Here's some of what you can do with any WM.. Now, i'm using

http://xushi.co.uk/xushi/sv/pics/mydesk/


Xfce (Desktop Env.)
Xchat (top left, for irc)
Eterm (middle left, bottom right, and .. the third one, for command prompt)
Torsmo (bottom left, very nice utility)
Gkrellm (top right, transparent skin)

Ksnapshot (take the pic)

All can be downloaded from linuxpackages.net. And the themes are endless...

Happy configuring

I never did understand why so many people go in for the dark colours/green LCD look on their computer. I run at very high resolution (preferred resolution is 1920x1440), and unless the font size is enormous, you simply can't read text on a black background. Black text on a white background, however, is very easy to read.

I recently switched from KDE to XFCE, and don't regret it at all. The window manager opens in less than 5 seconds, whereas KDE took easily 3 times that. It could be subjective, but apps in general are opening a whole lot faster, too. The only real barrier was convincing it to run SCIM, and that was fixed by checking the documentation. It's very customizable, really. Just play with the widgets, and see what they do.

I use dark colors coz the bright ones give me a headache and hurt my eyes after a while. I sit infront of my pc for hours on end every day.. so i need darkish colors. As for the fonts.. its just me. I'm used to them, and i don't see them as small at al.. And i can't stand large fonts, and windows or boxes taking up 80% of my screen.. Like i said, its just me.

Yea, i agree, Xfce is a beauty.

Yet another XFCE user here. My path was KDE->Gnome->XFCE. I love the default theme (still using it). And it's GTK+ .

your problem might be a low refresh rate, then, Xushi. the flicker at lower refresh rates is more pronounced with a bright background.

Hmm, i thought TFT monitors don't have refresh rates.. ?

Don't get me wrong, i like having small fonts, and to me, these are not that small. I don't like having huge fonts and windows that take up half my screen.. As for the brightness, i find it more soothing. For example, i can't have any background that isn't a mixture of neon blue and black... its just that my eyes are used to it and find it a relaxing color. I've had that same background (and the original flourescence one) for years on end now.

Or do you see any simptoms you know of that i shouldn't be having? =)

I'm not a doctor, and the extent of my medical training is entirely aquatic. (Lifeguard. to be fair, when water's involved I'm considered more of an expert than an EMT, but only when water's involved. your system isn't liquid-cooled, is it? )

I do know that eye strain is caused by monitor flicker. Some of us can see it at higher refresh rates than others, and in fact, a lot of people can't see it at all, even at 60Hz. They get headaches, their eyes feel sore, etc. It's particularly bad when dealing with a brightly coloured background, because there's more pixels in "on" mode. Some people, however, can actually see the "flicker". I'm not going to get into the "why", but I can see flicker when the refresh rate is below 85Hz, though 75Hz doesn't usually cause me eye strain.

LCD's don't usually have refresh rates, but you can still get eye strain on an LCD if it's too bright. A lot of people have their monitor at 100% bright, 100% contrast, whereas I usually keep mine around 50% bright and 60% contrast, and the monitor temperature at "cold". LCD's in particular have that problem, because of the way you need to adjust the screen for viewing angle. I just find it weird that people go for the black background, because it really is illegible at extremely high resolution. My monitor's a 21" monitor, and whenever I'm on a website with light text on black background, I always find myself reaching for that CTRL+ScrollUp hotkey to increase the font size. Black on white, 12pt at 1920x1440 is perfectly legible. A capital letter at that size takes up about 2mm of vertical screen space. White on black, same size, I simply can't read it. The white bleeds into the background and the text looks blurry.

Maybe it's because my eyes are hyper-sensitive to light. I can't, for example, drive in the winter without my sunglasses. The glare from the snow blinds me, to the point that every pair of sunglasses I've tried except for Oakley Ruby finish is inadequate. The "corrective lens" requirement on my driver's license is for my sunglasses, not my prescription lenses. There's even days in the summer when I can't see because the sun is too bright. I'm just a freak

I aggree with what you say. dyslexic Being, i have very sensitive eyes too. When i switched from 60Hz to a 100Hz monitor, i could definately tell the difference and see the flickering. Now that i'm no the laptop, i can't stand to look at CRT monitors anymore. I even take my laptop to uni to do my work coz their gay windows machines have us blocked from changing the refresh rates, and have them locked on 60Hz.

White on black, no thanks, definate headaches there =) I never looked into brightness and contrast of the monitor itself.. thanks for mentioning that out.

Hello,
I have a question about this. If I customize, say my KDE with colors, fonts, wallpaper, etc and I install, say GWare, Will I lose my customizations or I go back to wmconfig and switch back to KDE it will look exactly the same way it looked before ?

Thanks,

Paulo.

KDE will look the same because settings are saved in your home folder and not system wide. Unless you delete your settings from home folder, you'll get same view each time you login.