How to use the default 4 workspaces like a pro in Centos 6's Gnome?
 

Hey,

Me again. As a windows user, I am used to stack everything in the only workspace. So when I learned that Gnome in Centos 6 has 4 workspaces. My first reaction is wow, awesome! But when I actually start to use it, I got confused for how to organize them without losing myself. So I am wondering how do you pros use them?

I am currently use workstation 1 for everything just like Windows, but put the htop (=process manager in Windows to me) in the 2nd workspace. I rarely use it, like once per day. And I have no idea what should I do with the workspace 3 and 4, so I just left them empty. If I can group my firefox tabs differently I probably will separate them into different workspaces, but seems like I cannot. It always go back the firefox in the workspace 1.

Thanks in advance.

On my work machine I have two monitors with separate X sessions, each with 8 workspaces. So let's see here...

Left Monitor:
WS1: My Windows 7 VM - I use it for MS Office and other Windows-only tasks
WS2-8: Various projects I'm working on. Maybe I'll have a website open with some kind of manual or walkthrough, or maybe I'll have gv open with some figures, or a pdf in acroread, or a crapload of terminals with various text files or IDL sessions open

Right Monitor:
WS1: Email
WS2: Forums
WS3-7: Various projects I'm working on (see left monitor WS2-8)
WS8: Always-running tasks. These are jobs that start up on boot in screen and run forever, I connect to the screen sessions and leave them on this WS so I can periodically switch to them and quickly check on the status.


Of the 16 workspaces, I'm typically using 10-12 with the others empty. If I find I start to fill up all 16, I scroll through them and clean up, bringing me back to 8-10.

I try to keep 1 WS = 1 project, this makes it easy to jump between projects. I also try to separate them into reference material on the left monitor, and development on the right monitor. So if I'm working on 3 projects, I segregate them to 3 workspaces on the left monitor with their respective reference material or output figures open, and 3 workspaces on the right monitor with code and associated debug sessions open.

On my laptop at home I have 8 workspaces. WS1 is email, WS2 is forums, WS3-8 are various projects. I'm usually only using 3-5 at a time.

Hi,
This got my attention. Why do you use two separate xsessions?

I could imagine this might be useful if you were logged in as two different users doing very different things, but from the rest of your post I didn't get the impression that that is what you are doing.

One possibility that comes to mind is that perhaps you like to be able to independently change desktops on each display without affecting the other? If so that is the default behaviour of both enlightenment and awesome when running with more than one display.

Cheers,

Evo2.

That is exactly the reason. When I set it up, separate X sessions was the easiest way to accomplish what I wanted, but I'm always open to better approaches. I'll look into enlightenment and awesome to see how they compare to XFCE/Gnome2, thanks.

If it changes anything, I also have my monitors in portrait mode. It sucks for movies, but I don't care about that on my workstation...it's awesome for reading man pages, websites, and for coding. 1080x1920 FTW!

Hi,
I rarely use two displays these days (road warrior with laptop) but when I was working at a desk I always had two displays with a single x session using either enlightenment or awesome. I had a layout/workflow somewhat similar to what you describe. Not sure if you'll like either enlightenment or awesome, they are quite different each other and to "traditional" WMs/desktops. If you try either of them make sure to give them at least a few days to get used to them before making a decision.
Nice. Makes sense when using multiple displays for work.

Evo2.

Omg, I am so glad I asked! suicidaleggroll, you are the real pro! Thanks for sharing! Now I really feel the power of Linux. XD

Anyone mind teaching me how to put two monitors with separate X sessions, each with 4 workspaces (or 8)? Many thanks!

Never mind... After googled for an hour and trial and fail, I finally realize that I dont have the admin permission. Epic fail!

But I will take the idea, after I figure out I can run firefox in different workspaces by not double clicking its desktop shortcut! Thanks suicidaleggroll!