[Techtalk] Best substitute for Scientific Linux?

[Akkana Peck]

mgmonza at iceland.freeshell.org writes:
> Can anyone recommend a desktop environment that will let me select objects
> on a 'desktop' by typing in 'first to however many letters they need to make
> them unique'?  

I haven't used Scientific Linux, so I'm just going by your
description. But I always keep a few terminals open, so if I
want to run a program by typing the first few letters, I focus
a terminal, type the first few letters of the command, hit TAB
(depending on your shell, you might need two TABs) to autocomplete
the program name, and hit return.

If you don't want it to look like a terminal, you could make a
terminal window that's only one line high: voila, you've created
a command-entry window that will work on any desktop.

If you don't want "muriform intervention" (ha, love that term!) even
to get to the command window, many (most?) window managers
understand alt-TAB or [windows key]-TAB to shift focus among windows
on the current desktop.

Or you could set up a window manager so that some special key
combination brings up a temporary terminal, in which you can type
and autocomplete the command you want to run. I use Openbox so I
could help you configure an Openbox-based system, but a casual web
search suggests Scientific Linux might have used IceWM, so maybe
your best bet is to install Debian or Ubuntu, then install IceWM and
copy the IceWM configuration from an old Scientific Linux machine.

One of the great things about Linux is how flexible it is: you
can configure almost anything! I'm sure there's a way to configure
a window manager to do what you used to get in SL.

        ...Akkana