OSNews: http://www.osnews.com/story/20206/Using_GNOME_on_a_Small_Screen Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Fri, 11 Dec 2009 06:33:58 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif OSNews.com http://www.osnews.com pretty impressive http://osnews.com/thread?327568 http://osnews.com/thread?327568 near-vanilla gnome works pretty well on a tiny screen. Thu, 21 Aug 2008 19:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (spikeb) Comments Excellent piece http://osnews.com/thread?327573 http://osnews.com/thread?327573 Thank you, Thom, for this eye-opening little article. Very well written and supplemented with screenshots so we can get a good idea of your points. I'm quite impressed.

I wonder if using Matchbox as an alternative interface in Ubuntu would fare as well -- or better -- on such a small screen. As far as I remember, it's still in the Ubuntu repos. Thu, 21 Aug 2008 19:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Morgan) Comments Gnome is wasteful of screen real estate http://osnews.com/thread?327586 http://osnews.com/thread?327586 I find that Gnome does a good job of converting high resolution monitors into 800x600 mid-90s monstrosities. KDE 4 is moving in this direction too and I don't like it. I don't understand why we have to waste so much screen real estate with crappy widgets. And here's a case where it actually does matter. I'm glad you managed to make it work, but I'm honestly surprised, because in the past, I've had trouble making GTK stuff fit on a small screen (my first Linux experience was on 800x600 in late 2004 [old monitor] and half the dialogs wouldn't fit on the screen). Thu, 21 Aug 2008 21:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (siride) Comments not hard http://osnews.com/thread?327587 http://osnews.com/thread?327587 there are plenty of compact themes around.

setting fonts to 8 and using a compact theme from gnome look have a pretty good time fitting almost everything on my eee 701. Thu, 21 Aug 2008 21:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (stabbyjones) Comments Gnome on a Freerunner! http://osnews.com/thread?327588 http://osnews.com/thread?327588 Oh please! This is small? Check out this one:

http://lists.openmoko.org/pipermail/community/2008-August/027326.ht...

2.8" is small! ;-)

Kind regards, Thu, 21 Aug 2008 21:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (ikeX) Comments Similar to my setup http://osnews.com/thread?327590 http://osnews.com/thread?327590 This is they way I have my laptop set up, I have a single panel, but instead of the single-icon menu I installed the SLAB menu and I am currently using that. I heard there is a new version of it in Ibex so I am anxiously waiting for that as it is more similar to what Linux Mint uses. ;) Thu, 21 Aug 2008 21:24:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (motang) Comments How was Linupus' XFCE http://osnews.com/thread?327592 http://osnews.com/thread?327592 Thom,
how would you say the XFCE in Linpus was before you Ubuntized the little fellow? Were you able to fit the config dialogs in the small screen? Thu, 21 Aug 2008 21:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (amjith) Comments RE: Gnome is wasteful of screen real estate http://osnews.com/thread?327597 http://osnews.com/thread?327597 That is how a high-DPI screen is supposed to look. If the font is set to 72pt size, the character cell should be exactly one physical inch. Not more, not less.

If you want 6pt fonts, then set the font to 6 or 4 or 2 or whatever you like.

And yes, I do go around telling old people that they are doing it wrong when they set Vista to 640x480 on their 20" monitor. Thu, 21 Aug 2008 22:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (zlynx) Comments Just converted my Aspire One to dual-boot http://osnews.com/thread?327598 http://osnews.com/thread?327598 I went with for the 1GB RAM 120GB HD version, which means my Aspire One came with Windows XP installed. I just finished installing Ubuntu 8.04.1 and the updated madwifi modules. Sound (speaker) works, webcam works, blinking lights work. I don't have an SD card to check out the card readers. My preferred font is Liberation Sans, but I also went with 9pt. Next up: finding a suitable travel case. Thu, 21 Aug 2008 22:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (bosco_bearbank) Comments RE: Gnome on a Freerunner! http://osnews.com/thread?327600 http://osnews.com/thread?327600 now that is EXACTLY what the freerunner needs.

i can't wait to get paid so i can pick one of those bad boys up. Thu, 21 Aug 2008 23:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (stabbyjones) Comments RE: pretty impressive http://osnews.com/thread?327601 http://osnews.com/thread?327601 Bugs should be filed for those apps that still take too much space and are not resizable. Thu, 21 Aug 2008 23:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (azrael29a) Comments RE[2]: Gnome is wasteful of screen real estate http://osnews.com/thread?327606 http://osnews.com/thread?327606 I think you mean pixel, not character cell. A character cell would be the box containing the entire character. Fri, 22 Aug 2008 02:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (iain.dalton) Comments RE[2]: Gnome is wasteful of screen real estate http://osnews.com/thread?327607 http://osnews.com/thread?327607 It's not the fonts...I can deal with that. It's the layout of everything else. It's just so big and you can't do anything about. I didn't get a high resolution screen so that I can look at the moral equivalent of 800x600. Other environments let you adjust font sizes and the like so that, if you so choose, you can make it look like 800x600, but Gnome basically decides for you that clearly you want to have terrible use of screen real estate and the only option is to hack the themes yourself. And that still doesn't fix the problem of apps that waste empty space. Fri, 22 Aug 2008 03:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (siride) Comments Keep XP and Linux http://osnews.com/thread?327610 http://osnews.com/thread?327610 The AspireOne looks solid and has good specs to boot.

You can always keep Linpus on the Aspire and use a thin client software to run the XP OS

http://www.aikotech.com/thinserver.htm Fri, 22 Aug 2008 03:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Different) Comments X11 Font Hinting Style http://osnews.com/thread?327624 http://osnews.com/thread?327624 @Thom Holwerda

I also prefer Trebuchet MS for desktop usage, but default X11 hintstyle (which is set to 3) looks very bad with any font, to make it look really good You need to set hintstyle to 0.

You may also use Trebuchet MS instead of other ugly fonts such as Arial on web sites using ~/.fonts.conf settings.

Here is the difference between htinstyle 0 and 3:
http://toya.net.pl/~vermaden/gfx/hintstyle_3.png
http://toya.net.pl/~vermaden/gfx/hintstyle_0.png

Regards
vermaden Fri, 22 Aug 2008 07:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (vermaden) Comments tiling wm http://osnews.com/thread?327632 http://osnews.com/thread?327632 Has anyone tried a tiling wm like awesome or wmii on a netbook? Systems with limited screen real estate always seemed like the most obvious place to use a tiling wm to me. I have been thinking about getting an aspireone, eee 1000h, or msi wind, but am still waiting. Fri, 22 Aug 2008 09:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (broken_symlink) Comments RE: How was Linupus' XFCE http://osnews.com/thread?327634 http://osnews.com/thread?327634 What Xfce configuration dialogs? By default, you couldn't access any of them ;) .

Using the terminal, you could run xfce-setting-show, but it didn't fit on the small screen at all. Fri, 22 Aug 2008 09:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom_Holwerda) Comments RE: Gnome is wasteful of screen real estate http://osnews.com/thread?327640 http://osnews.com/thread?327640 Here is what I use on my Ubuntu laptop just right now (screen resolution is 1280x800):

1. Clearlooks Compact theme for GNOME (google it).

2. Fonts "Sans" (or "Monospace") of size of 7.5 points with "best contrast" rendering.

3. Toolbar buttons - "Icons only" setting.

The result is more compact than Windows. Fri, 22 Aug 2008 12:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (asgard) Comments RE: X11 Font Hinting Style http://osnews.com/thread?327642 http://osnews.com/thread?327642 OT: You might want to change spearator to separator in your screenshot. Fri, 22 Aug 2008 12:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (RandomGuy) Comments RE: tiling wm http://osnews.com/thread?327647 http://osnews.com/thread?327647 I ran ion at 1024x768 for a year or so and it worked okay.

Screenshots at 800x600:
Tiled stuff: http://apex.homelinux.net/img/1.png
Firefox: http://apex.homelinux.net/img/2.png

It really needs more horizontal space, but netbooks have that. Fri, 22 Aug 2008 12:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (6c1452) Comments RE: X11 Font Hinting Style http://osnews.com/thread?327649 http://osnews.com/thread?327649 Thanks for the tip, vermaden, made my fonts just a little better looking. I'm always hunting for better font rendering, so thanks for the tip! Fri, 22 Aug 2008 12:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom_Holwerda) Comments RE[3]: Gnome is wasteful of screen real estate http://osnews.com/thread?327656 http://osnews.com/thread?327656 That's exactly what he meant. You obviously don't want a pixel to be exactly one inch. Fri, 22 Aug 2008 13:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (siride) Comments Gimp http://osnews.com/thread?327659 http://osnews.com/thread?327659 Well.. using the gimp on any screen is unpleasant...

I still can't comprehend how anyone could "design" that interface. It's like two programmers got together and built something without looking at it. Fri, 22 Aug 2008 13:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (mrnagrom) Comments RE[2]: X11 Font Hinting Style http://osnews.com/thread?327665 http://osnews.com/thread?327665 It was fixed long time ago mate:

http://osnews.com/story/19770

... but thanks ;) Fri, 22 Aug 2008 14:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (vermaden) Comments RE[2]: X11 Font Hinting Style http://osnews.com/thread?327666 http://osnews.com/thread?327666 You are welcome. Fri, 22 Aug 2008 14:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (vermaden) Comments RE[3]: Gnome is wasteful of screen real estate http://osnews.com/thread?327667 http://osnews.com/thread?327667 The Gnome components should be the same size no matter what your screen resolution is. I agree with the Gnome defaults. Start out big, that way everyone can read it, then let them make it smaller.

Get a thin-frame theme, there are several. Make your task bars smaller. Set the font sizes smaller. All of that can be changed. Fri, 22 Aug 2008 15:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (zlynx) Comments battery http://osnews.com/thread?327671 http://osnews.com/thread?327671 Does the default OS have better battery life? Or, does Ubuntu handle that fine? Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (backdoc) Comments RE[4]: Gnome is wasteful of screen real estate http://osnews.com/thread?327672 http://osnews.com/thread?327672 There's no way to fix the themes without editing a config file in /usr/share/themes. There's almost no documentation for theme configuration, or it is well hidden. You have to use trial and error. Compare that to KDE or Windows where you can easily control theme settings. Especially on Windows you can control the sizing of various components. Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (siride) Comments RE: battery http://osnews.com/thread?327674 http://osnews.com/thread?327674
Does the default OS have better battery life? Or, does Ubuntu handle that fine?


I think Ubuntu is slightly worse, but after the battery optimisations as listed in the howto, it ain't all bad. Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom_Holwerda) Comments RE[5]: Gnome is wasteful of screen real estate http://osnews.com/thread?327675 http://osnews.com/thread?327675 I didn't mean that you should fix the theme, although I suppose that you could. It'd be easier to use a theme editor tool. I know there are some.

I was suggesting using a different theme entirely, one designed for small sizes. Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (zlynx) Comments RE[3]: Gnome is wasteful of screen real estate http://osnews.com/thread?327676 http://osnews.com/thread?327676
It's not the fonts...I can deal with that. It's the layout of everything else. It's just so big and you can't do anything about. I didn't get a high resolution screen so that I can look at the moral equivalent of 800x600. Other environments let you adjust font sizes and the like so that, if you so choose, you can make it look like 800x600, but Gnome basically decides for you that clearly you want to have terrible use of screen real estate and the only option is to hack the themes yourself. And that still doesn't fix the problem of apps that waste empty space.


I have no idea what you mean when you say "apps that waste empty space". That doesn't mean anything. Maybe you mean the iconbar in GNOME applications? No that can't be it, you can turn that off in the Appearance preferences. Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (abraxas) Comments Customizing Linpus Desktop http://osnews.com/thread?327679 http://osnews.com/thread?327679 My preferred course of action was to 'unlock' the default Linpus installation. While this unlocking process is documented quite well on the AcerAspireOne.com community website, it's not a single process per se; you need to unlock several things, and Acer hasn't exactly made it easy. Somewhere in the process I made a mistake, and before I knew it, I was receiving HAL errors that proved unfixable.

You might want to try this:
http://www.aspireoneuser.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=1256 Fri, 22 Aug 2008 19:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (k0ro) Comments RE[2]: pretty impressive http://osnews.com/thread?327729 http://osnews.com/thread?327729 Why should bugs be filed for individual applications? The fault is with the underlying platform because GTK does not have any notion of resolution independence. Sat, 23 Aug 2008 14:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (segedunum) Comments why bother? http://osnews.com/thread?327819 http://osnews.com/thread?327819 I really don't understand why would anyone bother about touching the linpus once it's possible to make it work in non-restricted (geek) mode. To me, this linpus linux is the best distro i have seen lately : fast (i can't believe how fast it can boot), effective, functional. no need to search google, forums to make fundamental things. a lesson for all the freaks at debian, ubuntu, etc. Sun, 24 Aug 2008 12:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (marcgo) Comments RE: why bother? http://osnews.com/thread?327881 http://osnews.com/thread?327881 The reason it's so good is just because it was optimized for this system - which is because it was sold on it. Any linux system could be that good.

Anyway, I installed Kubuntu because I use this laptop to demo KDE, and I wanted the latest KDE on it... Mon, 25 Aug 2008 13:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (superstoned) Comments