My Desktop

Source

So, uh, okay: My 31337 desktop Since all the cool kids are doing it, there's my desktop. Posted mainly to illustrate why I'm always perplexed at these 'show us your desktop!' threads - why does anyone customize their desktop at all? When do you ever see it? As soon as I log in to my system, Evolution, Firefox and gedit get autolaunched in full screen window sizes and I never see the desktop until I shut down. I only see it for about five seconds before the apps get launched. Do I use my system in some sort of really odd way which no-one else does? Am I missing something here?

Comments

Piratu' wrote on 2010-09-08 15:54:
You're right, you'll never get to see the desktop after the session starts. By the way, what's that, a Fedora or Red Hat?
adamw wrote on 2010-09-08 16:06:
Fedora 14.
Joe Smith wrote on 2010-09-08 16:30:
"why does anyone customize their desktop at all?" That is not the 'out of the box' desktop for F14. You have changed it. I can't answer why you changed the look of your desktop, that is something only you can answer. I can say why I might change my own. Because I can. The reasons for doing so only have to be valid to me. It's not uncommon for me to change the splash screens as well just because I am sick of blue.
adamw wrote on 2010-09-08 17:11:
No, I haven't. Well, okay, I moved the trash icon - just because this article made me look at the desktop, and I felt whimsical. I don't usually do that, and I never actually *use* the trash. That's the only thing I did. The panel layout is completely different from standard. But then, the panel is not part of the desktop, and it's always visible - and heavily used - in my configuration.
Leif wrote on 2010-09-08 19:34:
One of the first things I do to customize my desktop is remove the Trash icon from the panel.
cris wrote on 2010-09-08 22:01:
"the panel is not part of the desktop" You might be right, but I think most people is just as interested in the panel as the "real" desktop. We just say desktop for convenience :)
adamw wrote on 2010-09-08 22:54:
doesn't seem like it, all these posts seem to be showing off the desktop backgrounds and icons and whatever...
nicu wrote on 2010-09-09 06:24:
Adam, you screenshot tells a lot: you don't keep files/launchers on the desktop, you need a few launchers on the panel, you have a custom panel layout and you don't use the trash can. On the opposite, mine was showing the huge pile of junk I have on the desktop all the time (and yes, I also remove the trash can from the desktop, have it on the panel, but don't know why, I never use it, always delete directly).
PeterStJ wrote on 2010-09-09 07:32:
Oh Adam, the big old question "Why?"... I can tell you why, I customize heavily my desktop out of pure boredom (Sometimes I make it look like OSX, sometimes like Windows XP, sometimes like Windows 7 with Aero, sometimes like old BeOS and so on and so on, it is not just changing the background image, it involves changing the look of the applications and panels, how versatile Gnome desktop is can be seen here (my blog) http://malwkgad.livejournal.com/223320.html ). I also like receiving compliments from the ladies in our office 'how nice my desktop always looks' - hehe:) Indeed I like pretty things and while I _can_ work in Spartan environment (like window manager i3 with urxvt and uzbl-browser only, all else being console/ncurses apps like vim, finch and so on) I _like_ working in customized Gnome with all the blows and whistles. Once I can get my hands on a laptop with good OpenGL capabilities I might also try KDE with alpha blur hints and probably even windows 7 itself (for one have to admit that their implementation of window management/taskbar is superior to anything I have seen on any OS, especially the fact that one does not need to put applications in the system notification area any more, the fact that one can select/close tabs of an application from the task bar (which is way ahead of anything else in any OS right now, most application to work with documents use tabs but none export tabs management in any other OS to its task bar ) and of course they have what one can expect from dock on OSX/docky on Gnome - per application helpers etc.) So yes, some of us like changing the desktop appearance - for fun:) And share it for fun too:)
adamw wrote on 2010-09-09 13:46:
Like I said, I don't really think of the panel as part of 'the desktop', because it's always there. I was just referring to the desktop itself - the bit that gets covered up by windows. Nicu: no, I don't keep documents on the desktop, because I'd have to minimize about four windows to get to them. :) Occasionally I'll put something there just for a minute if it's the default save directory for something, but that's all.
Anssi Hannula wrote on 2010-09-09 08:44:
Adam, you are not the only one, my experience is quite the same, I use default background etc :)
Lubomir Rintel wrote on 2010-09-09 13:48:
Well, I do almost exactly the same thing as you do; nearly default deskop and covered with Firefox and Evolution. Just instead of gedit there's a terminal/vim desktop and a music player one. I guess it's not that uncommon.
Thub wrote on 2010-09-09 23:49:
I know lots of people who consider basically everything on the screen to be the "desktop" and I concur. That certainly fits in with how Gnome and KDE are often thought of as "desktops". I usually refer to all the elements of the user interface that are application independent as the "desktop" and behind that is the "background" or "desktop background", over which there are sometimes icons. I think I agree that what other people use as their background image is pretty uninteresting, but I do see my own a lot because I tend to use a lot of virtual desktops, so that is what I'm greeted with when going to a fresh one. I guess I tend to keep my always-running apps on one virtual desktop and bring up and tear down different task related groups of apps as I perform different duties on other virtual desktops. Still, I think what's really interesting is seeing how others use their screen space and their desktop environments.
Conkeh wrote on 2010-09-15 23:20:
You're missing something. At least to me, customizing the desktop also means customizing my theme, GTK and WM, panel, tint2 in my case, and so on. I do get to look at those. People who post their screenies usually go beyond the wallpaper. Or at least, they're not doing it to show the wallpaper, but the whole customized deal. And Linuxes need to be customized. They're no good visually by default. None of them.
adamw wrote on 2010-09-16 09:37:
*shrug* default Fedora looks fine to me.
About Boston Miracle, computers and life wrote on 2011-03-14 12:25:
[...] Adam is right: I am not getting it either.except of background, I don't change my desktop either, [...]