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i installed intrepid ibex a few days ago in hope of avoiding today's server rush. my haste caused me to not read the release note - no legacy NVIDIA drivers; which meant no 3D acceleration for my Ubuntu 8.10 desktop. I thought I could deal with it, but after a few hours of being woefully unproductive in my updated environment i decided to downgrade back to Ubuntu 8.04.

 

after a clean install i was surprised at how snappy the system felt. it was decided then that while i would run desktop effects that made me more productive, i would cut the fancy effects in the name of system speed and stability.

 

the desktop cube is gone, it was cool and got some ooohs and ahhhs from people over my shoulder, but really didn't serve a purpose greater then what can be accomplished using the pane switcher. the left and right shifts are smooth and fast and produce just as many ohhs and ahhhs. no more wobbly windows. yes they did make me feel like i was 'handling' a real object, but it also made me feel weird when i was on a machine without them.

 

there are no desktop icons, launching is handled by Gnome-Do or the Panels menu system. Speaking of the panel, I was using Conky to display system stats and the time. While Conky is very efficient it does use system resources. I added a custom clock format to Gnome Panel to display the time in a larger font, and activated the system monitor item as well. The result is a clean efficient desktop that has all the functionality I need without requiring resources my system just doesn't have.

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