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"you need to explicitly set up Xft font rendering via X resources" I hope you can understand that any time you say something like this, or tell people to edit

by md8z 5y ago

"you need to explicitly set up Xft font rendering via X resources" I hope you can understand that any time you say something like this, or tell people to edit xorg.conf or some other cryptic config file, or tell people to put random commands in their bash profile, or something like that, it kind of makes the software appear to be not really modern or usable. Sorry. (This is not specific to CDE, pretty much all Linux desktops suffer from this bad usability at some point)

badsectoracula 5y ago
The claim was that CDE is modern, not that is easy to use. TBH i wouldn't really call it modern either, but that is largely because "modern" is a vague nondescriptive term that practically means nothing (and it certainly doesn't mean anything related to ease of use :-P). Helpful for PR and marketing, not so much for technical stuff. And IMO pretty much everyone who posted here focused on superficial things like how fonts render instead of practical things like what sort of desktop standards does it support - e.g. can it parse .desktop files to fill application lists? Can it support tray icons so that, e.g., if i run Steam i get an icon somewhere for it? How about some more recent standards like displaying application progress bars (where that makes sense)? IMO think these are more important and a much better indicator about the state of a desktop environment than how fonts render (which isn't even something CDE itself does anyway).
- md8z 5y ago
  Actually last time I tried CDE, maybe a few years ago, there were multiple areas where it was not possible to configure something with a GUI. Not just fonts. In fact there were buttons in various settings panels that when you clicked them, would launch a text editor in an xterm window to edit a config file with no explanation of what you're supposed to be doing. I thought that was totally ridiculous. Sorry I can't mention something more specific but it was a while ago and I could be remembering it incorrectly. For a modern desktop I would also expect wayland support, and integration with networkmanager, pulseaudio/pipewire, udisks, things like that, which also didn't seem to be implemented last time I checked, but if any of this has changed then please let me know. Systrays and desktop files are like 15-20 years old so that's not really a compelling case for modern features...
  - badsectoracula 5y ago
    Well, i also used CDE years ago so i don't know. As i wrote i wouldn't call it modern either but again the reason would be different :-P Some of the stuff i mentioned (and some you did) might be possible with 3rd party applications - i think the panel can embed small X apps to provide some functionality. In Window Maker (which is what i use) there isn't really tray icon support by WM but there is a "dockapp" (essentially a tiny X app that lives inside the Window Maker dock) that provides it. Something like that (or exactly that dockapp, it is an X application after all) might work for CDE for providing tray icons. Similarly for udisks and pulseaudio.
    - md8z 5y ago
      Doesn't it defeat the purpose if you have to use third party apps? I thought the point was to get a modern Motif desktop, what does that matter if you're just going to install half the desktop from Wmaker or GNUstep or whatever.
      - badsectoracula 5y ago
        Not really, this sort of thinking is something that came waaay later in the Linux desktop. One of X's advantages is that you can do exactly that and some other desktops like LXDE are basically made up by bringing together separate components. (also the deskapps i mentioned aren't using GNUstep, they're either pure X or some other toolkit)
        md8z 5y ago
        Yeah but if you're just going to swap out half the components anyway then you might as well just use KDE or something and do the same thing. And in my experience, that's a great way to get a desktop that's really inconsistent and doesn't work half the time because some random component is using the wrong set of X atoms or the wrong X resources or the wrong Dbus interface or whatever, so I don't know if I would say that's an advantage...
        5y ago
temac 5y ago
I get that remark in the absolute, but here we are talking about an article about how to get and compile CDE from source on a Debian 10. In which case your fear that setting up Xft font rendering via X resources is an insurmontable task to get a modern and usable system that you are literally building is maybe a little bit off-topic.

by md8z 5y ago

badsectoracula 5y ago

The claim was that CDE is modern, not that is easy to use. TBH i wouldn't really call it modern either, but that is largely because "modern" is a vague nondescriptive term that practically means nothing (and it certainly doesn't mean anything related to ease of use :-P). Helpful for PR and marketing, not so much for technical stuff. And IMO pretty much everyone who posted here focused on superficial things like how fonts render instead of practical things like what sort of desktop standards does it support - e.g. can it parse .desktop files to fill application lists? Can it support tray icons so that, e.g., if i run Steam i get an icon somewhere for it? How about some more recent standards like displaying application progress bars (where that makes sense)? IMO think these are more important and a much better indicator about the state of a desktop environment than how fonts render (which isn't even something CDE itself does anyway).

md8z 5y ago
Actually last time I tried CDE, maybe a few years ago, there were multiple areas where it was not possible to configure something with a GUI. Not just fonts. In fact there were buttons in various settings panels that when you clicked them, would launch a text editor in an xterm window to edit a config file with no explanation of what you're supposed to be doing. I thought that was totally ridiculous. Sorry I can't mention something more specific but it was a while ago and I could be remembering it incorrectly. For a modern desktop I would also expect wayland support, and integration with networkmanager, pulseaudio/pipewire, udisks, things like that, which also didn't seem to be implemented last time I checked, but if any of this has changed then please let me know. Systrays and desktop files are like 15-20 years old so that's not really a compelling case for modern features...
- badsectoracula 5y ago
  Well, i also used CDE years ago so i don't know. As i wrote i wouldn't call it modern either but again the reason would be different :-P Some of the stuff i mentioned (and some you did) might be possible with 3rd party applications - i think the panel can embed small X apps to provide some functionality. In Window Maker (which is what i use) there isn't really tray icon support by WM but there is a "dockapp" (essentially a tiny X app that lives inside the Window Maker dock) that provides it. Something like that (or exactly that dockapp, it is an X application after all) might work for CDE for providing tray icons. Similarly for udisks and pulseaudio.
  - md8z 5y ago
    Doesn't it defeat the purpose if you have to use third party apps? I thought the point was to get a modern Motif desktop, what does that matter if you're just going to install half the desktop from Wmaker or GNUstep or whatever.
    - badsectoracula 5y ago
      Not really, this sort of thinking is something that came waaay later in the Linux desktop. One of X's advantages is that you can do exactly that and some other desktops like LXDE are basically made up by bringing together separate components. (also the deskapps i mentioned aren't using GNUstep, they're either pure X or some other toolkit)
      - md8z 5y ago
        Yeah but if you're just going to swap out half the components anyway then you might as well just use KDE or something and do the same thing. And in my experience, that's a great way to get a desktop that's really inconsistent and doesn't work half the time because some random component is using the wrong set of X atoms or the wrong X resources or the wrong Dbus interface or whatever, so I don't know if I would say that's an advantage...
        5y ago

temac 5y ago

I get that remark in the absolute, but here we are talking about an article about how to get and compile CDE from source on a Debian 10. In which case your fear that setting up Xft font rendering via X resources is an insurmontable task to get a modern and usable system that you are literally building is maybe a little bit off-topic.