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From: mattf@cac.washington.edu (Matthew Freedman)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x.motif,comp.windows.x
Subject: X Desktop Environments
Message-ID: <15058@milton.u.washington.edu>
Date: 24 Jan 91 19:07:46 GMT
Sender: news@milton.u.washington.edu
Reply-To: mattf@cac.washington.edu (Matthew Freedman)
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Lines: 34

We are starting a pilot-program here, putting some very computer
illiterate users on some advanced workstations.  The powers-that-be are
trying to decide on whether to buy a cluster of NeXT machines for this
particular work-group, or a set of X-Terminals hooked into a DECstation
server, running in a motif environment.

I have been assigned the task of putting together a prototype "desktop"
environment for the X configuration. As I see it, there are two basic
approaches. I could just set up some standard .Xdefaults and .xsession
files, to start up the standard applications (terminal, spreadsheet,
wordprocessor, etc) as icons, and maybe use an application like dxue,
which is a semi-friendly, menu-driven file manipulation utility from
DEC.

The other approach would be to get one of the commercial X desktop
environments. The only ones I know of are Looking Glass, and IXI's
X.desktop, neither of which I have used.  There is an article in the
current Unix Today! which describes the latest version of X.desktop,
and contains this intriguing bit -- "IXI has proposed the IXI
technology for inclusion in Motif Version 1.2".

So my questions are as follows: What experiences have you all had in
configuring X/Motif environments for naive users? Are the commercial
packages worthwhile, or is careful set-up of standard tools enough? Is
there, or is there going to be, some standard OSF-endorsed desktop
environment?  It seems like this should be a FAQ, although I have never
seen it asked before.

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= Matthew M. Freedman                                                 =
= U. of Washington Information Systems       mattf@cac.washington.edu =
= 4545 15th Ave. NE; 4th Floor               (206) 543-5593           =
= Seattle, WA  98105                                                  =
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