Re: Input methods (Emacs and others), plain X [was: Japanese input in Linux environment]

[Emanuel Berg <moasen@zoho.com>]

> It's slightly different. The initial main
> impetus behind GNOME was that the widget
> toolkit behind KDE, Qt, wasn't Free at the
> time -- something which has changed long,
> long time ago.

Cute! That was it. Now I remember. This was
explained it the book as well.

> Then, of course, you had different tribes and
> what not. I think that would be a really
> thrilling case study for an anthropologist.
> Perhaps we can learn something from it.
>
> [...]
>
> You've got to look into one to understand
> that, and be it that, like me, you support it
> for someone else.

Long before I ever saw Gnome and KDE, I saw
Linux systems (or if it was BSDs or whatever)
that looked like desktop systems. They had the
xclock and tons of small windows scattered over
a high-resolution monitor, and basically every
window had the "x" prefix in the titlebar.

It didn't look as neat and polished as Finder
but not as tasteless as Windows. It was
a higher degree of hacker appeal despite being
a GUI.

Now what exactly is the difference between such
a paleo-graphical Unix system and a system that
has a desktop suite like Gnome or KDE?

Aren't DEs illogical no matter what one
thinks of them?

    OS > GFX system > ( terminal emulator )_WM > launch programs from shell

If if you aren't into shell/batch/text-based
computing but like GUIs with a "Start" menu
etc., doesn't that just translate into

    OS > GFX system > ( "Start" menu & file browser )_WM > launch programs by mouse-clicking

?

Obviously anyone can call their programs
whatever they want, including gnome-screenshot
and gnome-terminal. In a way, my very reasoning
could be applied to xterm and xpdf as well -
I mean, what's X about them? They are just
applications like any other that are
executable/viewable in X.

It is possible tho that the degree of
modularity and independence to software
development were different back then in that
that you actually had to adapt software at the
end of the line to the underlying X.

It is also possible it is just a phycological
thing to make big systems out of small
components, and try to force the components
into a fold that is common to all.

My "train" goes in the other direction, i.e.
the system is bigger than the component, but
hey, real trains are actually bi-directional as
long as they have two locomotives.

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573