On Minimalism
On Minimalism
A day does not go when, on almost every news site some mention of KDE, Gnome or some other desktop does not
land a listing. In addition to the desktop environments available just
the subject of the Cautionary Disclaimer
There is absolutely nothing wrong with KDE, GNOME, XFCE or the plethora
of desktop environments and window managers
available. Several windowing and desktop environments do very new and
exciting things and they have their place. The question really is aimed
at a particular crowd of users [2] who tend to stick to either ApproachesNot all people who could be considered minimalists do so on purpose. In a nutshell, a few examples of minimal behavior towards operating systems in degrees are:
And of course; all of the above. Practical: A Shaker Approach to Systems [3]The most motivated minimalist system user is probably one who does so for a specific reason. There are many hackers who prefer simpler window managers because they tend to be easier to configure, less intrusive and of course require/consume less resources. In many ways, the shaker approach makes sense for those who want or may need to be able to make hardware last longer. Just Like ... : Comfort Level
There is never another experience like the first experience. Many users
prefer to have things as close to what they are used to as possible. In the
world of Open Source this means a lot of old software remains maintained
because someone wants it - somewhere. Having legacy software
maintained or even branched [4] is a good thing. There is an interesting
juxtapose within the Old Hands: HabitMany a CDE user would say that e17 is a bit much to get Unix work done. The one true shell of kshell users will go at great length to explain why bash is evil. The list goes on, why elvis is better than vim, vim better than nvi and vi is better than nvi. In some cases, it is simply a matter of habit. Habit differs from comfort in that most habit users never bother going to great lengths to customize their environment. The Minimalist System
How the end is met of course varies. A very clean approach is to
simply install only a base system like NetBSD and use the pkgsrc Are They Just Luddites?
No, absolutely not. A Luddite feels threatened by new ideas. A
minimalist understands why there is no need for something
but does understand why something may be needed, however, SummarySome users expect a lot of flash in one form or the other. Some users could care less and are much more interested in getting it done. Some users just like what they like and that is all there is to it. Is minimalism dead? No. Is minimalism right or wrong in any form? No. Is keeping up on the bleeding edge of N? No. Footnotes
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