Part 1

A Writer's Desktop – Part 1

I am a writer. After retiring from a long working stint as an Engineer, I have taken to writing full-time and now, I freelance. Since I spend most of my time in front of my computer, I prefer to use something that does not hang or crash on me. I started with DOS 6.x and Framework III, and progressed to Windows 3.1. Then I discovered Red Hat Linux 5.2, which PC Quest was offering free with their magazine. I have never looked back from Linux ever since.

I moved over from Red Hat to Knoppix as the latter was much easier to operate and then on to Debian. After experimenting with Gnome and KDE as desktop managers, I decided on KDE and stuck with it for a long time. Periodically, I would try other distributions and desktop managers, but kept coming back to Debian and KDE. Eventually, KDE outgrew my computer and I went back to Gnome.
Then came Ubuntu and I gladly changed over, that is, until they came out with Gnome 3, which did not suit my requirements. I hunted around for quite some time, trying different desktop managers, but always remained dissatisfied. After I discovered XFCE, I liked it and gradually, standardized it to my requirements as a writer. My desktop looks as:

As you can see, it is very nearly bare.

I have two panels on my desktop. The top panel has the Whisker Menu at the extreme left, followed by Window Buttons. On the right hand side, there is the Audio Mixer applet, Weather Update applet, Network Monitor applet, the Network Manager Applet, the Skype applet, the Hamster applet and finally, the Date and Time applet. Below this, I have Rainlendar Lite operating, which is my Personal Information Manager to keep track of and act as a reminder for my various activities.

On the left side is a hidden panel that holds all the application icons I launch most frequently. The panel is set to retract when not required, so I have the entire desktop to work without a hindrance. On this panel, starting from the top, I have launcher icons for IceWeasel, Terminal Emulator, File Manager, Pluma, Calculator, LibreOffice Writer, Workspaces Switcher and finally, the Oracle VM VirtualBox. The LibreOffice launcher houses more icons inside, which include – LibreOffice Calc, LibreOffice Impress, LibreOffice Draw, GIMP, GnuCash and Inkscape.

I have a 2TB hard disk, which I have divided into 17 partitions of 100MB each, one 200MB partition to house all my data, and another 53GB I have designated for Swap. The 17 partitions allows me to freely experiment with different distributions, and I can boot into Mint, Ubuntu, Xubuntu, Debian and so many others, as I like. To keep track of which distribution is currently running, I display the Icon & Title on the Whisker Menu, with the name of the distribution as the title.

I grew tired of having to install new versions of Mint, Xubuntu, etc. every six months and decided to change over to rolling releases. After toying with AptoSid, Semplice and Siduction for some time, I finally settled on AptoSid. I generally do not switch off my computer, preferring rather to suspend it at the end of the day. With AptoSid, I can suspend and revive my computer every time, without the OS crashing my computer.

Although I am right-handed, I prefer to use the mouse with my left hand – a legacy left over from my Radio Amateur days. This allows my right hand to remain free to jot down some notes on paper, to do a quick calculation or to enter numbers on the keypad. The accuracy in positioning the cursor is not as high as when using the mouse with the right hand, but writers seldom require high cursor-positioning accuracy, except when editing images.

The next part of this series will show how to set up the two panels.