[NCLUG] Call for Participation: Next NCLUG meeting: Your desktop habits.

[DJ Eshelman]

Well, not all of us REALLY wanna talk about our desktop 'habits' :)

Just kidding, but coming from a perspective of deploying XenDesktop very 
soon to a client, I'm actually curious as to what exactly you mean by 
'desktop'- the terminology is changing, and I'm finding what one person 
means by 'desktop' may be different from what another person means.  For 
example, in the Citrix world (where I live for most of my work week 
these days), I'm often called upon to publish 'desktops' to thin clients 
or web sessions for people that have specific needs and published 
applications only slow them down.  In a Windows world, this is still 
pretty limited, but in the Open Source world, there's a ton of different 
options just in your interface (Gnome, KDE, MC, etc).

Now, as someone who's still not even running a Linux desktop (just 
servers via SSH or Webmin) I'm suddenly very curious about this myself- 
am I behind the times?  I was very intrigued months ago by the 
demonstration of running World of Warcraft on Linux, but I have to 
confess I never actually tried it as I planned to with Guild Wars (I 
don't play WoW) because I find I don't want to tinker with stuff at home 
as much these days.  So, I keep running XP on my actual desktops.  But I 
often do wonder if I'm out of excuses.  Given that at then end of this 
month you'll no longer be able to buy a PC with XP licensed on it (Vista 
only, unless you have an Open License Agreement), and given that Vista, 
well, SUCKS... I may find myself needing to re-evaluate my position if I 
want to keep things legal...  Has the Linux Desktop really evolved to 
meet my standards/needs?

So, I'd be curious as well to hear what people think of when they hear 
'Desktop':

Do you mean desktop computer (ie, PC/Mac) for personal daily use?
Do you mean server desktop interface (using X instead of SSH, for example)?
Do you mean terminal sessions?
Do you mean Virtual Desktops from Xen or VMWare?
Or, now that Wine is finally actually released (1.0), do you mean you 
use a Linux Desktop and run Windows apps that way?

However, odds are good that I may not be able to be there- can someone 
video and then YouTube (or whatever method you like, share the video) of 
the meeting just in case I can't be there?

thanks,

-DJ Eshelman


Sean Reifschneider wrote:
> The next NCLUG meeting, July 8, I proposed an NCLUG where people showed off
> how they used their desktops.  I was hoping we could get a bunch of people
> to demonstrate or at least talk about how they used their desktops.
>
> To give you an idea of what I plan to talk about:
>
>    I have 7 virtual desktops, largely with terminal windows.
>    I do different things in different desktops.
>    I do a lot of command-line stuff.
>    I use "clear" to clear the terminals when I'm done.
>    I have a specific locations set up for IRC, Mail and web.
>    I've been playing around with Compiz for a few things like "zooming in"
>          on a window.
>
> I'm thinking 5 to 10 minutes for each person to demonstrate things.
>
> Please let me know if you are interested in showing off how you get stuff
> done.
>
> Thanks,
> Sean
>