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1 • Opinion Poll - What is your preferred desktop environment? (by Mario Lorenzo Lanzani on 2015-05-25 01:04:37 GMT from Europe)
PekWM
2 • favorite desktop (by phil clow on 2015-05-25 01:41:19 GMT from North America)
ubuntu netbook remix is the best looking of all desktops. I would like to see it available for a newer os.
3 • opinion pol (by Mahmoud Slamah on 2015-05-25 01:46:32 GMT from Africa)
KDE
4 • Desktop poll (by Travisyard on 2015-05-25 01:54:55 GMT from Planet Mars)
I chose other, but I would have liked to see Openbox on the list.
5 • favorite desktop (by Thomas Mueller on 2015-05-25 02:12:11 GMT from North America)
My favorite desktop or window manager is IceWM. There are others I'd like to try also, including i3 and ratpoison. Ratpoison takes some learning curve to get used to.
I seem to find my way better in IceWM than in my limited tries with KDE 4.x and couldn't find my way around in GNOME. I've used IceWM in Linux (Slackware 13.0), FreeBSD and NetBSD.
6 • favorite desktop (by Carlos Felipe on 2015-05-25 02:24:18 GMT from South America)
I think Cinnamon is a modern, easy and customizable desktop environment, better than GNOME Shell and others. KDE is so beautiful, but I don't know..
7 • Favorite DE (by mikef90000 on 2015-05-25 02:24:43 GMT from North America)
As someone who prefers launching apps & docs from easily customizable panels, I use Xfce.
LXDE comes close in this area, but alarmingly LXqt has regressed. Also, MATE shows the dated GNOME 2 lack of a panel 'editor'. Hopefully both of these DEs will move forward.
BTW great review of KDE Plasma 5, I shall have to check it out. Memory footprint is a little worrying ....
8 • Opinion Pol (by jaws222 on 2015-05-25 02:27:46 GMT from North America)
I go Openbox
9 • Rolling Fud (by linuxista on 2015-05-25 02:28:03 GMT from North America)
The kernel bug only affected a small portions of users using Raid0 under certain circumstances. Additionally, it does not seem to be limited solely to rolling distros like Arch and Gentoo. Below are some posts from the threads.
>I believe the problem people are experiencing here is due to a raid0 bug with trim that I discovered on Fedora with 3.19.7 that was backported from 4.0.2. It still hasn't been fixed in any release.
>It's affecting almost all raids, some non-raids and across multiple distros (arch, fedora, debian).
>Unfortunately, I don't think you can blame all of your problems on the bug fixed by this particular bug. First of all, it doesn't apply to directories at all; secondly, it's been around for a long time. I'd have to check and see whether or not 3.16 had the problem, but it
wouldn't surprise me at all. - Ted Cho
10 • My Favorite Desktop (by Muthu on 2015-05-25 02:29:05 GMT from Asia)
I always love KDE for its looks and the cool blue theme. Now, Iam running (Netrunner 16-Plasma 5.3) and Linux Mint KDE.
11 • Opinion Poll (by Chris on 2015-05-25 02:30:23 GMT from North America)
DW, thank you for doing this; hopefully, such polls will result in quality information in which to provide future articles and, should you release the results, help distro/respin developers to provide products more in line with the public's demands.
However, I have a couple of observations/suggestions:
1. Under the provided format, it would have been more helpful if you listed all DE/WMs in DW's search database in lieu of listing several and then a Other category.
2. Such may not be available from your polling script, but a ranking poll would be more helpful. I cannot speak for everyone, but I select DE/WMs based upon the system's mission/needs, which varies. However, I have a few favorites depending upon the mission/needs.
My Ranked List (YMMV):
Openbox
Xfce
LXDE/LXQT
MATE
Cinnamon
Unity
KDE
GNOME Shell
P.S. #! RIP
12 • Opinion Pol (by jaws222 on 2015-05-25 02:34:21 GMT from North America)
So many good ones IMO. Hard to rank them but rather categorize in my own way:
The good ones:
Openbox
LXDE
XFCE
Mate
Cinnamon
Middle of the road:
Enlightenment
KDE
Trinity
IceWM
The (really)bad:
Unity
Gnome Shell
13 • Raid0 (by linuxista on 2015-05-25 02:41:30 GMT from North America)
For the bug to affect you it has to involve Raid0, ext4, and discard or fstrim. If you're using Raid0 your tolerance for risk would seem to be far higher than worrying about a potential kernel bug.
14 • desktops (by linuxista on 2015-05-25 02:43:16 GMT from North America)
A couple of votes for Openbox and i3.
15 • Kubuntu (by Reuben on 2015-05-25 02:48:44 GMT from North America)
I'm currently using Kubuntu 15.04. I installed a daily image a few months ago. Plasma 5 is nice. There are a lot of little tweeks here and there that really add up to create a better experience than KDE4. A few annoyances here and there. It's always trying to get me to reboot, like after I ran "apt-get autoremove" to get rid of some old kernels. Anyways, if you're going to use it I strongly suggest that you install the backports repository. Plasma 5.3 and Applications 15.04 have some nice features. I can only imagine that Plasma 5.4 will be even better.
As for the data corruption bug, last I heard it wasn't actually ext4, but a bug in mdadm.
16 • Preferred DE (by M.Z. on 2015-05-25 02:59:54 GMT from Planet Mars)
I'd say KDE is my preferred DE, love the looks feature richness & customization. Others are fairly good too, but I tend to stick to KDE apps like Okular because they look good everywhere & allow some customization as needed, though some non Qt apps like Firefox & LibreOffice are excellent. My list:
1 KDE - best overall, especially on any recent hardware
2 Cinnamon - a solid second with lots to like
3 XFCE - a nice mid to light weight DE
4 MATE- still good just like the older Gnome releases were
5 LXDE - best truly light weight DE
6 Enlightenment - kind of attractive & interesting, but E19 is a lot fatter than expected
Agree with @12 about the bad DEs, though flip the order because nothing is worse than spyware no matter what Canonical's intentions were.
17 • Favorite DE (by Leonard Ashley on 2015-05-25 03:27:18 GMT from North America)
Best DE for me is no DE, just a Debian core netinstall with either Openbox or Fluxbox WM. The only way to go, add the necessary applications for it to be fully functional. Very fast, light-weight, fully customizable, all without the bloat of KDE, or memory consumption of Gnome. If I were to run a DE, it would be no doubt XFCE, and second would be LXDE. But really it is what the user is looking for in a distro, and the needs of that individual. I chose simplicity.
18 • No subject (by erinis on 2015-05-25 03:48:17 GMT from North America)
I'm waiting for the Blackberry Raspberry PI ? Seriously your hardware should be the focal point of what you have. It's limited as to the age of the computer. My advice is if its a low end older model stick with XFCE as this is the perfect balance unless you have the latest and greatest. Experiment with what you have and enjoy but stop complaining about DE's you don't like. Thanks
19 • The ability to purchase non-free applications on Q4OS (by Mint 2 is not my Style on 2015-05-25 03:48:59 GMT from Asia)
As the Trinity Desktop is the rebirth of KDE 3.5, the ability to directly purchase non-free applications on Q4OS could be seen as the second reincarnation of Lindows 4.5 purchasing model. Welcome to 2003 and best wishes to Q4OS team.
20 • Favourite Desktops (by Newby on 2015-05-25 04:04:41 GMT from North America)
KDE4 looks nice, but had to deactivate nepomunk and akonadi to make the thing even remotely usable. Usually use the lighter weight Xfce, and for serious work (ie. -don't want visual distractions), I use fluxbox.
Was interested in comments by 17) Leonard Ashley: If you've used BOTH openbox and fluxbox, would be interested in any comments you may have on their relative merits against each other. For me, Fluxbox won out since it uses text-based configuration files, rather than xml. Can someone explain why anyone would want to deal with xml-based config files rather than text-based??? Doesn't make sense to me. Also, openbox documentation shows tons of configuration options, but no way to download a summary pdf (or even a single large text file would help) of all that documentation for off-line study. Both problems were killers for me, so opted for Fluxbox.
Note: To avoid severe eye strain, I have Xfce set for resolution of 1024X768. Easy to do with the display manager. To get that resoltuion in fluxbox had to edit the following line:
/home/username/.fluxbox/startup
In the "startup" file,added the line:
xrandr --size 1024x768 -r 75
where size is the desired resolution, and r is the desired refresh rate.
Hope that is useful for anyone trying fluxbox for the first time.
Not sure what I have to do to get fonts to display nicely (no "jaggies") as in Xfce or KDE?
Would also appreciate comments and tips on using i3 and Pekwm...
21 • Opinion Poll (by Chris on 2015-05-25 04:53:26 GMT from Oceania)
WindowMaker
22 • Opinion Poll (by Andy on 2015-05-25 04:58:04 GMT from North America)
TDE Trinity
23 • desktops (by frodopogo on 2015-05-25 05:34:35 GMT from North America)
Mint MATE is my daily driver, but I have Cinnamon on a partition of two different computers, and I think that's my future DE. The Mint version of Cinnamon is superb, but a couple of months ago, I installed Cubuntu on a partition, and went through the work of changing various things to make it English language. One of the reasons was that it offers the possibility of switching from Cinnamon to Unity or MATE. I really don't want to knock something I hadn't tried, so it gives me that option.
But the Cubuntu implementation of Cinnamon is visually STUNNING. I don't like the Ubuntu colors, and in the Ubuntu MATE edition they make me slightly nauseous, but somehow Cubuntu just makes them work in such an elegant way. Maybe part of it is that I DO like the Ubuntu icon set, and it works really well with Cinnamon. If I wasn't concerned about Ubuntu spyware, I'd probably have switched to it already.
Unity was not as bad as I expected... the side bar doesn't bother me that much, but it's still VERY confusing. I think they should make Cubuntu the official edition.... and ditch the spyware.
I was surprised by how much different Ubuntu MATE is from Mint MATE.... Ubuntu MATE is useable, but Mint MATE definitely has the edge.
I COULD fairly easily use lxde, xfce, or KDE if I had to, but there are things about the xfce and KDE start menus that annoy me too much. With xfce, I think it's the altogether too common whiskers menu.... it puts the "off" button in an odd place, and makes it really small. When I go to shut the computer down at night, I'm TIRED, and don't want to hunt for a teensy little button in a weird place!!! If you're going to make it small, at least make it RED!!! It just flies in the face of the concept of user friendliness.... what WERE they thinking????
I forget exactly what it is KDE does that annoys me with the menu.... but putting a "k" in front of EVERYTHING is korny and konfusing!!! :-D
(my brain tags everything by the first letter, so that has katastophic effects on my memory to remember which program is which.... JUST what I needed!) I don't suppose that will ever change, it must be some KDE kommunity kommunal kode!!! (See how SILLY it is??? It doesn't exactly kommand respect!)
24 • Favorite DE (by DWave on 2015-05-25 05:39:11 GMT from North America)
Ah, the age old question of DE/WM preferences.
My favorite DE is XFCE... since most of the computers I use/administrate are a bit long in the tooth, XFCE runs beautifully on them, while still being easy to use/configure, and offering fair customization options.
For personal use, I usually go for a simple WM, however. I use WindowMaker and Fluxbox. I love the oldschool charm of WMaker, but I tend to use Fluxbox a bit more often, out of practicality. I set them both up with hotkeys to launch my programs, and pseudo-tiling keybindings.
25 • Favorite DE (by Leonard Ashley on 2015-05-25 06:25:49 GMT from North America)
@20 - NewBy
I do run both Openbox and Fluxbox, both have their merits and attributes, besides one being a text based and the other XML, really means very little since I don't have a problem configuring either one. Openbox has a lot more information available versus Fluxbox. I have been running Openbox for several years, still finding new and interesting tweaks, like complete transparency as Fluxbox is. Fluxbox has a little more bling or shine to it, and is very similar in the layout, both have lxappearance, nitrogen, and the menu editor is quite similiar. "/home/config/openbox" configuration files are simple compared to "/home/.fluxbox" in which some of the files resemble and function as would those in Openbox, but there are a few others which require a little more attention to detail and understanding the purpose of those files. Fluxbox in my opinion is more advanced, but yet I enjoy Openbox and don't see a need to part with it. I also dabble with i3 and Bluetile WM's. I enjoy Debian Linux. Hope this helped. Thank you
26 • Favorite Desktop (by William on 2015-05-25 06:47:09 GMT from Europe)
Number one, most Awesome Desktop, is simply "Awesome". My number two is Fluxbox.
1 : Awesome
2 : Fluxbox
3 : ............... (empty, nothing, linux/bsd (pc) turned off)
27 • Antirollers (by Arch Watcher 402563 on 2015-05-25 07:03:00 GMT from North America)
What was that blurb on Arch ext4? An isolated bug is bad generalization. The Arch forum link concludes it's "a raid0 bug with [SSD] trim." Pretty obscure corner case.
And read Tso at your own link: "...it's been around for a long time. I'd have to check and see whether or not 3.16 had the problem, but it wouldn't surprise me at all. Sometimes these bugs can hang around for years before they are found and fixed."
A bug sitting around for years is an argument for rolling releases. Debian / Ubuntu sits on known fixes; Arch ships pronto.
I never run ext4 with journal anyway (-O "^has_journal"), so I avoid most ext4 problems. Sometimes you just have to be smart about what kernel devs offer you and only use reliable featuers. That's nothing to do with rolling/static arguments.
28 • Favorite DE (by Simon on 2015-05-25 07:05:01 GMT from Oceania)
There are 2 main reasons why i'm using enlightenment over say something like KDE The first is that Enlightenment allows you to change Virtual Desktops (Workspaces) independently per screen, Handy if you want to keep a editor on 1 screen in 1 Virtual desktop and swap between A browser for doco and a PDF data sheet both in different virtual desktops on the other screen.
The second is themeablity, People don't often see this because not many people have put the effort into making really good themes for enlightenment, but heres 3 examples. The first is pretty much the default followed by something i'm working on and another
https://www.enlightenment.org/ss/display.php?image=e-555de318e2e960.52972699.png
https://www.enlightenment.org/ss/display.php?image=e-552398ac5f69d8.34996133.jpg
https://www.enlightenment.org/ss/display.php?image=e-5537e17215b3c4.77281006.jpg
I tend to also go towards kde/Qt apps as i generally find them more configurable then the gtk equivelent meld and Hexchat are Exceptions here
29 • i3 & pekwm (by linuxista on 2015-05-25 07:08:25 GMT from North America)
@20 : re i3, you'd probably like it since the config files are simple and text based, not xml, lua or haskell. It's quite simple to get up and running. Maybe the easiest of the various tiling wms I've tried. The documentation is quite good (i3wm.org), and dependencies are minimal (not like Xmonad).
Re Pekwm, this might be the best resource : https://urukrama.wordpress.com/index/. Also Manjaro has a community version with Pekwm set up as the desktop : http://sourceforge.net/projects/manjarolinux/files/community/. You could run it in a virtual machine to get a feel. It's got tabbed apps like Fluxbox, but I'm not sure what other advantages it might have over Openbox or Fluxbox.
30 • Favourite desktop (by John LeDuc on 2015-05-25 07:13:28 GMT from Asia)
A combination of twm, vdesk and complcated bash-script to do virtual desktops.
31 • KDE & Review (by Sondar on 2015-05-25 07:26:59 GMT from Europe)
Not my cup o' tea, is KDE. Bloated, following the wholly underisable and inexorable trend emanating from you-know-where. Notwithstanding, another great review from Jesse. As for unwanted beeping, simple expedient is unsolder onboard sounder, if present, plug in a decent external sound system (green plug) and leave the system OFF unless playing music/video. Works for me. On the other hand, if it must be KDE, might've been a more appropriate choice of review to select K-Mint Ultimate, (now in waitng list!), as Mint tends to tidy loose ends more effectively. Xfce would've been better still for a mainline distro, although one of the compact offerings, especially the burgeoning Puppy derivatives, would avoid the bloat, run faster, cover most requirements and save a pile of dosh. And, possibly be a lot more fun, if that's your bag.
32 • Favourite Desktop (by Elizabeth on 2015-05-25 07:29:27 GMT from Europe)
After trying them all, I have been a devoted Xfce user for several years. I am not impressed by wavy boxes or other fancy effects, I need functionality and efficiency in a neat and satisfying workspace. The beauty of Xfce for me is its customizabilityness - it can be made to work exactly as I do.
33 • Re Desktoip Environments (by salparadise on 2015-05-25 07:48:06 GMT from Europe)
What, no Pantheon?
34 • KDE and Kubuntu (by Jura321 on 2015-05-25 07:56:18 GMT from Europe)
Hi,
I had kubuntu with KDE plasme 5 also installed just for testing purposes and I had encouraged more bugs than Jessie.
First and most distracting issue was about system tray place.
I got used to run cherry tree with own-cloud client on every my systems to gather useful tips and tricks - and if you enable "system tray docking" the window of cherry tree will disappear and never come back. Also during my customization I have been hit by more errors and collapses - changing wallpapers, icons settings etc.
Some advance configuration settings are still missing if you
compare KDE 5 with KDE 4. I would be more modest to encourage using KDE PLASMA 5 on working machines. In nutshell it's worth to test it but be prepare for some tinkering.
Best regards
Jura321
35 • Desktop Environment (by Romane on 2015-05-25 08:05:51 GMT from Oceania)
I think what really matters is that the environment works with the user. After that, then looks. I have tried a few different environments but keep coming back to KDE, simply because it works with me the way I want. I think it looks better (but at that, must admit to not having tried some of the environments that others above have praised). Also happen to much prefer QT over GTK, but that really is subjective. Tried Enlightenment, but don't have the parience to sit and tweak the look.
Of course, potato, potarto, tomato. tomarto :)
36 • desktop poll (by Bufo on 2015-05-25 08:29:23 GMT from North America)
KDE
37 • Desktop Env (by Black_Codec on 2015-05-25 08:40:17 GMT from Europe)
I voted for XFCE beacause i think it is the most adaptable.
But my preffered enviro is fluxbox, a vm that need only a desktop manager to work out of the box and use more or less the same ram of e17/e19 the other people who use *box that claim them as smaller never see flux in action i think :P
38 • @37 RE:Desktop Env (by Black_Codec on 2015-05-25 08:41:15 GMT from Europe)
Sorry not "a vm" but "...a wm that need ..."
39 • desktop poll (by dave brown on 2015-05-25 08:46:57 GMT from North America)
i3.
40 • @1 - PekWM (by Carlos on 2015-05-25 08:48:06 GMT from Europe)
+1
LOL
41 • Desktop (by excollier on 2015-05-25 08:48:21 GMT from Europe)
After a few years with Cinnamon, Mate, KDE and Openbox I have settled on XFCE.
It's fairly light, reasonably customisable an just does the job.
Currently using it for Mint 17.1, Debian Wheezy and Jessie. Simple.
I miss !# and it's take on OpenBox though.
42 • Favourite-Desktops (by NewBy on 2015-05-25 08:52:56 GMT from North America)
25) Leonard-Ashley: Thanks for the feedback on Fluxbox versus Openbox.
29) Linuxvista: Thanks also for your comments.
Guess I will give Openbox another look, although maybe check i3 first. A simple stiling window manager with text-based config files sounds like minimalist perfection.
Still not sure how to get nice looking fonts in fluxbox. Doing some "Googling" turned up: turn on antialiasing, turn off antialiasing, make use of style. Unless someone has the surefire answer, guess I will backup my fluxbox config files and experiment around with some settings to see what happens. Without a surefire answer, sometimes the best way to learn is to (figuratively) "blow things up" (in this case mess around with the config settings and see what mayhem results). The other related problem is trying to convince the girlfriend that this constitutes "Fun". Probably the wrong website to be discussing THAT problem. Sigh....
43 • Window Manager (by Martin on 2015-05-25 09:11:32 GMT from Europe)
I use both of these:
Fluxbox
Openbox
Occasionally I play around with Icewm too.
44 • Desktop (by Lansley Nailor on 2015-05-25 09:16:11 GMT from Europe)
Kiss applies - DDE (Deepin for those not tried it yet) is by far the easiest and best.
45 • What is your preferred desktop environment? (by Devesh on 2015-05-25 09:17:41 GMT from Africa)
I am using KDE on Debian because when I tested desktop environments for multiple monitors years back it was the only one that ran reliably with the Nvidia drivers. I run 4 monitors and at the time Ubuntu Gnome worked fine on 2 but not 4. Got everything working well now so not I'm and not going to change it anytime soon.
46 • Desktop Vote (by emiloud on 2015-05-25 09:19:34 GMT from Africa)
I voted for KDE because it runs very well on Kaos Distribution and manage dual screens perfectly, non Qt applications behavior and looking feels good.
My second choice for a Desktop is Cinnamon that is very light and smooth.
For a laptop I use openbox with crunchbang customisation that enhance battery time usage.
47 • Favorite DE (by Leonard Ashley on 2015-05-25 09:44:27 GMT from North America)
@ 20 & 42 - NewBy: Don't know what Fluxbox distro you are using. Try VSIDO, very fast, sophisticated distro, you may just find what you are looking for. Excellent forum.
48 • Trinity Desktop Environment (TDE) (by Elcaset on 2015-05-25 09:50:44 GMT from North America)
I vote for Trinity Desktop Environment (TDE). It is very fast, even on old hardware. Also, TDE has all of the features missing from the other really fast, light desktops. You can configure it to do just about anything you'd want.
49 • Kubuntu 15.04 Issues! (by Terry Parris on 2015-05-25 10:40:14 GMT from North America)
Though the review here is well done and others are not experiencing any issues with Kubuntu 15.04, I've attempted to load it on a Dell N5010 Inspiron laptop numerous times and one key feature just refuses to work for me. I can NOT search for anything from the desktop, the menu, or in Dolphin. On the desktop and in the menu I get NO results. In Dolphin I've gotten an error every time. I forget what the specific error is but search failed every time. The feature that the reviewer claimed didn't work (downloading desktop backgrounds, themes, or even backgrounds for SDDM) did indeed work on my system. One other issue I found with 15.04 was it incorrectly attempted to load a kernel module driver for Intel processors that was meant for Sandy Bridge and above processors. This kernel module made my old Arrandale core i5 run hot even with power management tools such as TLP and powertop (powertop has issues with systemd at present as you can find many posts on various distro's forums). My only other issue is that I'm NOT enamored by the FLAT look of the desktop (though it can be changed somewhat). The flat look is great for touch screen aficionados but doesn't cut it with most users who like the glitz of desktops past. It's very difficult to tell whether or not you clicked open an application and often times you open more than one instance of that application by accident. I expected several issues moving to Plasma 5 as when the move to Plasma 4 happened and I was not surprised. Given time Plasma 5 will be a great interface. Till such a time, I'm going to relegate myself to Kubuntu 14.04 LTS or I may even shift over to Debian 8 (Jessie) once I figure out how to get power management on my laptop figured out with systemd.
50 • Opinion Poll (by jymm on 2015-05-25 11:15:42 GMT from North America)
Mate, it was Gnome, which I now find unusable. I still like the classic or fallback modes of Gnome if used. Second would be Cinnamon.
51 • Opinion Poll (by EdB on 2015-05-25 11:45:47 GMT from Europe)
KDE on the workhorse (PCLinuxOS)
Cinnamon on the less powered (Mint)
LXDE for the underpowered (PCLinuxOS)
52 • Opimion Pol (by Joe on 2015-05-25 12:19:34 GMT from North America)
Xfce is the Rodney Danderfield of Desktop Environments. It gets no respect, it is old school, but it is still working.
53 • Poll (by itres on 2015-05-25 12:34:02 GMT from Europe)
Pantheon is not listed?
54 • Desktop poll (by Corbin Rune on 2015-05-25 12:45:53 GMT from North America)
My main three (equal order, really): Enlightenment, KDE, Openbox.
I also can get behind Fluxbox (recently messed with it, and it's pretty fun), Lumina, LXQT, and XFCE.
Budgie's interesting, but I haven't messed with it too much.
55 • Its a desktop (by lee on 2015-05-25 12:56:03 GMT from North America)
MATE now, Gnome2 formerly, has been my choice for a decade or more when I use keyboard and mouse. My desktop has no wallpaper, but is littered with links, files, pictures, and directories.
The panel is on top with an apps menu, browser icon, text editor icon, terminal icon, trash icon, weather app, system monitor app, clock app, and workpace switcher. All very Windows 95ish.
Our touch screens have iOS, Android, and Win 8.1 and all are different.
56 • DE (by Kry on 2015-05-25 13:08:33 GMT from Europe)
I'm in the minority, but for me, it's more important for something to work and to be fast, than being aestetically appleasing. The moment something uses way too much resources than necesserary, it's out. (Except Firefox. That thing is way too slow and crashes too often, but I still need it for browsing. :S)
"Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please. (Mark Twain)"
Aww, yiss.
57 • Xfce (by a on 2015-05-25 13:10:29 GMT from Europe)
I still like and use Xfce but they are starting to behave like Red Hat developers and removing features for no good reason without any regard for their users. Also they are planning a move to Gtk3, and this will lead me to switch to something else.
58 • Desktop Poll (by Montreal on 2015-05-25 13:43:59 GMT from Planet Mars)
I am running Mint Betsy 64bit w/MATE on my production box (Intel Quad core i5-3570K Asus P8Z77 mobo)... and oh! How I love my Betsy!
I installed debian(Jessie)-based SolydK (KDE 4) 64bit on a HP core 2 duo laptop and customized the desktop to my liking. And it keeps rolling and rolling without a glitch. Very pleased with such a reliable distro.
I also have a test box (Acer core 2 duo 64bit w/Intel chips) currently running KaOS Plasma 5, I wouldn't recommend to run it on a production box though, but it performs well and is stable if one only needs to surf the net, type documents, play Kpat.
Out of curiosity, I keep a close eye on Solus (formerly EvolveOS) and the BUDGIE desktop.
Couldn't care less about Cinnamon.
59 • Opinion Poll (by Bill on 2015-05-25 13:47:42 GMT from Planet Mars)
MATE
Xfce
Cinnamon
60 • Opinion Poll (by Chris on 2015-05-25 13:53:41 GMT from North America)
CDE
61 • Snappy (by dragonmouth on 2015-05-25 14:07:23 GMT from North America)
Snappy is another proprietary product, like Mir and Unity, that Canonical is using to create a walled garden for Ubuntu.
62 • de (by charlieD on 2015-05-25 14:08:46 GMT from Planet Mars)
Cinnamon. Kubuntu is not ready for daily use, way too buggy.
63 • Desktops. (by scrumtime on 2015-05-25 14:11:35 GMT from North America)
I only really use Openbox / Fluxbox / Pekwm/ and Ice WM....so actual DEs are not my thing.
I do have my GFs Gentoo box running with XFCE just for Marital bliss..as R clicking for a menu seemed a tad too difficult to master....when i get a chance to play I activate the R click option .
pretty much since the early days of linux I was more of a Fluxbox man though Gnome was great..sadly no more. Kde has always had too much junk for what i needed....
Enlightenment...try as I may I have never really got it to run right and every time i changed anything it seemed to make it worse..
I have been trying PEKWM manjaro for a while and it has grown on me. and Icewm I run on Antix and it has always run perfectly..
never tried Unity , Gnome3. budgie plasma cinnamon ..too much bother for my needs... and as everyone i know who has Gnome 3 has major problems with it i dont envisage me using it
64 • Prefered desktop (by Fernando Gracia on 2015-05-25 14:30:06 GMT from North America)
For my boxes only two DE are functional 1.-Xfce 2.- Mate
65 • Snappy vs. Tiny Core (by schultzter on 2015-05-25 14:47:49 GMT from North America)
I realise this isn't a perfectly valid comparison but the first thing I thought of when I read the article about Snappy was Tiny Core! It's a great distribution, one that keep looking for another reason to use (although I mostly stick with Arch). I realise the objectives of TC and Ubuntu Snappy are vastly different but I can't help but feel there's a lot of overlap.
66 • Mozilla Icons (by Dr. Robert Marmorstein on 2015-05-25 15:00:26 GMT from North America)
Good review. Thanks!
On upgrading my wife's laptop, we seem to have lost the icons for Firefox and Thunderbird. The programs show up in her menu and panel, but instead of an icon, there's just a blank space. Your screenshots show normal Firefox icons, so I'm not sure what went wrong for me.
Anyone have any ideas on where to look for a way to fix this?
67 • Innovative and Intuitive Desktops (by wrkerr on 2015-05-25 15:10:18 GMT from North America)
For me, there are four main attributes I'd like my desktop interfaces to have. Admittedly, these are highly subjective.
1) Simple and intuitive to use
2) Reasonable and responsible allocation of system resources
3) Innovative, intelligent, and helpfully designed
4) Consistent feel and self-integration of all basic components
For those of us who have been using linux for years, Xfce, LXDE, and MATE all excel at point one because of their adherence to the traditional desktop metaphor, but fail at point three and some at point four (to my perception). On my modest hardware, KDE and Unity fail at point two. Enlightenment fails at point one and three.
My favorite environment is currently Gnome Shell, which I find to do very well on all four points. Previously I preferred Cinnamon, and I still enjoy it, but I feel that Gnome Shell has surpassed it on point three, without compromising point one, which is a hard balance to find.
That being said, one of my favorite things about linux is the diversity of options. Everyone is free to use what they wish, as development continues to push onward.
68 • XFCE (by foo2foo on 2015-05-25 15:19:50 GMT from North America)
Strictly use XFCE nowadays, simple DE with everything needed, and just works.
On Funtoo its even faster and leaner because I can really have it without anything I don't need for whatever build I am using it on.
69 • Gnome3 (by linuxista on 2015-05-25 15:28:51 GMT from North America)
@63 >and as everyone i know who has Gnome 3 has major problems with it i dont envisage me using it
I've been using Gnome3 since the beginning, and it's always been stable and functional. The only downsides are 1) somewhat limited user configuration (the opposite of KDE), 2) and the loss of a taskbar (at least in non-classic mode). Since the basic functionality of Gnome overview mode does everything at one go with a hot corner, the lack of these two things has never been an issue for me; I prefer "scale" window switching to the taskbar anyway.
Cinnamon has always seemed like a crippled version of Gnome3, and after tweaking it as much as possible to try to get the same functionality I always give up. KDE tends to be buggier and the way it doesn't recognize the "super" mod key, but changes it to "meta" is annoying and screws up and limits my keyboard shortcut compatibility with my tiling desktops.
Gnome, with a few extensions, actually has a whole lot of functionality, from being totally graphical and touch-screen to a not too shabby tiling wm.
70 • Cinnamon (by bison on 2015-05-25 15:30:26 GMT from North America)
I use (and voted for) Cinnamon, but I am very interested in Lumina. So far I have not been able to get it to build, or find Debian packages.
71 • Tiny Core (by bison on 2015-05-25 15:39:13 GMT from North America)
@65
It's really impressive that something as small as Tiny Core can run Chromium. I don't use it on a regular basis, but I download the new releases and try them out. I would like to see something like Tiny Core that uses musl instead of glibc.
72 • DE (by Ron on 2015-05-25 15:42:11 GMT from North America)
XFCE, it does the job with no muss, no fuss.
Now if you just want entertainment, I suppose KDE, but not for me. No, I actually use the computer to run apps., not to fill up aimless time with flash and dash.
73 • poll (by beige on 2015-05-25 16:25:04 GMT from Europe)
I recently started using Window Maker again. It’s my second favourite (especially when wmpinboard is available), my real favourite olvwm has been suffering from a lack of maintenance for too long.
74 • best window manager = XFCE (by hotdiggettydog on 2015-05-25 16:35:24 GMT from North America)
I tested a bunch of distros lately with a variety of window managers in virtualbox.
For my needs XFCE won.
Kde has the worst archive manager. No encrypted archive capability in this day and age.
Yes, I know there are other encryption means but a simple .zip or .7zip encrypted archive is universal.
Anyone has a solution let me know.
75 • @70 - Lumina (by foo2foo on 2015-05-25 16:41:14 GMT from North America)
The folks over at PC-BSD are really doing something awesome with Lumina.
A new DE aimed specifically for the BSDs is something that is long over due.
As many of the GNU Linux DEs become dependent on systemd, it is even more important.
I wouldn't count on Lumina working on GNU Linux as it isn't a focus for the PC-BSD devs, just like many BSD isn't a focus of many Linux devs.
76 • Anyone Remember Blackbox? (by Anna Merikin on 2015-05-25 16:43:03 GMT from Planet Mars)
I started Linux with KDE-1.0. I liked it better than FVWM, the only other real choice on Red Hat 6.x at the time. When my upgrades (locally compiled) to KDE 3.x all failed, I tried blackbox out of desperation to keep my installation of KRUD (RH 6.2) alive. I found I liked it a lot, and didn't miss KDE at all. I designed my own look and theme using their text config files only and had full control of things like menus and features through text file manipulation. I can't say it was easy to configure, but it sure was a joy to do. BB introduced several features to me that I will not live without: right-click customizable menu, roll-up windows, scroll-wheel switches desktops, vertical/horizontal maximize buttons, keyboard support through plugin, and a lot I can't recall.
BB is no longer being developed, as its founder eventually got it to where he liked it, got it dead stable, and signed off on it. Openbox IIRC is a C+ iteration of BB's features and philosophy (BB was written in C) and fluxbox a further fork.
The only modern DEs which support those features (that I have found) are XFCE and KDE. I use either. KDE seems a little faster on my hardware than the latest XFCE, surprisingly. I use the same apps on either DE, a mix of QT and GTK. All my boxen have plenty of RAM.
BTW, my fave theme on XFCE is a lot prettier to my minimalist eyes than anything I have found for KDE.
77 • Lumina (by Jesse on 2015-05-25 16:50:32 GMT from North America)
@70 and @75:
I occasionally contribute patches to Lumina and I am pleased to say that Lumina runs very well on Linux. It's stable and almost all features work. (turning off number lock and shutdown from within the DE still need to be implemented). I've been running Lumina on my desktop machine and a laptop for the past eight months.
If you want Debian packages for Lumina it's actually really easy to make them yourself. Lumina ships with a "debian" directory inside the source tree. So all you need to do to build Debian packages on Debian/Ubuntu/Mint is follow the instructions here: http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/maint-guide/build.en.html
That'll give you the .deb files and you can install them with your package manager. If you run into dependency issues, there is a full dependency list for GNU/Linux in the source tree.
78 • favorite de (by Barney Rudo on 2015-05-25 17:17:40 GMT from North America)
matew
79 • Poll (by Ron on 2015-05-25 17:25:06 GMT from North America)
I checked Cinnamon, but honestly I have three equal favorites. Cinnamon, KDE and XFCE. For older hardware LXDE.
80 • Unity was bad (by Haider Rehman on 2015-05-25 17:52:09 GMT from Asia)
But is now one of the best Linux DEs. Try it again before criticising. In my personal tests with friends, more people like Unity than Cinnamon.
Note that I am myself a Cinnamon user. It's about choice, which DE you use. Learn to respect other's choices.
81 • Desktop environment (by Jean Guy on 2015-05-25 18:51:06 GMT from North America)
I chose Xfce because it is very lightweight and configurable without making you feel like you're using a stripped down desktop environment like LXDE.
82 • DE choice & Unity (by M.Z. on 2015-05-25 19:15:22 GMT from Planet Mars)
@33 & selectors of the 'Other' category
Just thought I'd point out that there are waaay more DEs & window managers than could comfortably fit onto most polls & that Other category acts as a nice catchall. It's beating a couple of other options right now, though if Pantheon or one of the many other DEs that fit into 'Other' were near the top I'd expect the 'Other' option to be doing a lot better.
@80 - Unity is the worst thing to ever happen to Linux
I know Unity takes a lot of flack from me & others, but I see the user privacy issue as being far more important than worries about politeness. From the little I used it before they added the spyware features it was half decent & more usable than Gnome 3 by a good margin, though I never really liked it. Then the spyware features were rolled out & were added by default with no direct acknowledgement that I can see during the download or install process. Being that Ubuntu is targeted toward new users who could easily overlook the feature & fail to do enough digging to realize what's going on inside Unity this amounts to a user privacy violation & makes Unity spyware.
I think we all know that the GPL license & much of the philosophy behind free & open software is essentially about user rights, & putting spyware into a Linux distro is a deep betrayal of those user rights. If anything is a good excuse to end politeness it's the point at which someone comes in & betrays the core philosophy of something you care about. I mean no disrespect to you or any other Ubuntu/Unity users, but I honestly care about Linux & open source & I believe that Unity is the worst thing to ever happen to Linux. If I sat on my hands & said nothing I would be both surrendering the free speech rights that inspired the GPL, & I would be ignoring an injustice. I know there are a lot of other big picture issues that are probably more important in the scheme of things, but I still care about Linux & won't be quiet about the fact that Unity is spyware until it is fixed.
83 • Opinion Poll (by Abhijeet on 2015-05-25 19:17:23 GMT from North America)
KDE
84 • Preferred DE (by Roy on 2015-05-25 19:19:33 GMT from Europe)
Having started in Linux with Mate, "graduated to KDE," I have finally settled on Enlightenment. I learned via the first two DEs that there is no one perfect DE-app combination, so the roll-it-yourself approach of a barebones E base is perfect. Although post-E17 versions are somewhat slower due to the always-on compositor, it is barely noticeable on a 64-bit system. E's fast load time and the ability to configure the system to my tastes are strong points. KDE is a great DE, but it is far too much for my needs. At the same time KDE SC applications are not always the best and integration of Gtk programs sometimes less than perfect (e.g., Firefox). E gives me the lightness and flexibility of a WM with the basic tools to have a fast, light setup.
85 • Lumina packages for Debian (by bison on 2015-05-25 21:47:13 GMT from North America)
@77
Thanks for the link, but I'm still working through qmake errors, so I don't yet have anything to package. I am a C programmer, but not a Qt developer, so it could take a while. I don't have much free time to work on this, so will probably just wait until someone else packages Lumina for Debian. It's not a high priority for me; I'm just curious.
86 • poll (by forlin on 2015-05-25 21:48:39 GMT from Europe)
The poll looks like a competition among Mint, Manjaro users....
Now, the end result will translate the Linux users preference. This has nothing to see with the best, worst.
We all know what is the earth favourite DE, and few of us here would tell that's the best...
87 • Lumina (by Jesse on 2015-05-25 23:10:45 GMT from North America)
@85: I suspect qmake errors might mean you are using qmake 4 instead of qmake 5. However, your best bet is to report your errors to the Lumina team on github. They have been very responsive, helping people get Lumina running on many platforms. I know the DE compiles and runs on Debian, Ubuntu, OpenBSD and Dragonfly.
88 • None of the above! WMs shouldn't be noticed! (by oggly on 2015-05-26 00:12:34 GMT from North America)
I interpret results as meaning which WM annoys most. It's a poll that really should never take place. An analogy for how clumsy most WMs are would be: on a car, do you prefer the throttle be on a foot pedal with ratchet mechanism like parking brake, or on a twist grip like a motorcycle? User interface should never vary much or have many options. It's always arbitrary, so the bad choices made previously in the first GUIs are good as any.
My preferred way is a navigator program (not a file manager, just makes easy to navigate) I've written in REXX for text mode, which has associations just like GUIs, and is of course flexible.
I write this in OS/2 using Links 2.9 browser in native graphics.
89 • Opinion Poll and comparison of toolkits (by Will B on 2015-05-26 01:20:53 GMT from North America)
My Rag-Tag Desktop Environment
- - -
* JWM (current git version) as window manager (no Gtk or Qt deps) [1][2]
* PCManFM as file manager (Some Gtk2 deps)
* Xterm for terminal
* No DM, just log in from terminal
* Feh setting my background
(all running on FreeBSD 10.1)
I like *light*, even though my machine is slightly above-average in speed and resources. I'm tired of the bloat the popular toolkits have, although I (sometimes) understand why they are bloated. I did a comparison for my friend that I will share here...
Toolkit RAM Usage Comparison
Test condition: A small program displaying just a small window with two buttons and a label
- - -
* Pure X: 5MB
* FLTK: 9MB
* Gtk2: 21MB
* Gtk3: 30MB
* Qt 5: 60MB
* Java: 68MB
Yeah, I know, Java is more VM than toolkit, but I couldn't help including it. ;)
- - -
[1] http://joewing.net/projects/jwm/
[2] https://github.com/joewing/jwm/
90 • Favorite desktop environment? None! (by Paul Hoffman on 2015-05-26 04:53:37 GMT from North America)
I'm running dwm on Slackware on all my computers now, no desktop environment needed. I do have Blackbox installed on my kids' PCs, though -- it's nice and light.
91 • Opinion Poll (by Ziwei Xie on 2015-05-26 06:09:13 GMT from North America)
1. What is your preferred desktop environment?
I vote KDE but I'd rather say it depends. I have two laptops, one used at home and the other at office. I run Archlinux on both machines (Arch is the best!) but with different desktops.
At home I prefer KDE. It's a comprehensive intergrated with great flexibility. A default installation is completely usable and it can also be easily configured to fit my needs. It's great for those seeking a DE for surfing the net, listening to the music, playing games, writing docs... I'm a fan of Gnome 2 for a long time when my hardware was not so good as those now I have. Gnome 3 is hard to configure and Unity is totally unconfigurable.
At office things grow much more complecated. I'm a system administor of an IT corparation and I need efficient accessiblity to several specific applications, especially the terminal. I need them to be well organized and easy to switch between them. So I choose a tiled wm. I used to prefer awesome but now I find wmii is exactly what I want. With the tag-grouped and two main window layouts (stacked/tiled) I can complete my tasks efficiently. Here's the list of some other applications I use with wmii: xdm, xterm, xscreensaver, feh, scrot, pcmanfm.
2. Do you prefer lots of configuration options, eye candy, simplicity?
I don't care about eye candies, simple is the best! It's import to me that the DE should be configurable. It's good to have a carefully chosen default configuration but no default covers all the needs. People always do customizations, to add neccessary functionality, to cut useless functionality, to show their chracteristics...
3. Do you like to have lots of features or would you rather have speed and a small memory footprint?
It's why it depends. I want all those features I need, and don't want those I don't need. I would custimize it to include those I need, and to exclude the others. I don't care so much about the memory footprint, as so long as it fits into my physic memory. As for speed, I don't need it to be boosting fast, it's good enough to be just as fast to fit my manipulation.
4. Does it matter to you if your desktop is built using GTK or Qt libraries?
Yes, a little. I don't prefer GTK or QT. But when I choose a DE. I'd like the UI to be unified and so tend to choose those with the same library as the DE. So I prefer QT applications with KDE and if I use Gnome 3 I would prefer GTK apps. But it's not so important, especially when compared to the application's user experences, e.g. I use Opera and Firefox with KDE at home, not konqueror or any other QT-based web browsers .
92 • Unity and Spyware (by Haider Rehman on 2015-05-26 09:13:09 GMT from Europe)
@82
I agree the spyware thing was a focked-up thing to do, but they've corrected it in the next release and apologised for it.
93 • DE poll (by Kazlu on 2015-05-26 11:49:02 GMT from Europe)
Wow, that is a topic prone to generate a LOT of passionate comments :) Allow me to join:
Should this poll had occured last month, I would have voted Xfce without hesitating. It's my default DE for a couple of years now, I have my habits and I tweaked it a lot so it behaves exactly how I want it to. Even the Xfce 4.8 on my Debian Wheezy gives me complete satisfaction. But I hesitated because of a limitation I encountered only recently: I use a 1080p TV as my new screen, but at 1920*1080 Xfce becomes less usable. I can change the font size, but not the window title bar height and that makes it very difficult to reach the window control buttons... I looked a bit for information but apparently the only way to work around this is to edit the image files used for the theme... Plus you have to position your mouse pointer with a 1-pixel accuracy to resize windows or window panes... Not easy in 1080p.
Cinnamon and MATE work quite well, but Cinnamon is still too limited in customization and MATE, while very complete, lacks a good menu with search field (although the application finder with a keyboard shortcut can do the trick). Mint-menu is not really satisfying.
I stopped on KDE, which gave me a lot options to tinker with. And it has been a while since I wanted to give it a long try. I was annoyed at first by the multiple notifications and previews emerging whenever I hovered the mouse here or there, but once those turned off it is nice (I started from a Kubuntu 15.04 fresh install on an powerful machine used for entertainment). Dolphin and Amarok in particular are really great.
I still voted for Xfce because it is simpler and lighter and demands less work, for me at least, to be tailored the way I want. But KDE is a great option for some use cases, such as an entertainment 1920*1080 px machine. MATE is also quite good.
I like some concepts of Unity and GNOME Shell, but they're not my cup ot tea. I want my desktop to be shaped a certain way and I cannot do that with those.
Special mention to LXDE: You want something as light as possible while still having a traditional layout and feel quite at home (but with less furniture)? Here, try this, it's called LXDE. The savior of old machines, even for people dependant on a traditional interface.
94 • @7 : "Memory footprint is a little worrying ...." (by Kazlu on 2015-05-26 11:57:37 GMT from Europe)
KDE loads all KDE libs at beginning, so it's all in RAM and ready to use when needed, while on most others (GNOME, Xfce...) you load into RAM just what you need when you need it. So for the cost of a longer boot time and a heavier RAM usage at login, normally KDE apps open faster and your RAM usage does not increase much. It's a matter of choice and compromise but I wouldn't be too worried with RAM usage (unless, in comparrison, a fresh Kubuntu 14.10 used less than 400MB after login... I don't know about that). Actually, I don't remember if this policy is from KDE or from Qt...
95 • Package Management Cheatsheet (by Thomas Mueller on 2015-05-26 12:15:19 GMT from North America)
I looked at the Package Management Cheatsheet on this site, looked under source-based distributions, and one additional listing I would like to see is Arch with ABS (Arch Build System); I'd like to know how to rebuild an Arch system from source as I can do with FreeBSD and NetBSD. I ask in these comments because of possible responses from other users of this site.
I've been curious about conary, but is there any distribution that now uses conary, since Foresight was recently discontinued, and rPath was discontinued some years back? Or will conary die along with rPath and Foresight distributions?
96 • Opinion Poll - What is your preferred desktop environment? (by cc_INC on 2015-05-26 12:32:42 GMT from Europe)
I choose Xfce
But on my older systems I revert to Openbox and Fluxbox.
97 • @27: rolling release (by Kazlu on 2015-05-26 12:40:59 GMT from Europe)
"A bug sitting around for years is an argument for rolling releases. Debian / Ubuntu sits on known fixes; Arch ships pronto."
I don't use rolling distros and use mostly Debian or (K|X)ubuntu, but I must admit: You hit a very relevant point. It's good to recall that what we always read and take for granted (stable releases are more stable and safer) must also be tempered sometimes with counter-examples.
98 • Favorite DE (by Atuin Gaston on 2015-05-26 14:16:00 GMT from Europe)
I3, no question. Who needs desktopicons anyway...
99 • Favorite Desktop Environment (by Victório on 2015-05-26 15:04:24 GMT from South America)
Pantheon. Just started using when Elementary OS Freya comes out and I'm really liking: it's simple, eye candy and fast.
100 • Favorite WM (by Torsten on 2015-05-26 15:51:02 GMT from Europe)
I choose "other" because I change wm's and de's very often. But also very often I return to e16 since 2000 ... Even installed it under debian jessie :-)
101 • @93 (Xfce themes) (by a on 2015-05-26 17:20:49 GMT from Europe)
"Plus you have to position your mouse pointer with a 1-pixel accuracy to resize windows or window panes... Not easy in 1080p."
For this and your title bar size, you should look for another theme that suits you better. The default theme and its 1-pixel borders is terrible. Try http://xfce-look.org/.
102 • @93 (1 pixel borders) (by a on 2015-05-26 17:23:15 GMT from Europe)
Oh and a gaming mouse with a "sniper" button that slows down the pointer could be useful too ;-).
103 • Favorite DE/WM (by ghostdawg on 2015-05-26 17:33:44 GMT from North America)
Mate
Openbox
i3
104 • User preferences (by forlin on 2015-05-26 18:06:40 GMT from Europe)
This is a very interesting pool because (as evidenced from many comments) choosing a particular DE depends on the utilization each one has on its Pc.
So, it would be equally interesting to know what that utilization is; development, production, media, a.s.o.
Hence the suggestion for it on one of the next pools.
105 • Lumina (by foo2foo on 2015-05-26 18:10:51 GMT from North America)
@77 Jesse
Thanks for sharing that info, very good know know this now.
By any chance can we get a a review of Funtoo?
A Debian kernel is now supplied with the Stage3 tarball during install and a lot of new and exciting improvements have been happening in general.
106 • Opinion Poll - favorite DE (by champted on 2015-05-26 18:14:25 GMT from North America)
In descending order:
- KDE
- LXDE
- MATE
- Xfce
107 • DE choices. (by Garon on 2015-05-26 18:52:10 GMT from North America)
Unity for great work flow, (no spyware now)
KDE 5.x for cutting edge environments
Pantheon for the kids
Gnome 3 shell just for fun.
108 • Funtoo (by Jesse on 2015-05-26 22:32:20 GMT from North America)
@105:
>> "By any chance can we get a a review of Funtoo?"
I probably will not be doing a review of Funtoo. Nothing against the project, I just do not have an interest in exploring meta-distributions and/or source-based distros. That being said, I am happy to entertain the possibility of another reviewer doing a quality write-up of their experiences with Funtoo and publishing it with DW.
109 • Funtoo (by foo2foo on 2015-05-27 00:54:57 GMT from North America)
@108 - Jesse
Thank you for your upfront and honest response.
I'd be happy with a review of anything you haven't already reviewed as well.
110 • Desktop Environments & resource use. (by Greg Zeng on 2015-05-27 02:08:26 GMT from Oceania)
Creators of the Linux distributions choose which DE, differenty to the readers here. This can numerically shown by the living distros published on Distrowatch.
Comments here says more of the readers, including misunderstandings. "Bloated" applies to nearly every distro. The "rubbish" might be strange human or computer language bits, and some applications which I do not like or use.
Claiming KDE is resource hungry is very wrong. Nearly every sensible distro senses how much memory is unused, and flexibly expanding or contracting the memory used by the operating system. Many reviewers have been astounded with the results of using a memory-limited virtual machine. Each operating system demands differently, based on the available resource demands.
Older versions of Compiz, KDE, etc ... used to not be very good at recovering wasted memory & resources, but might be fixed, I think. Business machines have limited numbers & sizes of applications, & do not like downtime. Others like myself have almost unpredictable numbers & sizes of applications, so re-booting creates downtime, but clears any wasted resource uses on my machines.
The latest DEs now arriving (KDE Plasma 5, & Bodhi's replacement for e17,etc) may not have bugs in the latest stable releases, but they are limited with extensions, add-ons & functioning with the older apps.
111 • KDE (by Bobbie Sellers on 2015-05-27 05:07:15 GMT from North America)
I am currently using KDE 4.14.5 on Mageia 5 RC.
Some window decorations, I like bu many I do not, I started with KDE 3.x.x
on Mandriva 2006.
I try not to use too many effects but I prefer a task panel configuration that
is not as issued. I have one panel on the top of the screen and I guess you
could call it the main panel and another at the left side of the screen.
I like the glassify theme t(ransparent with floating icons) and my background
image is a large yellow flower perhaps a mum that a gardener friend shared
with me, before that I used a photo of a gardenia that I took myself
I use two text processors Kate and KWrite and vi when nothing else will
do.
I started out with a Commodore 64, updated to the C=128 running CPM, then
I used two models of the Amiga to do work for my old Amiga UG, I got a laptop
with Windows XP, and that was when i started using Linux,
112 • Kubuntu 15.04 - my experince to add (by GrzegorzW on 2015-05-27 10:49:09 GMT from Europe)
- One important new Plasma5 feature was not mentioned: support for High DPI displays. There is an option (in CC/Fonts) where you may declare to what DPI your GUI - espacially fonts should be scalled, and have all fonts at once scalled approprately - great feature, and works well for me.
- A lot of options in Plasma5 are (I believe temporary) missing in campare with KDE4, espacially a banch of available plasmoids is quite short, there is no quick-access, no quck-launcher, no good weather plasmoid, etc. There is also no screensaver function at all. New Desktop Manager does not have "auto-login & lock screen" option. ... and a lot more is missing.
- There are some bugs in session mamagement (e.g. KWrite does not open with last edited file, sometimes KMix is unnecessary opened etc.)
- Warning for those upgrading from Kubuntu 14.10 - most of the KDE4 settings are lost (including stored sessions (list or opened applications)) - you have to configure everything from scratch. Also if you had balloo disabled - it is enabled after upgrade.
- Another warning, after upgrade from Kubuntu 14.10 (on 2 systems) I experianced problems with systemd, new system refused to boot from time to time or did disk checks all the time. Eventually I disabled systemd (by installing upstart-sysv package).
- What is good is that Plasma 5 is quite stable and do not crash frequently (in contrary to early KDE4). I experinced few Plasma crashes (with proprietary Nvidia driver), but component restarted itself (like windows explorer :)) and X session was preserved and I did not lost any data because of that.
In summary:
- Do rather fresh installation than upgrade from 14.10
- If you do not rely on KDE advanced features - Plasma5 may be good, but if you rely - do some test installation and check if your favourite options are available.
- My personal opnion is that KDE is going in good direction, but needs some more time to polish and catch up with KDE functionality. I count Kubuntu 16.04 LTS may be ready for my "production" use. As for now I downgraded to 14.04 LTS and Debian 8 as spare system.
113 • Re:#101 and #102 Xfce (by Kazlu on 2015-05-27 10:51:29 GMT from Europe)
@101
If the 1-px border accuracy for the pointer is theme-dependant, then good, I could try that. However, about title bar size, this would be much less flexible that a title bar which automatically adapts to a setting of font size or has an independant setting, like KDE, Cinnamon and MATE have.
@102
It's not a problem of aiming, it's a problem of being able to actually see your target ;)
114 • Still spyware (by M.Z. on 2015-05-27 19:32:21 GMT from Planet Mars)
@107
As #92 points out, the removal of the offending spyware features from Unity is still pending, unless you are running some beta grade version from a ppa or something like that. It's still a problem for anyone unfamiliar with the offending technology & is still actively harmful to users & the reputation of Linux. From what I've seen Canonical is fairly quick to apologize & offer half measures, but they are short on taking real corrective action. Given the sheer volume of delays that were likely inevitable in 'the next big version of Unity' I'm fairly cynical about Canonical & their promises. They could have just fixed the current version, but they keep holding out for a fix in the hot new version that will allow convergence with their smartphone platform. Are they just indifferent to doing the right thing, or has Amazon contractually locked them in to shipping with this abysmal spyware feature turned on by default? Either way I have very little confidence in Canonical/Ubuntu to do much of anything besides talk & delay action, though I'd like to be proven wrong.
115 • DEs (by G Savage on 2015-05-27 19:45:59 GMT from North America)
Two, no, make that three things:
1. I see two main user camps; one that likes lots of customizability, and the other that likes a full or light set-up that's ready to go.
2. So much XFCE love - It's true, it does it, and it does it well.
3. For me the UI of the DE is really important, so I'd like to give a shout out to Zorin who gave a home to so many XP refugees. Bravo.
116 • @ 114 (by forlin on 2015-05-27 21:08:38 GMT from Europe)
What a crusade M.Z.
Gorgeous!
117 • @116 (by Chris on 2015-05-28 01:48:04 GMT from North America)
M.Z. may be on a one person crusade but he/she is correct. Canonical/Ubuntu has put spyware in their OS, delayed making amends, and offered a poor 'Opt-Out' based solution.
Many propriety OS users are looking to Linux as a way to escape the malware of their daily computing lives only to fall for the Linux distro (or one of its many respins) offering itself as a user-friendly alternative with the hidden catch of continuing to be ensnared due to their inexperience. Canonical/Ubuntu is the true modern definition of a Trojan horse.
M.Z., Fight On!
118 • @114, @116 - Ubuntu soapbox (by subg on 2015-05-28 02:22:30 GMT from North America)
Point made many times, but perhaps we can move on: some of us like Unity as a DE - it's simple to use and stays out of the way. Ubuntu LTS is stable on my gear, is well supported, patched regularly and lets me get on with my work.
And privacy? Well...it's the net. One could argue that privacy and freedom are not really part of the equation, regardless of software feature disclosures or reassurances in a terms of use.
119 • Ubuntu and spyware (by foo2foo on 2015-05-28 02:30:45 GMT from North America)
The advertising spyware and Unity are the reason I left Ubuntu to Linux Mint.
Then systemd made me move to Funtoo.
Users sometimes evolve as time goes on.
But all new users should be aware of the issues with Ubuntu, until they actually fix it.
120 • Desktop Env. (by Stone on 2015-05-28 02:30:56 GMT from Planet Mars)
I prefer xfce with the old menu, even though wisker look good I personally feel it cumbersome to work with.
121 • spyware (by M.Z. on 2015-05-28 05:06:26 GMT from Planet Mars)
@118
To paraphrase an old saying, bad things are allowed to happen because good people stand by & say nothing. Displaying indifference/ apathy toward the problem does absolutely nothing but encourage the situation to fester. The privacy issues may be large & long term when it comes to the Internet in general, but we are talking about a privacy breech built right into a Linux DE here. Why should users put up with it from Ubuntu? I think #119 hints at the best answer, stop using Ubuntu & discourage others from using it until they fix the issue. If Canonical feels impacted by their mistake they will change, but if you dismiss privacy as something all ready lost you'll never even win a tiny piece of it back.
The reason that the GPL was created was so that users would have rights & protections from abusive software makers. Saying no to a distro that wants to throw your privacy away is a fairly small sacrifice given the magnitude of the privacy issues across all software platforms today, & well worth doing for anyone who cares about what free & open software is supposed to be about.
Best regards to those who still care about software freedom,
Michael Z.
122 • Desktop BSD alive and well . . . (by Rick Withers on 2015-05-28 13:46:19 GMT from North America)
. . . just installed it. Works very well. Time to take it off the discontinued list.
123 • distro qwestion (by alberto gorin on 2015-05-28 13:59:15 GMT from Europe)
i have zorin os
a xp like or xp by linux
was also a distro like vista ? mi qwestion is
is there a distro was like vista name was victa or victra ?
next to zorin os
is there other distro based or look like windows ?
124 • @123 (by jaws222 on 2015-05-28 15:21:37 GMT from North America)
Yes, Q4OS. You can actually download and install XPq4 from sourceforge and it looks like Winows XP
http://xpq4.sourceforge.net/
125 • 122 • 123 (by Fossilizing Dinosaur on 2015-05-28 15:31:06 GMT from North America)
122 • Desktop BSD (by Rick Withers)
Glad you got an ISO from 2009 to work on something. Do they actually have any developers (code, not just website)? Could you add other software, find documentation, source, or support?
123 • distro qwestion (by alberto gorin)
There are several ways to get look-alikes. Of course, that's a far cry from working like Windows, and no Linux distro is based on Microsoft Windows, though there's an academic project hopes to be similar (ReactOS) someday.
126 • @123 Windows-like Linuxes (by Kazlu on 2015-05-28 16:21:16 GMT from Europe)
I don't know any distro that looks like Windows Vista, but Zorin OS is made so that it can look like Windows XP or Windows Seven, according to the user's choice. Windows Seven looks a lot like Windows Vista, so I suppose Zorin OS in "Windows Seven" look should be ok. Normally the "Windows Seven" look of Zorin OS is the default, but it you have the "Windows XP" look, you can use the Zorin Look Changer software that is already installed in every Zorin OS to switch from one to the other (there are a few other available choices).
127 • @118 Privacy (by Kazlu on 2015-05-28 16:35:17 GMT from Europe)
"And privacy? Well...it's the net."
You're right, you are at risk, even if you take a lot of care, as soon as you go to the Internet. And that's particularly why Unity has a problem: everytime you do a search for an app or a document in your computer, meaning that is a *local* search, your search is sent to Canonical (and forward to Amazon and others, but we have only the word of Canonical convince us that the data is anonymized). A web searching field integrated in the desktop is not necessarily a bad idea in itself, I understand it can be useful to some people. But it should be clearly separated from what you use to search in your computer. For example, a double dash (no reference to any fast driving red plumber here) with one field for your computer and another one for the web, eventually with an *option* to merge the two in a unified search field would greatly improve the situation because it would no longer be hidden.
128 • Mangaka Linux, and an aside RE: Privacy (by Corbin Rune on 2015-05-28 19:38:10 GMT from North America)
Now there's a name I haven't seen on DW in a while. I used to use it, back in my more 'buntu-friendly days. Pretty fun default wallpapers, typically.
As for the privacy concerns, I can arguably see both sides. The "Canonical" side being that they're trying to get a bit more loot in their coffers, and I can see how that type of software could help out there.
However, the "Privacy-oriented User" side is also valid. Overall, my issue with the situation comes down to how Canonical (originally) was rather ... sneaky about the whole thing. It's one thing to default into an "opt-in" system, and another thing entire to do the inverse.
129 • Beauty has been served!!! (by Ari Torres on 2015-05-28 19:42:16 GMT from North America)
when it comes to beauty,ease of use,glamor and all that nothing beats elementary os or eOS as i described it.gala and pantheon :)
beauty has been served!!!
130 • Fedora 22 Xfce (by Bushpilot on 2015-05-28 19:46:39 GMT from North America)
Truly pleased with Fedora 20 and 21. However, Fedora has several bugs...will not allow autologin and passwd issues to name a few. Perhaps it was released too soon? Sticking to Debian 8 as my preferred distro. Will give Fedora a month or two before I try an install again.
131 • @121 Spyware. @127 Privacy. (by Kubelik on 2015-05-29 00:31:50 GMT from Europe)
MZ and Kazlu, please go on. We are talking principles here. No GNU/Linux without principles. Canonical/Ubuntu is a bit of a mixed business: Some good initiatives, gifted developpers, some closed source things, some really secret things, some maybe a little strange alliances.
- Well maybe going to the market, raising some money? - Canonical is a private compagny, owned by Mark S. He decides everything. He accepted/adopted Debians' decision to go with systemd. But then there is the Mir/Wayland controversy. And the already marginalized Kubuntu going with Wayland, just like KDE and mainstream Linux. And see what is happening!
My ideal of GNU/Linux behavior: In the Mageia forum someone asks for help to dualboot Ubuntu and Mageia. A Mageia develloper says he knows there are some bugs, but also some workarounds. He will try to contact someone he knows in Canonical who might have an answer to the problem. - An hour or so later he publishes a fairly elaborate answer from the guy in Canonical.
- Problem solved. Could we please have som more of that:)
132 • @123 Vista like Linus Distro (by Rev_Don on 2015-05-29 00:34:10 GMT from North America)
"was also a distro like vista ? mi qwestion is
is there a distro was like vista name was victa or victra ?"
I think you are referring to Vixta which has been renamed Open Xange. I haven't tried it since it was renamed, but Vixta didn't work that well when I tried it, and I did try it on an Intel Quad Core Q9550 with 4 gigs of ram so the system wasn't underpowered at all (at least for 2008 when it was released). It was too dependent on Wine from what I remember.
133 • Netrunner 16- Plasma at its best (by Muthu on 2015-05-29 06:51:55 GMT from Asia)
Netrunner's Latest version 16 is very Responsive and looks good.After Installation, It failed to automatically detect my Radeon Graphic card and very slow and sluggish. After that, i have entered 'Radeon' in ubuntu distro's synaptic manager and find out the driver name to install for my Radeon Graphic Card(ATI Binary X.org Driver).I Came back to Netrunner 16 distro and entered the driver name ' ATI Binary X.org Driver' and intalled it. Now, my Netrunner 16 is very Responsive and PLASMA(5.3 Latest Version) at its best.Kudos to Blue Systems for such a nice distro with Latest Technologies.
134 • PekWM (by ransom on 2015-05-29 14:25:19 GMT from Europe)
+1
135 • emulators (by jamie on 2015-05-29 20:18:06 GMT from North America)
i like ubuntu i been using it since the first one came out it had gome2 and gome the best thing i liked about it was its emulators mupen 64 can you please bring back the old school os but with modern modern but updated interface so i can play my emulators now
136 • http://prostolinux.ru (by prostolinux on 2015-05-30 08:43:58 GMT from Europe)
I most like gnome 2 put it on ubuntu and everything is like in the good old days!
137 • DE poll (by Barnabyh on 2015-05-30 10:27:53 GMT from Europe)
Wow, sure fire way of eliciting a lot of comments this week.
For me
1.) Openbox
2.) Xfce (for when a more graphical UI configuration is wished for)
This hasn't changed in many years now. Xfce took over from GNOME 2 and Openbox from KDE 3. Scaled down, nothing more is need when paired with a couple of Qt apps it just hits the spot.
Use what ever suits you.
Best wishes,
Barnaby
138 • DE Poll (by Brandon Sniadajewski on 2015-05-30 11:40:25 GMT from North America)
KDE for me. It was the first I started with, andI still go for it. I really like its configuration settings. I'd rather have too many settings than not enough.
139 • Preferred Desktop Environment (by Carlos Lopez on 2015-05-30 13:25:25 GMT from North America)
I mostly use Linuxmint 17.1 Cinnamon Edition because it is fast, beautiful, has all I need, prefer lots of configuration options, would prefer eye candy.prefer lots of features but still want it to be fast, don't know dif between GTK or QT library
140 • Mangaka Linux (by Reyfer on 2015-05-30 14:51:43 GMT from South America)
The concept of the distro is quite unique, but I have a big concern.....they are based on Ubuntu and Debian, as their page says, so they are derivative, right? Yet, they license their distro not under GPL, but under Creative Commons non commercial NO DERIVATIVES.......anybody see a conflict there?
141 • 140 • Mangaka CCSANCND (by Kragle von Schnitzelbank on 2015-05-30 23:17:22 GMT from North America)
Hopefully this is for their artwork, and cleanly separated from software.
If not, clearing up the mess may be exceptionally challenging. I didn't see any way to contact the developers, though they are on file at SourceForge (and what happens to "dormant" areas there!?) - perhaps someone registered there can inquire.
142 • 141 Mangaka (by Reyfer on 2015-05-31 02:15:15 GMT from South America)
The wording they use points at the license being for the whole OS:
"Our Linux Mangaka Operating System is based on CCBYNCND (Creative Commons Attributive No Commercial & No derivative) license."
143 • DEs, license & libraries (by M.Z. on 2015-05-31 04:45:34 GMT from Planet Mars)
It's looking a lot like a narrow win for XFCE in the poll for most preferred DE, with KDE in a near tie. Of course these sorts of polls aren't scientific & there is likely no margin of error, but there are a few other interesting trends. It looks like the two child projects of Gnome (Cinnamon & MATE) are also nearly tied have about 3x as many users as Gnome proper if combined. It's very interesting given how Gnome 3 was rolled out to so much controversy, & seems to indicate a large loss of users for Gnome who you would guess went from 1st to 5th after the version 3 drama. It looks like Unity is also surprisingly low give the momentum that Ubuntu has had over the years, though I suspect the spyware features are dragging them down. Barring any big changes before the poll closes these are fairly interesting results & above all they seem to show a strong diversity in DE preferences.
@140 - 142
It would be perfectly above board to change the license of a BSD that way so long as an indication of the original license remained; however, being as we are talking about a GPL licensed copy of Linux it clearly isn't legal to change the license. There may be stuff buried deeper that reveals the other license applies only to artwork, but if not & assuming the near impossibility of getting agreement for a license change from all upstream developers, there could be big problems.
@139
The most basic difference is that everything in KDE by default is Qt such as Dolphin file manager K3B disk burner & Okular image viewer, while similar programs in Gnome like Evince document viewer & Nautilus/Files are in Gtk. There are also independent apps like Firefox that use Gtk & VLC that use Qt & I'd say each is best in class no matter what DE you use.
144 • DE (by Ionut on 2015-05-31 09:19:22 GMT from Europe)
I don't use a DE, I use windowmaker, it's light and simple, and I can easily customize it the way I want. I hope it will continue to be maintained and why not, maybe some new features implemented.
145 • Favorite desktop (not listed) (by 3m on 2015-05-31 21:45:27 GMT from South America)
I wish you have mentioned Window Maker as an option at the poll.
146 • MZ (by forlin on 2015-05-31 21:54:17 GMT from Europe)
MZ, this is not a win, not a loss of nothing. As you well mentioned, it's not scientific, the sample is too narrow. Its a poll of DW's users who happen to come to vote.
Anywhere else very different preferences may be voted. Google a net and see by yourself.
147 • semantics (by M.Z. on 2015-06-01 00:01:16 GMT from Planet Mars)
@146
That sort of comes down to semantics, but it's something of a minor win for the two that are tied for the lead. Much like the top distros on DW page hit rankings, this just provides one interesting if minor indication of buzzworthyness of the DEs. Nonetheless the results probably feel like good positive reinforcement for any KDE & XFCE devs who follow distrowatch.
Number of Comments: 147
Display mode: DWW Only • Comments Only • Both DWW and Comments
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Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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