in the right direction, but it doesn't apply to a lot of common applications, and
there's no actual bookmark / minimize types of capabilities.

And then we need something like meta-bookmarks for Firefox so you can define groups of windows and their page states and bookmark
the entire group and minimize them together or shuffle them to a different workspace et. al. and keep them tagged so they're still
correlated in bookmark searches etc.

e.g. NEWS desktop = Firefox ( BBC + NPR + CNN + Slashdot + Ars Technica + Science Daily + Spaceweather } + various RSS readers + ....

 

[Nothinman]

Some WMs like Enlightenment have the ability to remember just about all attributes of a window so you can tell it to remember it's desktop, location, size, border, etc and have it restart it on login.

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
Some WMs like Enlightenment have the ability to remember just about all attributes of a window so you can tell it to remember it's desktop, location, size, border, etc and have it restart it on login.

e16/17 do have some cool features. i cant remember exactly why but i was never fond enough of 17 to keep it; i should try again.

 

[Nothinman]

I'm still using e16, e17 was too unstable the last time I tried it.

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
I'm still using e16, e17 was too unstable the last time I tried it.

i tried the e17 disc that came out with the release of etch, i didnt try it long enough to even determine the stability. ill just be damned if i can remember why i didnt use it.

ive gotten to like XFCE pretty well, to be honest.

 

[Nothinman]

I could be wrong as I haven't looked at other WMs in a while but I believe e16 still has some features that current WMs don't have, one being the ability to drag windows between desktops by the thumbnails. I don't use that too much any more but I used to. Also I think it's got some of the most complete window memory functionality around. And for the most part it just stays out of the way, I don't want a full desktop with all of those icons and crap.

 

[PCTC2]

Compiz-Fusion makes my work a lot easier. Expo and the likes allow me to organize the windows of 8 desktops. ccsm package allows customization of compiz
1) Firefox
2) Terminals
3) VMware Server
4) Programming space
5) Personal Programs
6) Server diagnostics and terminals to control such programs and my ethernet monitor program.
7 and 8 are empty.