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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • touchscreen (by erinis on 2015-09-28 01:08:57 GMT from North America)
Keep your greasy pizza laden fingers of my desktop!! Thanks but no thanks. Great article as usual.
2 • Gnome Shell (by Gustavo on 2015-09-28 01:15:09 GMT from South America)
Just after a few days using Gnome Shell (and years bashing it) I eventually became a fan of the Desktop Environment.
It is definitely the most polished Linux desktop and, with some extensions (bottom panel Windows List, Places, Recent Items, maximize/minimize buttons), a very nice, efficient and somewhat traditional desktop.
Congratulations to the Gnome team.
3 • Touchscreen Unity (by mi on 2015-09-28 01:22:10 GMT from Europe)
In Unity, in order to resize windows, you need to make a three-finger-tap on the window, and then the you can easily resize it. A four-finger-tap on the screen starts the 'menu'.
4 • enlightenment for touch screens (by RollMeAway on 2015-09-28 03:35:40 GMT from North America)
Jessie, you missed enlightenment. An oversight?
It has libraries and options designed for touch.
I don't care for touch screens myself, but surely someone visiting these discussions,
does use enlightenment with a touch screen.
Tell us about it?
5 • @1 touchscreen (by Nacho on 2015-09-28 05:52:14 GMT from North America)
"Keep your greasy pizza laden fingers of my desktop!! Thanks but no thanks."
Of course you could use some handi-wipes first, so you don't end up as a manimal. ;)
"Great article as usual." This, I can agree with. :D
6 • Measures of desktop figures, icons, windows etc. (by mim yucel on 2015-09-28 06:26:35 GMT from Europe)
So we have encountered a need (a problem) ; The ıcons and windows should be resizable and these parametres could be saveable in different names so that depending on user on the same tauchscreen pc (tablets) or non-touchscreen pc (laptops) we could easily/quickly recall the desired sized desktop UI.
7 • Gnome Touch & ISOdumper tool (by M.Z. on 2015-09-28 06:49:15 GMT from North America)
I've been saying for some time now that Gnome 3 was both terrible on the desktop & looked like is was heavily inspired by smart phones & touch screens. It's not at all surprising that Gnome wins in a test of touch enabled DEs, though it stills seems like a fairly crappy desktop for PCs & regular laptops. The Gnome folks can take some solace in the fact that they beat the field in touch UI, but they seriously need to rework their desktop functionality.
--------------
Side note on the Mageia ISOdumper for USBs, it's a good idea. I once sent a copy of PC-BSD to parts unknown while trying to follow their instructions for Linux users. Considering the details in the Mageia blog I guess I'm fairly lucky no harm was done.
8 • gnome 3 (by lucius on 2015-09-28 07:00:07 GMT from Europe)
@ Gustavo - my experience also. Spent a long time ripping into Gnome 3. Now I've been using it for a few weeks I've found a quiet elegance and a simplicity to it that is very pleasant indeed.
9 • @ Jessie, touchscreen (by Wse on 2015-09-28 07:01:32 GMT from Europe)
In LXDE, XFCE you can enlarge icons. True, they are not designed for touchscreen, but can be used, if you really want to. By the way, Jessie, how about trying eOS and its Slingshot launcher, or the old Slingshot launcher, which you find in XFCE distros such as Voyager etc? What about Openbox based Semplice Jetro Tull?
10 • KDE Plasma 5 and Unity 8 (by CSRedRat on 2015-09-28 07:21:31 GMT from Europe)
Test plase for touchscreen KDE Plasma 5 and Unity 8. And what about DE for Wayland?
11 • Steam/GOG & Touch Desktops (by Stan on 2015-09-28 08:12:43 GMT from Europe)
Steam/GOG: It is relieve to have those service for GNU/Linux.
Touch Desktops: I do not like GNOME3 because of its child size icons and controls, but I do believe it should be the best option for touch screens.
Personally I do not like actual touchscreen market, for me its insane to work with my arms manipulating a vertical screen for a couple of hours.
Maybe one day I'll move to touchscreen interface for my Desktop ONLY when they can be placed in horizontal position and don't cost your life savings.
12 • Touchscreens (by kc1di on 2015-09-28 09:06:30 GMT from North America)
I Agree with Jessie that I'm not fond of touch screens -- but don't tell the wife who loves them via tablet.
Will have to give Gnome another chance, have tried it several times and gone back to something else.
13 • touchscreens (by brad on 2015-09-28 12:01:40 GMT from North America)
For those (like me) with sausage-like fingers, a stylus may be helpful for touchscreen interaction. I *hate* fingerprints on the screen, so using a stylus is my only option.
I have a touchscreen laptop, and find that Cinnamon works very well with touchscreens. The only problem with the touchscreen is the laptop itself, not the DE; I find that I have to hold the laptop screen with my other hand when using the stylus (or my fingers), in order to assure myself of a "hit".
14 • Desktops wars or freedom of choice? (by Einar on 2015-09-28 12:06:25 GMT from Europe)
@7: Different people like different things. You may think Gnome is garbage and prefer other desktops, but other users have different tastes in aesthetics and different views on which functionality is important for them.
It seems like many Linux users are bashing one of the greatest aspects of Linux: the freedom of choice, especially when desktop environments are concerned. I get that many were upset with Unity and Gnome when they started going in new directions, but MATE, Cinnamon, LXDE and XFCE are providing you the choice to use more traditional desktops if you like to. It's been years since the change in direction(s) and it might be time to get over it and just use what you like and talk that up in stead of talking down other people's ideas and efforts.
As a long time Mac user now using Linux, I appreciate this freedom to choose desktop, and I applaud everyone having a vision of their ideal desktop and working towards their vision. If you don't like a change in direction of a project, you might contribute towards another direction within the project or you might use something else. Constructive criticism and stating an opinion is fine, but why do we have to fight each other within an already small community? I don't get it.
15 • @4: enlightenment 17 and trinity DE for touch screen tablets (by Tran Older on 2015-09-28 12:28:16 GMT from Asia)
I have been using both on real touch screen hardware with Atom chip and 1GB of Memory.
1. E17 on top of Ubuntu 15.04 (Sorry to Jeff Hoogland as I did not download Bohdhi Linux with the Moksha Desktop :-)) : It is remarkably fast and furious. I installed 2 themes originally from openGEU (Sunshine and Moonlight) and the Vivaldi browser to be used instead of Midori. One note of caution : You'd better use Nautilus / Thunar instead of the E17 file manager as thumbnailing is a minor issue of the E17 file manager due to tablet display size.
2. Trinity on top of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS ( downloaded from University of Kent server) : In terms of speed, it was not lack behind the E17 experience. In terms of ease of use, it provided a better learning curve as the Trinity Desktop looked strikingly similar to a product sold by a corporation in Redmond,Wa. The Trinity Control Center provided substantial choices for users in comparison with that of E17, a reminder of the good old days of Corel Linux and Lindows. Regrettably, konqueror-trinity, the file browser cum web browser, has crashed quite often, especially when you cut and paste something. I has been unsure the problem was due to the fact that Trinity used DCOP instead of DBUS. You don't have to reboot your tablet but it's quite annoying.
To solve the problem I installed d3lphin as file browser and qupzilla as web browser but I failed to remove konqueror-trinity.I haven't tried Q4OS yet.
16 • Linux touchscreens (by Wse on 2015-09-28 12:33:22 GMT from Europe)
Would you think, this--http://postimg.org/image/j094n7bhv/--could be used for touchscreens?
17 • Touchscreen friendly DE (by Christian on 2015-09-28 12:37:57 GMT from South America)
IMO, the point of having a touchscreen friendly DE is for convertible laptops.
I have a 2x1 Dell computer and I do like Unity, but one thing that bothers me is the lack of an automatic virtual keyboard when in "tablet" mode, or some inconsistent behavior (like the size of the buttons to resize windows or scrolling).
It's interesting to see the Windows 10 take on the subject. Although the interface is already friendlier to touchscreens, you do get a "tablet mode" button that makes the experience a lot better when there's no keyboard attached to the screen. This way you get better desktops for each case (laptop or tablet) instead of trying a single solution for everything.
18 • games sources (by Steanne on 2015-09-28 13:14:01 GMT from North America)
poll option missing: you don't consider the possibility that publishers make games available for this platform on their own. it DOES happen.
19 • Nice review (by Paul on 2015-09-28 13:53:42 GMT from Europe)
Very nice review, thanks.
Someday it would be nice to see a series of articles on display systems technologies, where they are going and when they might arrive. Too much of what one comes across is codenamed gibberish that is hard to understand and of questionable relevance to most people.
20 • Touch screen review (by Charles on 2015-09-28 14:26:05 GMT from Europe)
"Of all the desktop environments I tried, Xfce was the only one in which I could not move windows by tapping on the window's title bar and dragging it around. In this way Xfce was unique."
I wonder if this would be fixed if 'Applications -> Settings -> Window Manager -> Advanced -> Double click action' was set to 'Nothing'.
Anyway, interesting read - thanks.
21 • @6 profiles for icon sizes touch/mouse (by PePa on 2015-09-28 14:28:12 GMT from Asia)
Exactly! We need some default profiles for Touchscreen and Desktop for icon sizes and other desktop settings, so that it can be quickly switched! Especially the environments that I love for their adaptation to Desktop work (LXDE, MATE!) need an easy profile switch to a configuration more suitable for Touchscreen usage. Sounds like a fantastic idea, it can have other uses too, like standard configurations can be tranferred for picky users. :-)
22 • re #7 (by albinard on 2015-09-28 15:10:30 GMT from North America)
For somewhat safer ISO transfer to USB there is also an Ubuntu version called mkusb. I haven't used it, but it seems to be a system of confirming just where you're sending the dd'ed material.
23 • Icon size? Really? (by fernbap on 2015-09-28 16:14:30 GMT from Europe)
It is obvious for anyone that the defaults for desktop PCs are NOT finetuned for touch screen devices. If they are, then they fail miserabily on a desktop PC.
What is most important is how a desktop can be optimized for a touch screen, i.e., how much liberty the user has to change the defaults.
You seriously don't expect a desktop, if preinstalled on a tablet, to keep the PC defaults, do you?
So, items like icon size and difficulty to drag window borders are false questions and should not be used when judging a desktop, unless it is impossible to change those.
That, imho, reduces the value of your review.
24 • tourchscreen (by Leonhard Euler on 2015-09-28 17:33:07 GMT from Europe)
Non of the desktop environments is designed for touchscreens. The trend in the last years is to use the keyboard more often. This is especially true for Gnome and Unity, but also for Plasma. Without a physical keyboard the workflow is very different on this systems. There are different demand and I think we need different desktops for different systems.
If there are more touch devices able to install Linux (by the average user) the mayor desktop environments will offer a touch version, or at least make there versions more usable on touch devices. KDE defiantly plans to offer a touch friendly version, but the touch desktop will always be different form the main non-touch desktop. Maybe you should try the plasma netbook desktop with touch, or we have to wait until plasma 5 is made fit for touch.
25 • Touch for desktop screens (by mikef90000 on 2015-09-28 20:16:25 GMT from North America)
IMO this is a really specialized market. The above post about using an LCD screen near horizontally could be useful for some types of design. The quandry is what to use for the front surface - the usual wimpy plastic ones on consumer displays would not survive much touching.
Perhaps someone who has one of those large (~21 inch) touch displays that HP made (a couple of years ago?) could give us the pluses and minuses. I saw one close up in Costco, a sign that they were not very popular. They were also stupidly expensive and tiring to use with my long arms; short people beware!
26 • Gnome 3 (by arnold on 2015-09-28 20:45:49 GMT from North America)
#3 & #8. I too, bashed Gnome 3 from the first. I now like it. I do not like, nor am I interested in, a touch screen.
27 • "Dumping" an ISO (by Kragle von Schnitzelbank on 2015-09-28 21:41:47 GMT from North America)
It's nice to see a kinder, gentler GUI for taking a (ISO) dump on a portable storage device. A modicum of progress in a constructive direction, to be sure, since a GUI can reduce opportunities for errors in the hands of those less skillful, experienced, or mentored.*
28 • Convertible touchscreens - why? (by traditional on 2015-09-30 11:03:00 GMT from Europe)
I don't see the point of convertible laptops. Why use a clunky, functionally crippled touchscreen interface (and cover the display with smears - looks great in sunshine!), if you have a keyboard and mouse/touchpad that actually allows you to get productive work done?
In this context, I always thought that the main idea of the (broken by design) Win8/Metro interface was to force people to use the touchscreens they would otherwise have ignored.
On a slightly different note, I have been quite disappointed by the ugly flat low-color look of the Plasma DE (e.g. Manjaro KDE). I sincerely hope that some nice, 3D-looking themes are also available.
29 • Using right-click on touchscreens on any desktop (by Touchuser on 2015-09-30 14:34:06 GMT from Europe)
Doing a right-click on touchscreens is easy:
Add to your xorg configuration:
Option "EmulateThirdButton" "1"
Option "EmulateThirdButtonTimeout" "750"
Option "EmulateThirdButtonThreshold" "30"
30 • touchscreens (by Jason on 2015-09-30 19:50:31 GMT from North America)
I bought my wife a Windows 10 SurfacePro recently and must admit it is an amazing device/OS. Not perfect for sure. But it seems to be the best evolution of tablet/laptop/touchscreen/keyboard available. It wouldn't surprise me if these become the most popular computing device behind smartphones. I am someone who doesn't generally like touchscreen -- but found myself using my finger for selecting and swiping rather than using mouse -- it was more convenient and much faster. It also lets you choose to have the device go into a tablet mode (like android) when the keyboard is disconnected.
31 • Gnome, USB writers & KDE 5 (by M.Z. on 2015-09-30 21:23:34 GMT from North America)
@14 - Gnome
Gnome does look to be genuinely good on touch, but from my time using the latest Fedora/Gnome in VirtualBox I still see significant design flaws related to being too locked down & too focused on touch elements at the expense of good desktop design. If I could make one constructive criticism/generalization about the biggest problems in Gnome it would be the complete & utter lack of buttons & visual cues as to what is going on. From the min/max buttons, to the informationless 'click & drag but only this direction' lock screen, it seems to me Gnome design is still flawed. The entire UI is still deeply influence by the kind of thinking that led Gnome to say 'lets hide the shutdown function & make them press the alt key to reveal it'. Any interface without any visual cues looks to me like it is almost intentionally meant to be unintuitive & bad for potential new users. I genuinely hope they change direction, even if only because some big distros I like seem married to Gnome as a default despite the problems.
@22 - USB writers
Well I don't use Ubuntu given the spyware issues, but I like the 'USB Image Writer' that is installed by default in all versions of Linux Mint. In fact if you look at the linked Mageia blog post it says they pulled in some of their code for ISOdumper directly from the tool in Mint, though ISOdumper seems more feature rich. There are probably a few other good tools out there too. I think the Mint tool might be derived from something in OpenSuse, but I' fairly sure there are other similar tools floating around. The ones I've seen all look safer & more convenient than the dd command.
@28 - KDE 5
I generally like KDE quite a bit, but I agree thoroughly about these new flat & ugly designs. They could be a nice option for some folks who like minimalism, but the glow of KDE 4 is far more attractive to me. That being said it's still KDE we are talking about here & there should be an easy option to change the theme. I do see problems with KDE & Cinnamon on occasion, but both projects build in flexibility & seem willing to respond to users. It's a much better attitude than I ever heard out of the Gnome project when I questioned their choices/direction.
32 • #3 . #8 . #26 Gnome Shel (by aboutGtk3 on 2015-09-30 22:56:56 GMT from Europe)
In the early days Gnome Shell was far from being a finished product, so I bashed it too. Once it improved and after get used to it, I become unable to adapt back to the traditional DE paradigm.
33 • Sabayon and 3g modems and NetworkManager (by gnomic on 2015-10-01 00:55:41 GMT from Oceania)
Recently looked at Sabayon 15.09 Gnome and MATE editions and found it impossible to connect via a 3g modem. The Gnome version just didn't seem to want to know whatsoever, no sign of creating an interface for the modem or being able to add one via the system software. MATE managed to see the modem in the usual way with NetworkManager but on attempting to connect it decided to go into the dread 'network has been disconnected' mode where it stayed resolutely. Does anyone know whether Sabayon is broken with NM and 3g modems, and what if anything can be done about it? Haven't spent hours hunting for the answer but a skim of the forums didn't help. Did come upon a suggestion that NM has been broken in Sabayon in recent releases.
There seems to be a bit of this about currently. A recent look at Archbang also revealed a fail with 3g connections. Most distros with NM seem OK with 3g but there are exceptions.
34 • Touch screens (by Kazlu on 2015-10-02 12:54:59 GMT from Europe)
@28 touch screens
I disagree: Although a keyboard and a mouse are in my opinion the best tools to be productive on a desktop or even a laptop, when you are on the move you lose the mouse and the touchpad is really a pain in the ass for a replacement. I had the occasion to manipulate the laptop of a relative with a touchscreen and I had to admit I liked having the possibility to touch the screen. Actually, touch screen and touchpad even proved complementary for certains tasks. I still prefer the mouse, but when you don't have it because you are travelling, touch screen is a real plus - yet not mandatory.
About the review regarding touch screens with different desktops:
Nice and interesting review. It's good to review the default capabilities of desktops, but like others already said most of them can be tailored to be more touch screen friendly through themes or desktop customization. The process is similar to what I tried when I looked for a desktop that would behave well on HiDPI. MATE, KDE and to a lesser extent Cinnamon proved to be very customisable desktops allowing you to resize texts, icons, title bars and window controls sizes. Although wondow borders (used in resizing windows) were not always concerned, that is still themable. Add to that things like the homerun launcher in KDE or any other "big fingers compliant" menu you can think of. Those desktops have some really good points for touch screens, although that requires a little work since these are never the default parameters.
Xfce is a bit less practical to that extent in my experience. For example, you cannot change the size of the title bar or window controls other than with a theme. Too bad, it's a
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| • Issue 1172 (2026-05-11): Fedora 44, dealing with extra fonts, Fedora plans to provide AI tools, problems with Ubuntu's new coreutils, TrueNAS extends its development cycle, postmarktetOS improves the boot splash screen, Redox ports tmux |
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| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Issue 1124 (2025-06-02): Picking up a Pico, tips for protecting privacy, Rhino tests Plasma desktop, Arch installer supports snapshots, new features from UBports, Ubuntu tests monthly snapshots |
| • Issue 1123 (2025-05-26): CRUX 3.8, preventing a laptop from sleeping, FreeBSD improves laptop support, Fedora confirms GNOME X11 session being dropped, HardenedBSD introduces Rust in userland build, KDE developing a virtual machine manager |
| • Issue 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Full list of all issues |
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| Random Distribution | 
RED OS
RED OS is an independently-developed Russian Linux distribution for workstations and servers. It uses the RPM and DNG tools for package management. The workstation edition provides a choice of three desktops, KDE Plasma, GNOME and MATE, while the server variant includes a custom server administration utility called RED ADM. The distribution is developed by Russia's RED SOFT, a company that also provides technical support and Linux training, as well as various administration, virtualisation and database software products.
Status: Active
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TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
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| Star Labs |
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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