How many Virtual Desktops are favored

[dietrichw]

I am currently using 4 virtual desktops with my SuSE system. However all my friends are using 6 on their systems. And so this got me curious on just what the norm was. So just how many multiple desktops are people using on their Linux machines?

[roamingnomad]

On this topic, I share the opinion of ESR.


If "you find using virtual desktops tends to leave you disoriented and wondering why everybody thought this was a neat feature." you might want to use his big blue steel desktop.

So I only have one virtual desktop.

[drummerboy195]

I have found that even doing the most multitasking I can handle, Ive never used more than three. One for internet, one for OpenOffice, and one for the GIMP, while working on a project fro school last year.

[MartinB]

I'm using Fluxbox and have 4 virtual desktops, titled "Admin", "Work & Internet", "Entertainment" and "Contact".

"Admin" is for command shells, file management stuff.
"Work and Internet" is for web browsing, OpenOffice and The GIMP.
"Entertainment" is for media players and games.
"Contact" is for LICQ, GAIM and X-Chat.

Also, mouse wheeling in Fluxbox to change desktops rules. ;)

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

4 for me... I just use the next desktop once I fill one up with windows.

[juicelooser]

I use 6 -
1 is for the web browser or if i'm using openoffice
2 is for communication (email, im)
3 is for coding
4 and 5 are for overflow
6 is for 'background' apps (xmms, folding at home, etc)

[Stween]

8, personally. Not that I've ever filled all 8, but better too much than too little; I've had 7 occupied at one particular moment.

Generally I have one for a web browser/irc client, one for a couple of consoles, xmms/cd player, and the rest are for work. So many consoles, and many emacs sessions.

[serz]

Only one :rolleyes:

[hammer123]

well I just read that someone had 8 so I just added 5 to the 4 I had before.

[bwkaz]

1

Virtual desktops are for wimps! twm forever! :p

[DerekKraan]

I use two. One for everything, and the other for the GIMP(or when I don't want anyone to see what I'm doing. ;) )

[nothingbutlinux]

ONE?? Did I hear a couple peopel say ONE?? Goodness, there's a rather famous company out in Washington that creates an operating system with one desktop! I use more than one just on priciple! Actually, I use 8 ... why limit yourself?

[knute]

I have never seen the need for more than one desktop unless I was using more than one monitor.

I guess that way you can organize things so that they come up in very specific places every time. Doesn't that get boring after a while?

Personally, I can't wait till someone invents a holographic type monitor where you can have your files and programs all over the place! :D

And desktop really means on the top of your desk, instead of on a modified TV. :cool:

hehehehe....

[terribleRobbo]

I am currently dying the slow death at the moment while using Windows (one desktop with this install).

I can't live without virtual desktops... I multi-task rather heavily, so I usually have it organised in the following fashion:

1 - IRC + browser for IRC links, or if I'm doing coding, three consoles.

2 - Exclusively for brower.

3 - Admin, so 6 consoles, one for modem, one for miscellaneous admin-ing (eg. controlling MASQ), one for mplayer, one for the mixer, two for general use.

4 - Spillage, but usually a reference page in a browser if I'm coding (Ctrl-Alt-Left from desktop 1 will wrap me around to four... a useful 'wrinkle' I've found).


I jump around pretty regularily, and I'd go insane if I had to alt-tab through everything. And since the *box wms minimize-to-menu, it can stay neat if I need it to be. :P

</ramble>

[cybertron]

I use four. The first is where I generally put whatever I'm currently working on, the second is for helper stuff (like looking up stuff on the net while coding) or sometimes e-mail, the third I rarely use, although I have a terminal open in it most of the time, and the fourth is for background stuff, primarily my gui for MPlayer. Only once do I remember having actually filled up all four, while I was working on a project and taking screenshots with the Gimp while playing music. That's pretty rare, but I really miss having at least two or three virtual desktops when I'm booted to Windows. Definitely a personal preference though.

[TotalNewb]

Im using 5 virtual desktop.
1. For web surfing
2.Irc
3.aMSN and others like it
4. Office stuff
5.Backgroud stuff like music, seti@home and folding@home

[Artimus]

1: XChat, Firebird
2: Gaim, Evolution
3: Coding/Misc.
4: Games

And atleast five terminals on each one...

[Darkbolt]

Originally posted by nothingbutlinux
ONE?? Did I hear a couple peopel say ONE?? Goodness, there's a rather famous company out in Washington that creates an operating system with one desktop! I use more than one just on priciple! Actually, I use 8 ... why limit yourself?
Actually, with nvidia cards/drivers, you can have alot more in windows now (I think 4, but you might be able to change it -- I forget, its been far too long sence ive used it, thank god)

Personally, at the moment I have 2, but I only really use one. I have a habit of shading or minimizing things when they get in my way, so I never really run out of space.

[v0mit]

I use pekwm and configured screen wrapping, that is I just have to move my mouse across screen to change vd.

So..
1. full screened mozilla. nothing else is ever opened here.
2. xchat, gaim, terms, mplayer/xmms (the most used one. I like watching movies and videos in windowed mode)
3. when 2nd gets too cluttered. rarely used. bg stuff like F@H
4. dcgui-qt (only p2p I use) full screen again.

mostly I jump from 4 > 1 > 2 and back...


I dont think I can use any other setup besides this.. This is very convinient for me to use!

[zdude255]

I use 6, but theres nothing wrong with only having 4. The last time I used all 6 was for gaim, galeon, couple terminals, kate, and openoffice.

[bwkaz]

Originally posted by Darkbolt
I have a habit of shading or minimizing things when they get in my way, so I never really run out of space. Exactly the same here.

I'm never doing more than one thing at a time anyway. Sure, music's playing in the background, but that's happening in the background, I don't need to see it. Put the window behind my 3 Eterms. Or, I'm doing web browsing -- so I don't need those 3 Eterms (or if I do, I pop up an extra xterm for a second or two), so I put the browser in front of them. If I'm programming, I've got enough screen real estate to have a gvim window on one half of the screen and my main Eterm on the other. Or if I feel like using vim instead of gvim, I do that in one Eterm while doing compiling in the other.

Plus, if I'm feeling confident that what I'm about to type is correct, then I can put the gvim window in front of most of the Eterm window, and just move the mouse over it to type into it -- I love sloppy focus. ;)

[mengle]

I have 4 on my system but I only rarley use more than 2. Part of that is because of the tabs system in fluxbox which is another way to go between various programs very easily.

P.S. I named my virtual desktops 1 fish, 2 fish, redfish, bluefish :D

[sharth]

I use two.

and background apps should goto the systray! :) quark and gaim :) although it would be nice if xchat could do it...

[leonpmu]

1) Evolution
2) Web
3) Work - OpenOffice etc
4) Background apps - Xmms, KsCD, K3B etc

I can't bear using Windows which only has one, I use too many things at the same time....

[MDurai]

I only use one

[mrBen]

Depends on what I am doing.

For generally day-to-day surfing and mail, I just use one.

For doing 'work', I tend to use 3-4: Gimp works best when I have a full screen to work with, as does Blender. I like to have Vim full screen for code/HTML editing.

[knute]

Until I get a second video card and monitor, and can get the xinerama stuff set up so that it doesn't make everything wierd, I use one.

I also use sawfish, and have keybindings for most everything.

Normally, I only need to switch between two or three apps (<Alt><Tab> handles that). The switching also remembers that last app that was used, and switches to that one first. To switch past it, I keep holding <Alt> down hand hit <Tab> again. It's easy and quick.

If I need to change the sizes of windows, or move windows well, <Alt><m> and <Alt><Arrow key> takes care of those.

I have keybindings for xmms, so I can start, stop, skip song, add/remove files, etc... from it and don't HAVE to focus it first.

Firebird I use the mouse with, so bringing that up isn't a problem either. Normally when I'm mudding it's in the background anyway. Until I get that second monitor/vid card set up, I'll have to switch to it anyway, and since that's normally full screen, and at least one of my term windows is full screen (mudding) it doesn't matter if it's on it's own desktop or not. :D

So how do you monitor what's going on in all these other desktops anyway?

[sasKuatch]

I use 6. Roughly:

1 - coding/work
2 - API stuff/documentation
3 - web/email
4 - ssh/terminals/other
5 - VNC windows/ssh/terminals
6 - xmms/games/simulations

I'm thinking of adding 2 more.

[thaddaeus]

I usually use 3 virtual consoles and 1 virtual desktop

tty1:Main config
tty2:secondary config
tty3:Manuals
And evrything visual on the VD.

[shadov]

I have 4 (KDE).

1. XMMS, Konsole with 5 terminal session in tabs (ssh, irssi, admin and other general stuff), Konqueror for file management, and other stuff that doesn't take much space or time.

2. Opera.

3 and 4. OpenOffice, p2p, Gimp, programming, more Konsoles.

[nowonmai]

6 at the moment...

1. 4 x aterm for doing admin stuff (on a network of 100+ machines :))
2. irssi & another aterm
3. browser
4. editor (gvim)
5. mail/news
6. depends

[deathadder]

I only ever use 1 :)

[jedthehumanoid]

Originally posted by DerekKraan
I use two. One for everything, and the other for the GIMP(or when I don't want anyone to see what I'm doing. ;) )

like looking at porn?:D kidding.....

[MighMos]

I use 3. One for "Active" processes, like browsing, chatting, etc. One for "Semi-active" processes, like mail, giFT, stuff that requires little interaction. And the last one for Background processes, i.e: music etc.

[cereal83]

I dunno why you people use so many.

I only use 2. 1 for instant messenging and 1 for everything else

[hardcore]

when I used KDE a couple years back I used only 1 virtual desktop, but now that I'm completely a fluxbox man, I use 4 on a consistant basis, mostly because it gets so friggin crowded otherwise, and when I have 20 things open I hate having 20 different things open on the taskbar. With 4 virt. desks, I only have 4 or 5 things on each taskbar.

[dalek]

I have 8 on mine.

1: Mozilla

2: Kmail Stop laughing, I can't get mail to work in Mozilla

3: Kppp, dial -up <starting to cry>, enough of that crap, usually a root terminal

4: Konqueror File Manager thingy and Gkrellm

Rest depends on what I am doing at the time. I have had all 8 going though.

I'm just bad to not close something when I open it. I may need it again. That is why I have so much junk in here too. I hate to get rid of anything, may need it one day. I do need to throw away that green slimey Oreo though. I don't think I'll need that. lol lol

Later

:D :D :D

[hardcore]

Try mozilla thunderbird, its not too shabby.

[dalek]

I was doing image searches on google I think was the reason it was using so much. I had about 30 tabs open too.

Still not sure why it didn't let it go when I closed the app though. ps aux showed it still running. Killall killed it, then I restarted Mozilla and all was fine. Memory back to norm, well it did clear out cache a good bit. ;)

I have Mozilla Firebird or something. I just like the regular Mozilla. Really just been waiting for mem prices to drop. $69.00 for Kingston, same as other stick, from newegg.

Later

:D :D :D :D

[canon006]

One is all I ever really need, alt-tab and task grouping keep me sane. Now once someone makes an app, or kpart or whatever, that does roughly for KDE what Exposé does on Mac OS X, I'll be all over that (yeah, I saw the Expocity thing for metacity, but I'm mostly a KDE guy). If you've never seen Exposé in action, go check it out, it's a really nice twist on the old "Show Desktop" button.

[carbon-12]

Ive usually got around 4.

1.)Music/Video
2.)Work(writing labs/reports for school mostly)
3.)Terminals(a few aterms open d/l from bittorrent and seti usually)
4.)General(web browsing,email,IM,games,etc)

[snuck]

I have six, and I couldn't cope without them. None of them have specific uses, but I am almost always using at least 4. I think I just like to do lots of things at once.

For the first few months I used linux,I used to be one of the one desktop people, because I didn't see the need for more; I coped fine on windows, so where was the need? Oh now wrong I was. I gradully started using them, and now it's the thing that annoys me most when I'm using windows.

snuck.

[YeNotGuilty]

I use(d) 4...mainly just one for each thing i was doing at the time

1 for Xchat
1 for gaim
1 for Mozilla
1 for everything else (Damn FC1 and no MP3 support with XMMS! couldn't get it to upgrade either :( )

[EnigmaOne]

::: sheesh! :::

I hope this doesn't sound like overkill but, when I'm using KDE, I use all 16 Virtual DTs...and regularly fill them up with necessary stuff.

::: sigh ::: Even with two monitors. :rolleyes:

Maybe it's time for a 12-step program.

[bwkaz]

Originally posted by dalek
I'm just bad to not close something when I open it. I may need it again. You do realize, of course, that the Linux kernel is smart enough to cache the executables? (or at least the filesystem data related to them.)

So next time you start them up, it's about three times faster, assuming you have enough RAM so that it's not reclaimed between the time you start it up the first and second times.

[hyp_spec]

One is all I use... doesnt matter what WM i use, just roll up the windows and i'm set!

[klugee]

I use 10 :-)
1 for xmms/gaim
1 for Evolution
1 for 'long term storage' of webpages...
1-3 for various programs that I may have running (dcgui, gimp, ftp, control panel, etc)
1-2 for terminal type stuff

The rest I keep filled with browser windows... I generally have 20+ random browser windows open (yes, I know of tabs, I just don't like them)

-klugee-

[EnigmaOne]

Originally posted by dalek
...Kmail Stop laughing...
What's to laugh at?
Kmail is actually a solid, reliable mail client. Never had a problem with it myself.
Ya mean there's something else out there?


As much as some of us may hate working with windoze systems, it can't always be avoided.

It's at those times that I find myself--out of sheer habit--diving the mouse pointer toward the taskbar to bring up another desktop...then I cuss a bit, remembering that microsoft can't even do one DT right.