Should we change rox to other more beautiful ones... ?SOLVED

[disciple]

Ttuuxxx - I think they are talking about user error. It is easy to drag files into the wrong folder.
A window manager that raised windows when you drag stuff over them in the taskbar would improve this a little.

[bugman]

me neither

i've done the full-install-copy thing too

i've even used rox to copy files on misbehaving windows machines [besides, it's light years faster than explorer]

rox forever!

[disciple]

i've even used rox to copy files on misbehaving windows machines [besides, it's light years faster than explorer]

What? Nonsense!
The GTK2 rox versions are ridiculously slow compared to explorer. What version of Windows do you have?

[bugman]

i've even used rox to copy files on misbehaving windows machines [besides, it's light years faster than explorer]

What? Nonsense!
The GTK2 rox versions are ridiculously slow compared to explorer. What version of Windows do you have?

i don't have windows

i've just used it on other people's computers, one was xp and the other was me

part of the problem might have been that windows itself was so damn slow on both machines...

[disciple]

Unfortunately Rox 2.x does take a lot longer to display the contents of directories than explorer does on the same machine

[Max Uglee]

I agree about having alternative file managers in the repo. Next time I'm using the latest puppy I'll compile a couple and give the links to barry.
ttuuxxx

Thank you, I swear I am not anti-Rox. I think that it is great for what it does but I prefer a differnt style filer and I belive many others do too. Would it be possible to make the others install and act as seemlessly as Gray has done with Boxpup when you put together those packages? I will do testing.

Also, Bugman, the reason I don't use Puppy all of the time is because of the filer and lack of packages. It takes way too much work to get things to do what I want and there are many things it can't do, that is why I am on here. I know that most *Buntus are bloated but they can do what I want and do it easily and still stay stable and secure. There are some pretty nice stripped down derivatives as well that run comfortably on older hardware. You saw the setup that Fleetwood posted, also, try Crunchbang. I don't know if you've tried any Debian based Linux but Synaptic/Apt-get destroys every other package manager. You can even add other repos and it keeps your system up to date. I have yet to have an update do anything but add a nice feature or fix a bug. While *Buntus are not as conservative as their parent Debian, they implement a healthy middleground between cutting edge and super stable (especially the LTS version). Gnome itself is probably the biggest problem/lump-of-bloat with the main Ubuntu. Not that I like the KDE version any more. I am against a super overly heavy WM and Nautilus could be a little more lightwieght also. That is why I do like Puppy.

Bugman, have you already worked on the lady's computer? Why dont you let the lady try the Ubuntu or Mint (Crunchbang is great on older hardware) live CD and then the Puppy (obviously) live CD. Fairly explain to her that Ubuntu is designed to be ran from a HD and will be slower until installed and that it is just a test of usability. Then ask her everything she needs to be able to do on her computer. Then demonstrate how to do these things in Puppy (if possible) and how to do them in Ubuntu (if possible). It is nice to see that you gave her a choice.

[bugman]

I don't know if you've tried any Debian based Linux but Synaptic/Apt-get destroys every other package manager.

yeah, i've tried a couple of versions of debian and not cared for it much

i like slackware though...

Bugman, have you already worked on the lady's computer? Why dont you let the lady try the Ubuntu or Mint (Crunchbang is great on older hardware) live CD and then the Puppy (obviously) live CD.

i did give her a ubuntu disk, that's why i called myself a hypocrite

i figured that it being from africa [and having a decent office suite--she uses the computer for work] gave it the edge

i figured if she liked it we might talk about puppy, but i didn't want to start there--if for no other reason than the conexant modem in her computer...

[Max Uglee]

@ 37fleetwood :

I don't believe anyone has a problem about pets for different file managers. I think that point kinda got lost in the"Puppy is an OS for geeks" and not suitable for an everyday OS stuff started by you know who a while back and brought back again in this thread.

I am sorry if I offended anyone or hurt anybody's feelings. I never thought of being a "geek" as a bad thing. I consider myself one. I would consider anyone who takes the time to post on a forum about computers at least somewhat of a geek, again, not a bad thing. It is a healthy mind exercising hobby that helps other people (as ugly as the conversation may get). I did not mean someone who sits inside all day and plays video games/looks at porn not doing anything constructive. I would call those people slobs/losers.

I am also sorry if people on here feel that I have whined or hijacked or tried to define what Puppy shoud be. I feel that for the most part this has been a reasonable debate with valid points on both sides. I appreciate people taking the time to listen and a BIG thank you in advance to anyone who puts out any alternative updated filers

[37fleetwood]

it's always been my understanding that Puppy was never meant to be "full featured" and ubuntu is trying really hard to be as seamless if not more seamless than Windows.
I suppose, as a person who would rather go about my business and have my computer intuitively do what I need it to, and have things available in a way that makes sense to whomever the user happens to be, Ubuntu is the obvious choice. I never have to mess around trying to theme my machine, I simply download a new theme which installs itself and is easily choosable from a list of all my themes. installing new applications is as simple as choosing the one I want through Apt, and then it appears in the menu, no muss no fuss, I plug my camera in and it auto detects it and mounts it and opens F-Spot and downloads thumbnails for me to choose the ones I want to download to the drive. it automatically puts them in nice date ordered directories in the "Photos" directory so I can find them easily. is this bloat? maybe but it's what most people want the computer to do for them so they don't have to do it for themselves, I suppose this isn't for everyone. I really love Puppy, if that weren't true, I would have installed Ubuntu and moved on by now.
the Puppy community faces real challenges. to me the way to go is to leave apps for the user to choose, the improvements to Puppy should focus mainly under the hood, keep it light and fast, and give us the cool apps we love in the repository where they will be easy to find. a strange tendency has been to include apps that cover a little bit of everything so that the basic cd can do everything however poorly, rather than having just the basics, leaving room for the user to install the apps he or she likes.
Jwm/Rox is fast and light as well as being stable and reliable, I have never had any issues with it, it simply is a matter of convenience for me, I like a two paned filer, and truth be told I like Explorer. the detailed information available without having to do anything is really something that should be adopted. I can sort music files by name date created, date modified, artist, album, and on and on. makes sorting that random junk which always gathers on your drive easier to go through. Rox doesn't even come close to the convenience offered by even PcMan.
I was very intrigued by the recent suggestion that Jwm/Rox be dropped for LXDE as the Desktop environment on the basic Puppy releases.

[Max Uglee]

@ 37fleetwood

I am not a developer so what I am about to say is only from what I have read although I have seen many complaints about this same subject. Maybe some of the devs on here can approve or disprove this.

When I said that Ubuntu was bloated I meant more along he lines of sloppy programming. It seems that all of these features that make everything very easy could be provided with much less resource intensive apps. I'm not going to bring Rox into this because it is unique. Thunar and PCman are not much less powerful than Nautilus. I think that they could have a few features added and be just as good without taking up a ridiculous amount of RAM (like Nautilus). There are a lot of things running that do simple things that should not take up so much RAM. Another thing is that it seems like every service seems to run by default. Many people don't need bluetooth stuff running all of he time but it is checked and consumes a few MB of RAM by itself out of the box. Stuff like that should be in a logical place if you need it but not always running.

This article is about Xubuntu vs a custom built Debian with XFCE. Xubuntu uses a bunch of Gnome apps. They found many equivalent apps that make up a just as able system using much less resources.
http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue ... 27#feature

The thing about Gnome is that is is very seemless. I think that they have to make everything themselves to make it all work together right. This also ensures that everything is maintained. They are pretty good about working out bugs and adding requested features. If they just threw together a bunch of apps from different places they would have to rely on the devs of everything or patch them themselves. It would also be harder to make all of these things look/feel the same. I think that they are more interested in and only have resources to work on functionality+stability not so much being lightweight. It would be awesome if someone could combine all three (Woof )

Ok now I have hijacked the thread.

You mentioned LXDE. One exciting thing in the Ubuntu world is a possible Lubuntu. Shuttleworth even has made it somewhaat official.

[`f00]

merely an opinion
Rox simply fits well with Puppy for me. I'd imagine it to be not all that difficult for n00Bs to get used to (even fun once a few things are understood) once they get out of the file-browser mindset. Gosh, after Rox got bookmarks and a mru .. what's not to like?

By all means have alternatives .. about the only thing I miss from the win-way is 'shooting-tree' menus for quick gui rundown (and pretty sure there's a jwm traymenu-something by HairyWill that covers that if I'm not mistaken .. really fast things take a bit of getting used to for me once I get over the )

The drag'n'drop can be iffy if one is a bit clumsy .. a few symlinks I've misplaced from time to time (and sometimes Rox will rarely *move* a file rather than give me the options), bye&large it's all gooD

[disciple]

and ubuntu is trying really hard to be as seamless if not more seamless than Windows.

Windows? Seamless?
We install Windows. Thankfully we don't need to go looking for special drivers. Then we install autocad. Then we install office. Then we spend three days trying to get our Windows computer to talk nicely to our Windows server (i.e. make it actually load a proper roaming profile). Then we spend a day trying to find how to turn off the evil font smoothing everywhere it is possible. It isn't possible everywhere. It isn't possible in Office anymore (That makes this even worse than Vista). Then we sift through our collection of downloaded freeware and open source software, installing a real calculator, a real unit convert, a real image editor, a real browser etc.
Sorry for getting off topic, but if you think Ubuntu is more "seamless" than Puppy because it has more software in its repository, surely it is far more seamless than Windows?

Disclaimer: testing done with latest Windows 7 release candidate. YMMV

and sometimes Rox will rarely *move* a file rather than give me the options

You must be pressing the shift key by mistake.

and truth be told I like Explorer. the detailed information available without having to do anything is really something that should be adopted.

Eh?
I have to change the settings of Explorer for it to show me the details, the same as Rox. Am I missing something?

I can sort music files by name date created, date modified, artist, album, and on and on. makes sorting that random junk which always gathers on your drive easier to go through. Rox doesn't even come close to the convenience

Well you can sort by Name, type, permissions, owner, group, size and last modified in Rox. I can't say I've ever seen options to sort by artist and album in Explorer... how do you get them?

I was very intrigued by the recent suggestion that Jwm/Rox be dropped for LXDE as the Desktop environment on the basic Puppy releases.

I'd be horrified, not intrigued. Openbox and lxpanel used an awful lot more ram than jwm last time I used them, and I've seen more problems with them than benefits. I'm quite keen on promoting an xfce squashfile for people without ancient computers though, as it properly implements "utility window" hints and stuff. It would be good to have a range of well produced "desktop environment" .sfs files - icewm (a pet would be fine I guess), LXDE, xfce... working all the way up to KDE maybe.

[Max Uglee]

I can sort music files by name date created, date modified, artist, album, and on and on. makes sorting that random junk which always gathers on your drive easier to go through. Rox doesn't even come close to the convenience

Well you can sort by Name, type, permissions, owner, group, size and last modified in Rox. I can't say I've ever seen options to sort by artist and album in Explorer... how do you get them?

In XP you simply right click on the bar that you would click to sort things and it gives you a dropdown that lets you check different attributes to display. You said you were using Window$ 7 though so I don't know what to tell you. Not that I like or support M$ at all but to be fair you shouldn't be using an RC for comparison with an official version of something else.

Just curious, what exactly are these problems that you have seen with openbox apart from it using more RAM? I have used it alot and haven't run into any. If you are horrified why would you think an .sfs is a good idea?

[disciple]

You said you were using Window$ 7 though so I don't know what to tell you. Not that I like or support M$ at all but to be fair you shouldn't be using an RC for comparison with an official version of something else.

Yes, but Vista still causes us a lot more grief than Windows 7... thankfully I have XP on my everyday computer - I'm testing it on a spare one.

Just curious, what exactly are these problems that you have seen with openbox apart from it using more RAM?

Little things like stacking order issues where dialogues open behind the main program. To be fair I haven't used it for a while.

If you are horrified why would you think an .sfs is a good idea?

No, I'm only horrified if people want the default Puppy to be more ram hungry.

[Max Uglee]

You said you were using Window$ 7 though so I don't know what to tell you. Not that I like or support M$ at all but to be fair you shouldn't be using an RC for comparison with an official version of something else.

Yes, but Vista still causes us a lot more grief than Windows 7... thankfully I have XP on my everyday computer - I'm testing it on a spare one.

Yea, it's pretty bad that you have to go back to a 7 year old OS to get any kind of stability. Even XP was pretty bad until at least service pack 2. If it werent for Linux I would probably put up with apple's ridiculous proprietary hardware and overpricing and just get a Mac.