Cobind Desktop Reviewed, With Interview 151
An anonymous reader writes "Cobind Desktop takes a remarkable turn from other Linux distributions by being one of the first to include Mozilla Firefox 0.8 and Mozilla Thunderbird in their first release. Though Cobind Desktop only uses XFce and not the more popular KDE, its entire design is based on a clutter-free workspace. Flexbeta.net took the time to write up a review and conduct an interview with David Watson, Co-Founder and President of Cobind Desktop. He mentions how the entire design concept of Cobind Desktop is based on a book called the Paradox of Choice, by Barry Schwartz, who is a professor at Swarthmore. David Watson believes that this concept can be applied to software design, and produce more usable products as a result." (We mentioned Schwartz's book earlier today.)
If they've already switched to a Unix variant... (Score:2, Insightful)
Screenshots (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:What compiler gives the fastest Linux kernel? (Score:1, Insightful)
GCC hasn't had pre-compiled headers, which might or might not have any effect on kernel compilation, and also targets more platforms than one could shake a small forest at.
I wouldn't expect it to beat Visual C++ in a race, but that's like saying an M1 Abrams can't beat a Ford Escort in a drag race. If the idea of a cross-compiling suite of portable tools that you can crack open and freely do what you want with, and not have to pay the tax to the Malicious Satrap fails to grab you by the naughty bits, then, please, take the Ford.
reviewer doesn't know what a gui is... (Score:3, Insightful)
a non-gui interface would be one in which you use a command line and have to type all the arguements and paths there...
Concerned about Alphas (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems there's a lot of "news" lately around software that's alpha and even pre-alpha. Maybe folks should remember that Linus never pushed Linux, it grew as small, incremental improvements were made.
It's easy to make a lot of noise about software you're going to write. It's a lot harder to be quiet and write software that will someday make a lot of noise.
XFCE vs. KDE (Score:5, Insightful)
That should be:
Among the different desktops, KDE has to be the most cluttered ("featureful"), by design and by choice. Some people like that, I suppose, but XFCE is a reaction against that kind of approach to building desktop environments.
Reviewer missed the point (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:XFCE vs. KDE (Score:2, Insightful)
Hopefully they haven't cloned too many of CDE's mistakes...
Re:I don't think this should be on slashdot (Score:2, Insightful)
Excellent idea! I've seen more than a few newbies frustrated by the myriad choices that SuSE (as just one example) threw at them. If you can't fit the full distro with packages on a single CD, you're doing something wrong.
Re:I don't think this should be on slashdot (Score:2, Insightful)
Well there's nothing stopping you. Why are you complaining about this? If you don't like Distro X, don't run Distro X. If you don't like (Gnome || KDE || XFCE || Window Manger X) don't run it. And if you don't think the guy deserves money for this distro then don't give it to him.
If they REALLY wanted to help the community they would put thier skills to good use helping an existing distro. There are plenty of them already that focus on a 'lightweight' feel.
Did it ever occur to you that perhaps he didn't want to contribute to another distro. He made his own to fit what he wanted. People in OSS generally do what they want to or what they're paid to do. If he wants to build his own distro that's his option.
Re:XFCE vs. KDE (Score:3, Insightful)
-Erwos
Review mistakes Cobind's good parts for bad parts (Score:5, Insightful)
Getting rid of the bloat of Gnome and KDE in favor of XFce4
So let's review here:
1 CD? check.
Basic software package? check.
Use yum to add whatever else I need? check.
Once Cobind gets a few more version updates under it's belt, I see it being very popular to those of us that prefer simplicity to the 4 CD monstrousity that is Fedora Core.