I don't see at all why you're saying it's not a desktop setup. It's obviously a workstation computer with media capabilities. The word desktop implies pretty much that. In contrast to desktop, there are portable computers and servers. Today the difference between portable and desktop amounts to just additional power management tools, so it's pretty much the same. So there's just workstation and server, ignoring Androids, Google Chrome laptops, etc. This is certainly not a server.
As to the content itself, the insights, configs and tools listed are great. My setups have very similar objectives, but solving a lot of these mundane problems can mean days, so I'm definitely saving this for later.
That's an interesting point, but I think it's fair to say that usually when you're talking about a desktop computer you mean a computer whose interface is on your desk, similarly to how a laptop relates to a lap.
For what it's worth, I find the desktop metaphor in UX design a pretty tiring historical artefact. A desk, as a workstation, is the way it is because of physics. Computationally driven user interfaces don't have those constraints and it's awkward, not to mention short-sighted, at least in my opinion, to force one upon the other.
> It's obviously a workstation computer with media capabilities. The word desktop implies pretty much that.
What? No.
A desktop is a computer sitting on the top of your desk. And on the software-side there is the Desktop Metaphor, which describes an interface that behaves like the top of your desk, with free arrangement of all meaning of your work.
This article on the other side describes a workspace with multiple machines and mostly no free arrangement of work-elements. So it's not fullfilling the hardware-definition, and pretty weak on the software-definition.
This article is clearly about a workspace that blows beyond the classical workspace-definition of a desktop. Which is good IMHO, but means we need better namings for such things, and even if it's just for the sake to distinguish different tools and workflows. We are now moving to integrate Mobile Devices like iOS&Android into our workspaces, and on Windows-tablets we have touch-interfaces which start to be very different from normal mouse&keyboard-interfaces. And then there is also the classical terminal-interface, which this article is very heavy leaning toward.
I don't understand the gatekeeping and deliberate misinformation in your post.
> A desktop is a computer sitting on top of your desk.
Besides the fact that the author indicated he's using a laptop hooked up to a 40" monitor, kind of necessitating the computer to be sitting on his desk, his use of "desktop" in general is referring to his everyday workflow. For some people, that's Windows and Windows specific apps. For others, it's macOS and its specific apps. For yet others, it's a Linux or BSD desktop environment, whether stock or customized. The fact that he's using a laptop as a workstation does not magically render his established work environment "mobile", and even if it did, he's still using a desktop environment of his own making.
> This article on the other side describes a workspace with multiple machines and mostly no free arrangement of work-elements.
Maybe we're reading different articles, but I see no mention whatsoever of what you're going on about. I see where he at one point mentions "multiple computers", but this in no way invalidates his desktop environment and software setup as violating some made-up rule about what is or isn't a "desktop".
I currently use five computers at home not counting my iPhone: A HP EliteDesk set up as a Windows gaming system, a Dell PowerEdge T310 server running Slackware Linux, converted into a workstation by adding a GPU and sound card and tweaking the BIOS, a mac Mini for music production and general Mac-specific things, a Raspberry Pi 3B+ for experimenting with IoT, and a HP Elite X2 convertible laptop for quick tasks away from my desk and occasional use at work.
Now, according to your logic apparently I can't possibly have a "desktop" setup because I use more than one computer, of more than one form factor, for more than one task at a time, and not always glued to my desk. That's total bullshit.
You claimed that the author had no right to call his desktop setup a desktop setup based on your own made up rules. That is the very definition of gatekeeping.
Also, please tell me where I insulted you. I called you out for gatekeeping and did so rather politely. If you consider a rebuttal to be an insult I’d advise you to grow a thicker skin before interacting with others or you’re in for a lot of disappointment.
Well, I would say yours is not a desktop setup ;-)
I mean, desktop usage is meant for people who work with computers. They spend several hours a day in front of them and therefore require ergonomic chairs and the like. If you want to use your laptop on your couch, that is completely okay, but you are probably not doing some of the things people at desks are doing (like decrypting compilers errors etc.).
> I mean, desktop usage is meant for people who work with computers
Practically everyone works with computers.
> They spend several hours a day in front of them and therefore require ergonomic chairs and the like.
That includes almost everybody.
> like decrypting compilers errors etc
I do that on my couch.
Desktop setup is a computer set up for desktop use, AKA, _for regular people everyday use_, that come bundled at most with some productivity suite (usually Office or Office clones).
Xmonad is not desktop ready, on the contrary, it harms Linux penetration on the desktop segment.
Ubuntu is a desktop setup, Fedora is a desktop setup, ElementaryOS is a desktop setup (etc. etc. etc.)
If you are compiling, you are already a pro user.
A desktop user doesn't fight with the default configuration, a desktop user adapt to the default configuration.
They might change the desktop background and WM theme, and that's all.
When I think of a "desktop" computer, I think of a form-factor suitable for placement on a desk. I can stretch that to include a machine you keep under the desk or even a laptop that is attached to an external keyboard and mouse.
I don't think about the software installed on that computer at all.
Also: desktop computers, in my opinion, pre-date the "desktop metaphor" and GUI environments.
> Also: desktop computers, in my opinion, pre-date the "desktop metaphor" and GUI environments
I kind of doubt that. When the metaphor was introduced by Alan Kay in 1970, there were no desktop computers. If you consider microcomputers the first desktop computers, which you should since their predecessors, minicomputers, were "cabinet" computers, then the Micral N in 1973 would be the first "desktop" computer.
I think your splitting hairs on this one. The Micral N also didn't have a GUI environment and it was clearly destined for the top of someone's desk. In my opinion that makes it a desktop computer.[0]
When Alan Kay was working on GUI environments, it was on equipment that pretty much nobody could access, it was very expensive and few units were sold. Still, it's interesting to note that the Altair was not a desktop computer that could literally sit on a desk: it came in a cabinet that was meant to sit on the floor.[1] ;-) The irony!
When Apple released the Macintosh, I believe most people were interacting with desktop computers that lacked a GUI desktop environment. Specifically I was thinking of the IBM PC XT [2], although, as you note, there was more to the field than just that.
> What makes you think he can't cast media or browse Amazon on his laptop while sitting on the couch?
I never said he can't, it just took a lot more time for him than it took for me to do it.
Are regular drivers going out for groceries tuning their engine to perfection everytime they need to go buy milk?
That's what a desktop is all about, a computer sitting on a desktop dedicated to a worker, not a pro, and expert, a tuner, a nerd, a geek, someone who loves machine carnally.
Just regular folks that know ho to do what they have to do and that's just it.
I've been a Linux user for the past 15 years, I installed my first Slackware in 1996, but I wouldn't say my setup is desktop ready.
I don't know how many of my 13 thousands coworkers would have been able to solve the problems I had with Debian and my Lenovo P-70 multi monitor setup.
I'm sure many of them think I'm crazy spending so much time on it, when they have a problem they call IT and until IT doesn't solve it, they are not working, and are happier.
You seem to be projecting a lot. He never mentioned that it took him a long time to do anything. And just because he doesn't use a readymade workflow or a graphical user interface for some of his applications his setup is not a Desktop setup?
> That's what a desktop is all about, a computer sitting on a desktop dedicated to a worker, not a pro, and expert, a tuner, a nerd, a geek, someone who loves machine carnally.
This has to be the weirdest bikeshedding argument I've ever seen. The only reason I can think of why you're so insistent on this distinction is to brag.
> I don't know how many of my 13 thousands coworkers would have been able to solve the problems I had with Debian and my Lenovo P-70 multi monitor setup.
It certainly is a 'desktop', it might not be yours but it bears resemblance to mine. The 'desktop' metaphor might have been equated with complicated all-integrated environments like Windows, MacOS, Gnome and KDE but in the end it comes down on something-on-a-computer which provides a place to work and access to the resources the computer has to offer. Like physical desktops these come in al shapes and sizes ranging from an empty slab with a lamp and not much more to ornate baroque monstrosities with a zillion drawers, Rolodexes, mail-in-out-boxes, staple machines, paper dispensers, coffee machines, vortex portals and flux capacitors.
Some ascribe to the diction that 'perfection is reached when there is nothing left to take away', depending on your starting point you either end up with a lightweight environment like Xmonad (et al) plus a few tools or at a lobotomised full desktop like Gnome.
> It certainly is a 'desktop', it might not be yours but it bears resemblance to mine
It does resemble mine, either.
In fact I'm not a desktop user.
> or at a lobotomised full desktop like Gnome
That's super not nice.
Regular people want a tool, not something you fall in love with and spend most of the day refining.
Most people have hobbies outside of the tech world, they will spend hours growing their gardens, but couldn't care less about "keyboard focuesed" or "run programs in the terminal" or "I quickly noticed the huge compile time of KDE".
If they can't use it properly, like they are used to, it's broken for them.
It's much more complicated than the workstation setup I use at work.
A desktop setup is my Xiaomi laptop with Ubuntu 18.04 that I use as media caster or to browse amazon while on the couch.
It works flawlessly, much better than the preinstalled Windows 10 in chinese.