Re: [Nautilus-list] Integration of gmc and nautilus desktop directories.

[Pavel Cisler <pavel eazel com>]

Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
> 
> Le ven, 13 avr 2001 20:17:29, Pavel Cisler a écrit :
> > Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
> > >
> > > Le ven, 13 avr 2001 15:21:32, Cesar Cardoso a écrit :
> > > > Em 13 Apr 2001 07:46:22 +0200, Alfonso Landin Piñeiro
> > > > escreveu:
> > > >
> > > > > Seeing this i think the best solution would be to
> > make
> > > > the home
> > > > > directory the desktop directory (as someone
> > mentioned
> > > > before in this
> > > > > thread). No naming problems, no cycling between both
> > > > direcories (they
> > > > > are the same), all file managers can use the same
> > dir,
> > > > etc...
> > > >
> > > > Tigert said the very same thing. I don't like it. I
> > prefer
> > > > a ~/Desktop
> > > > thing,
> > >
> > > I hate it :
> > >
> > > 1. the uppercase D is just not unixish and conflicts
> > with
> > > the whole file hierarchy.
> > >
> > > 2. it's an i18n nightmare
> > >
> > > 3. you'll have to explain to new users why they have a
> > > different unix and gui home. The notion of a special
> > > directory is difficult enougth without duplicating it
> > >
> >
> > Hmm..., I wonder why having separate home and desktop
> > folders doesn't work on
> > Linux but works great on OS X and BeOS. Guess neither are
> > "unixish" enough,
> > whatever that's supposed to mean.
> 
> In the case of 1., that means one don't add caps locks for
> the look of it because that'll just be a pain for users of
> cli (and in the Gnome case in all dialogs where you can use
> completion).

Yeah, you could make exactly the same argument to justify 8.3 file naming
schemes. If you want to stick to arcane legacies like that, not using uppercase
letters in directory names is the way to go. If you want to create a user
friendly system, your argument doesn't fly at all.

> As for your point, I won't comment on OS X and BeOS since
> I've never used them, but I suppose that when you use only
> gui's the fact there is another cli home is just irrelevant.
> I don't suppose you expect cli usage disappear in Linux all
> of a sudden ?

You are mixing up issues here.

For one thing, both have a terminal shell just like Gnome and have the usual set
of unix command line tools.

Further, folks who don't care about using the command line still put their
documents into their home directory and put important files/symlinks that they
want to see all the time on the desktop. It has very little to do with the fact
that the home directory was invented on systems that did not have a file manager
or some other user interface.

Pavel