GOODBYE, GNOME, GOODBYE

Day three on the new Zareason Breeze machine sees me with Gnome,
and Compiz ripped out and XFCE replacing it.  This Nvidia graphics
card seems funkier than even I anticipated.  Until both were gone,
Firefox 3.5.8 kept screwing up up the display of pages whenever I
scrolled down or up.  That was bothersome, but it prompted a
look-see at Google Chrome; and I can say without hesitation -- at
least on THIS machine, it's simply not ready for prime time.
That's two Debian derivs in the house now, with XFCE in and Gnome
out, and smiles all around.

--more--
That being said, removing one desktop environment and replacing it
with another is not drop-dead easy.  If this were my fist exposure
to Linux, it wouldn't have been a good experience at all.  What
does it matter that my desktop cube flips around when all my window
borders disappear from some mysterious Compiz configuration or bug
(and is there even a difference)?  So it's 'apt-get remove --purge
gnome'; sayanara Compiz, and all your crapass config tools that
don't seem change a damn thing I can see; and a big hello to the
lighter, snappier and more stable XFCE.  I don't think I'll be
going back anytime soon.

As for Google Chrome, I thought it was really awesome, until I shut
down the computer and it forgot all my carefully chosen,
downloaded, and installed Extensions.  Hmph.  Okay, so after Gnome
and Compiz were gone, I figured I'd try it again.  Same-same.
Alrighty then.  I'll take a look at Chrome again in one year's
time.  Until then, it's a Firefox life for me.

This time around, I intend to spend more of my time in the GUI, and
try to make it pretty.  I'm comfy-cozy using the command line for
everyday things now, so I'd like to have a pretty-looking desktop
and user experience for a while.  I like having sound working
(though recording might be problematic, as I'm picking up a lots of
internal noise that I can't seem to do anything about; it may come
down to purchasing an external USB soundcard).  DVD's were giving
me cryptic I/O Errors the other day, but I haven't tried since
Compiz was flushed away.  Hold up...

Nope, still a problem.  It's only in the playback, though, because
I can rip a DVD no problem.  I'll track that down when I can.  I
suppose I could get on the blower and crab at Zareason, and I might
yet, but I'd like to solve this on my own if possible.  I want to
see if I can make Mint into a distro worth having.  Should be
interesting.