Sure, but I can't get it to display a task bar on my second monitor that only displays the windows that are on that monitor without paying for some third party extension. And theres no real virtual desktop support.

Its xaw3d for peatsake. god aweful.

Having to click specific windows in a media player to get focus is bad enough.. having a window blast across your gaming session because someone sent you an IM or your Anti-Vrus decided to update or whatever is just about a keyboard smashing offense at times for me!! Thank GOD for TweakUI!

Well, I can imagine you wouldn't think it's inefficient if you'd never seen better Heck, the windows don't even snap to each other!

Tools such as StyleXP exist, but cost money. Without those, I find the GUI to be quite ugly (actually, even those tend to not work so well, with lots of little oversights in interface). Also, assume that I am using the MS virtual desktop switcher. Show me the way to make Windows switch to my Gaim window when I press Ctrl+Shift+Enter then G, or X-Chat window when I press Ctrl+Shift+Enter then X, or Firefox when Ctrl+Shift+Enter then F, or terminal when I press Ctrl+Shift+Enter then T. Show me how to make Gaim conversations and X-Chat windows "desktop utilities" that show up on all desktops, and not in the Alt+Tab list. Also, make the terminal emulator completely decoration-less, and on all desktops, and not in the Alt+Tab list as well. Make it so that when I scroll over my desktop background, it switches virtual desktops. Finally, and most importantly, remove the task bar. I want my system tray rising vertically from the bottom right corner of my desktop, and my clock, which auto-hides, on the top left corner. The finished product.

And I'm not a Windows newbie, either. Hell, I'm probably one of the biggest proponents of .NET in this community, use Windows daily at work, and when I have a laptop, on that. Some of the best applications only exist on Windows (specifically, MSVC), as well as many games.

Look, I know it's picky, but in all honesty, what are the real differences between Windows and Linux? I would use Windows if KDE (and Amarok) worked on them. Operating system selection, for me, comes down to those two main points: the terminal emulator as well as associated tools, and the looks of the GUI.

[append]

There's a Microsoft PowerToy to do just that.

Oh yeah, I want a transparent terminal emulator also, but only a transparent background

Although I disagree with your focus-follows-mouse preference, I do agre that using the scroll wheel should focus, but not raise, the widow. I use that a lot fo reading web pages while I have chat apps open in the foreground.

It's not the job of the application to manage windows, it's the job of the window manager That said, Microsoft has specific rules for allowing windows to steal focus, and what he described should happen. Perhaps since XP SP2, I'm not sure. That said, KDE's focus stealing prevention is much more configurable than Microsoft's if the default don't do it for you.

See my append above, if you haven't already

I skimmed over the guide, and I'm fairly certain that it's not possible to have Windows select windows on keyboard shortcuts. Actually, it's not possible in kwin either. It's a software called KHotKeys, and Ctrl+Shift+Enter puts focus on my system tray, and while my system tray is focused, F gives focus to Firefox, etc. The application is probably moderately trivial to write for Windows, but my point is that it is a part of KDE already

Agreed that's true (and I hopefully didn't try to blame MS for that one!) I know focus is an optional feature but it IS enabled by default as I recall.. which I think tends to explain the prevalence of programs stealing focus on Windows.
No less a programmer lapse though definately!

You already saved a copy for a bug report, right?

Yes, the GUI is visibly more laggy than Windows, in my experience. It's one down side that I've gotted used to, though. Also, I'm sure this wouldn't be so big an issue if I were using XGl, or didn't have my processors clocked down to 375 MHz on idle.

Granted, but the window manager is told by the application how it wants it's windows to behave. Automatically stealing focus is NOT the default behaviour.

It's flat-out disallowed, actually. I don't know about on window creation, but I'm fairly certain it obliges the same rules that existing windows do. One exception may be system notifications, i.e. balloons. For more information (Remarks section)

Now when you talk of window managers you mean Linux right? I am quite likely to be wrong but I recall that under Windows taking focus IS (or maybe Was?) the default behaviour.. It has been a long time!

A window manager is the software that manages the windows on the screen. Windows' is built into the kernel (which is probably why the software is named Windows, after all).

See my post above where I explained that under Windows taking focus is strictly prohibited, and why it might have happened to you.

Far as I could tell, in Windows the window that has focus has to be raised to the top. I agree that it's annoying. Focus follows mouse is a really great thing if you're used to it, but I suppose it's a personal preference.

Could mean Windows equally well. Granted, I don't think Windows makes a distinction between the graphics "server" (I know, Windows isn't client/server based like X is), the desktop and the window manager, but you can still refer to the thingy that manages the window in Windows the window manager.

I install the mouse drivers from Labtec, and I get exactly that behavior. I can't stand the default behavior myself.

Potentially, but I can do the same thing in bash, to an extent. If I'm searching for a command to do something, try a few combinations of things. For instance, suppose I wanted to modify the config file for a software called privoxy (a web proxy). I would first type "nano ". Since I know most config files go into etc, I'll try "/etc/priv" and hit tab. It will fill in "ivoxy", meaning /etc/privoxy is a directory. Now I hit tab twice, and it prints me a list of files in that directory. So I know to edit "settings.default". When I open that up, I'm greeted by a table of contents, listing each section of the config file. Each setting is described in comments.

Privoxy is just one example. Most configuration files are documented likethis, in many cases more documentation than you can fit in a GUI without using a separate help viewer.

So you can see how, after knowing just a little about using the console, your knowledge can grow easily.