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1 • Ubuntu MATE (by Pumpino on 2019-08-05 00:38:05 GMT from Netherlands)
I disagree that Ubuntu MATE shows off the latest releases of MATE. In fact, the most recent version shipped with an old version (1.20) rather than the latest (1.22) MATE. https://ubuntu-mate.org/blog. Every other distro I've tried, be it Arch, Fedora and Solus, run it without any "stability issues".
2 • Custom desktop (by DaveW on 2019-08-05 00:38:18 GMT from United States)
I really don't care whether or not the distro customizes the desktop. Any time I install a new distro, just about the first thing I do is modify the desktop so it looks like I want it to. My preferred distro is Linux Mint Mate.
3 • Vanilla vs Custom (by Bob on 2019-08-05 00:52:41 GMT from United States)
I usually go with vanilla because there is less stuff to clean out, then set it up with my preferred configuration.
4 • vanilla | custom (by Romane on 2019-08-05 01:20:07 GMT from Australia)
It makes no difference to me whether a custom interface or vanilla interface. What *does* matter to me is if the system allows me to work in the way in which I am most comfortable, that it is stable and predictable, and that has the packages I consider necessary to my use of the computer.
5 • flagship distro for desktop environment (by Laubster on 2019-08-05 01:28:41 GMT from United States)
Budgie on Solus
6 • BlueLight (by Jon Wright on 2019-08-05 01:41:26 GMT from Hong Kong)
> "... BlueLight. The project's website does not tell us much"
404 on the Github url.
7 • Custom desktop (by Jon Wright on 2019-08-05 01:54:19 GMT from Hong Kong)
I hope I understood the question, if it's down to what Debian do versus what Mint do, then I much much prefer what Mint do. (and I find what the xubuntus do kind of lame)
8 • Vanilla (by Sam Crawford on 2019-08-05 01:55:42 GMT from United States)
Debian Buster with Mate desktop. Pretty boring but it just works.
9 • Vanilla vs Custom (by Bill S on 2019-08-05 02:15:19 GMT from United States)
@ #2 ditto! Mint Mate with some Compiz Reloaded added works for me.
10 • Custom vs default (by albinard on 2019-08-05 02:19:39 GMT from United States)
I use Xubuntu, which by default provides the major software (browser, office, image viewer, sound) I need, but gives a rich collection of options to make the desktop look and act the way I like it to, and lets me try new choices with a few clicks.
11 • Vanilla Mate (by MikeOh Shark on 2019-08-05 02:21:55 GMT from Austria)
I prefer to tweak everything to my liking. I don't think most developers think like those of us who just want to get something done.
I think the desktop was just about perfect with KDE 3.5. If they had fixed icon zooming it would have been perfect.
12 • custom desktop (by wally on 2019-08-05 02:38:54 GMT from United States)
I run Mate on various distros and customize them all to what I want.
13 • opinion poll (by voidpin on 2019-08-05 03:13:56 GMT from Sweden)
The opinion pool, should IMHO contain an option to vote for other.
My systems, Void Linux with AwesomeWM and NetBSD with SpectWM. I believe there are quite a few users running wndow managers without a full DE environment.
14 • Custom vs Vanilla? (by Jeff on 2019-08-05 03:19:55 GMT from United States)
I will take the plain as is desktop, then customize it to my liking.
What is funny is how many on here who complain about the defaults that come on some distros such as MX Linux when it uses the defaults from Debian and leaves the changes from there to the user, just like Debian.
15 • Desktop customization,, (by Bobbie Sellers on 2019-08-05 03:45:51 GMT from United States)
I like KDE as seen on PCLinuxOS64 or Mageia 7.1 because it permits me to customize my desktop myself. I get to choose with some investigation so many customizations that I have
problems recreating it from KDE Plasma 4 where it was easy to set up my transparent
task panels so that the icons or widgets that I use appeared to be floating on the screen over
my background chosen from a bunch of the same from digital photos of flowers.
I really spend too much time on this customizing but it is a bit less intensive than
on the Amiga where I found most of the icons crude and did my own,
bliss
16 • So many versions of Linux (customized) (by Greg Zeng on 2019-08-05 04:11:02 GMT from Australia)
This week you ALMOST mentioned why there are so many versions of Linux. However Arch Linux was omitted this time, as a vanilla Linux.
The 43 "living" Pacman-based customized versions are: Alpha, Apricity, Arch, Archbang, Archex, Archlabs, Archman, ArchStrike, Arco, Artix, Blackarch, Bluestart, Bridge, Chakra, Cinnamon Community Edition, Condres, Crunchbang, Endeavour, Frugal, Hyperbola, Justbrowsing, Kahelos, KaOS, Linhes, Lxqt Community Edition, Manjaro, Maui, MorpheusArch, Mystras, Namib, Netrunner, Nosonja, Nurunner, Obarun, Obrevenge, OviOS, Parabola, Reborn, Swag, SystemRescueCd, TalkingArch, Trom-jaro,UBOS.
Searching with Distrowatch shows 21 based on Arch, and 23 based on Pacman. Perhaps the Arch specialists can explain this. The customized versions show possible "improvements" needed by some users. Each improvement might result at the expense of loss of features in the plain version.
17 • Arch Linux is a flagship Linux; core or plain, without a desktop. (by Greg Zeng on 2019-08-05 04:29:07 GMT from Australia)
Thank you Distrowatch for popularizing the terms "vanilla" & "flagship" among Linux distributions. Similar flagships exist amongst others as well: Puppy, IoT, etc. This Flagship term could be used much more widely in the Distrowatch database & descriptions?
Strictly speaking vanilla is a fancy flavour. Without any fancy flavours, we are left with BASIC or PLAIN versions. Using "basic" however has a different meaning in "Plain English", compared to computer English. "Plain" Ubuntu is really the fancy flavour with the GNOME desktop environment. So "vanilla" might be the better compromise term.
All the Ubuntu-flavours & Ubuntu based spins are based on the simple Ubuntu-core. "CORE" generally means no desktop environment is included. Arch Linux might then be described as core or plain.
18 • Desktop (by zykoda on 2019-08-05 06:43:05 GMT from United Kingdom)
My use of any desktop is minimal. Be they vanilla or cuiston, most go far beyond my requirements. I severly prune much undesirable built-in window behaviour. I have a few apps in a single panel with the odd desktop icon.
19 • distros' customization of the DE (by J-dog on 2019-08-05 07:21:07 GMT from Japan)
I agree with #2 and #9 above: it doesn't make any difference since I will customize it anyway. If forced to choose, all else being equal, some distribution customization is welcome as they may get it exactly right someday (altho it seems to get farther from my ideal every time) and doing some customization inspires the distribution makers to come up with their own themes, icon sets, and so on.
20 • Android-based distributions (by flauta on 2019-08-05 07:23:43 GMT from Italy)
I tried PrimeOS a few months ago, found no problems downloading or installing. You could test PhoenixOS instead, I think they are pretty similar.
http://www.phoenixos.com/en/download_x86
21 • Desktop (by klaus on 2019-08-05 08:23:56 GMT from United States)
Give me vanilla XFCE and I am fine and ready to go.
Xubuntu's desktop is also nice. Vanilla KDE Plasma is also very good.
22 • Vanilla or custom desktop (by JohnP on 2019-08-05 09:35:02 GMT from United Kingdom)
I prefer a vanilla implementation of the desktop so that I have a clean and predictable base for my own personalised customisation. Currently I use Xubuntu 18.04 with compiz and docky - works for me!
23 • Android-Prime (by Handy Andy on 2019-08-05 09:55:57 GMT from United States)
Same experience as @20. Tried it back in April. Seems ok, no different from others. Play store is installed. My problem with desktop Android is that once I have it I'm like the dog that catches the car. What do I do with it?
24 • Desktop (by Jim on 2019-08-05 10:36:45 GMT from United States)
I like the vanilla desktop too. I agree with those that say less to clean up to customize to what I want. I hate Docks, so have to remove them if an OS has one, if they have gotten rid of the menu in favor of a dock I won't bother installing the OS. I find Mate the most easily customized to what I want.
25 • PrimeOS (by Gustavo on 2019-08-05 10:40:50 GMT from Argentina)
According to comments on their xda forums entry, that project is already dead.
26 • Trinity Desktop Environment (by Gary W on 2019-08-05 10:52:59 GMT from Australia)
TDE is a "traditional" desktop like MATE and XFCE. Well supported in Q4OS and also available as EXE GNU/Linux on devuan. Posting from that now :-) might be worthwhile for people who like to be different, but not too different!
27 • DEs and WMs, tweaked or “plain” (by TheTKS on 2019-08-05 11:08:45 GMT from Canada)
Pantheon on elementaryOS
Some Ubuntu flavours have done a nice job on tweaking their DEs. I like how Xubuntu has set up Xfce.
But then I also use Xfce minimally modified on OpenBSD.
Kubuntu has one of the best KDE Plasma DEs.
Moving away from DEs, I also like Joe’s Window Manager on the Puppies. I tweak it more than KDE or Xfce
TKS
28 • Strange review today (by akoy on 2019-08-05 11:17:19 GMT from United Kingdom)
Quite a strange distro review today in DWW!
"I couldn't either download or boot the 3 distros." No review, just a failure statement.
29 • Vanilla desktop (by César on 2019-08-05 11:30:49 GMT from Chile)
¡Saludos a todos!
I prefer distros with vanilla desktop like Slackware or Debian, because i customize with my own cursor, icons, wallpapers, window decoration, programs, etc., the clean & lightweight is another reason.
My desktops:
Slackware 14.2: KDE
Debian 10: Mate
Fedora 30: Mate
Saludos desde Santiago de Chile.
30 • Vanilla vs. Custom (by dragonmouth on 2019-08-05 12:11:18 GMT from United States)
I prefer as plain as plain can be. I want to customize the desktop MY way, not be undoing some developers idea of what a desktop should look like.
31 • I prefer a vanilla desktop (by Carlos Felipe Araújo on 2019-08-05 12:23:27 GMT from Brazil)
I prefer a vanilla desktop, but XFCE needs improve the original layout. KDE has the best vanilla desktop. GNOME vanilla isn't ugly but without extensions is useless to me.
32 • Vanilla vs. Custom (by KingNarmer on 2019-08-05 12:30:02 GMT from United States)
I like Xfce and find in Xubuntu the perfect equilibrium: A traditional desktop simple, elegant, and good enough to start to work inmediatily, and at the same time easy to personalize as far as you want.
33 • Poor reviews (by Abbie on 2019-08-05 13:08:04 GMT from United Kingdom)
The "reviews" this week are really poor. If you couldn't download or boot a distro, why would you publish the fact rather than just moving on and reviewing one that was usable?
Normally, you're really thorough and give a good overview of a distro. This week, all we get is "this didn't work".
34 • Xfce4 (by Teresa e Junior on 2019-08-05 14:17:14 GMT from Brazil)
From what I've seen in mailing lists and blog posts, I'm inclined to think that the Xubuntu and Xfce4 teams do work together a lot.
35 • From Gnome2 to MATE (by Lee on 2019-08-05 14:21:15 GMT from United States)
I use a distro with MATE as the desktop, Mint or Ubuntu work well.
I keep looking for a fix for MATE weather app's radar map. It has been
NOOP for over a year.
36 • Vanilla vs Custom (by Fox on 2019-08-05 14:50:07 GMT from Canada)
Like most of the folks who posted here, I personalize whatever distro I'm using; typically by changing the desktop background, icons and sometimes the theme. However, that doesn't mean I prefer a vanilla desktop to start from. I mostly use Ubuntu and Mint and in both cases, I mostly like how they look and I just start personalizing where they left off.
37 • Three reviews (by Jesse on 2019-08-05 14:56:38 GMT from Canada)
>> "If you couldn't download or boot a distro, why would you publish the fact rather than just moving on and reviewing one that was usable?"
Three reasons, basically:
1. Only reviewing stuff that works is not helpful to people wondering what they might want to avoid as much as what to use. Imagine what it would be like if car-related publications only reviewed cars that worked perfectly and didn't publish reviews about cars that had major flaws. Being an informed computer user means knowing what to avoid as well as what to try.
2. Whether they work (for me) or not, these projects are still doing interesting things. That's why I spent time talking about what the project's are _trying_ to accomplish. That's why I'm talking about them, because if these projects work out some bugs, they could be very useful and I think it's important to showcase new or significant ideas. That's how progress is made, by trying out new ideas.
3. Only talking about stuff that works isn't a review, it's PR. I write reviews, covering the good and the bad. I'm not interested in writing fluff pieces that just promote stuff while ignoring things that don't work for me.
38 • Customized desktop.. (by Az4x4 on 2019-08-05 16:15:44 GMT from United States)
The new 19.2 Linux Mint MATE desktop, version 1.22, is far and away my favorite. Easy to customize, simple to work with, and so incredibly powerful.
GNOME 2.x being abandoned by the GNOME project in favor of GNOME 3.x and it's dumbed down desktop turned into a blessing in disguise when Perberos started the MATE project, a fork of GNOME 2.x, seven years ago.
Since then MATE has attracted legions of Linux users, many who began using Linux years after MATE was forked from GNOME 2.x. These use MATE for entirely practical reasons, while others, like myself, use MATE because it provides all the simple goodness that GNOME 2.x offered plus a whole lot more these days.
Like so many others I see MATE as the most stable and truly versatile desktop environment Linux has to offer. Over the years I've tried them all, and GNOME 2.x/MATE is the one I stick with..
39 • Desktop preferences (by Jediknight on 2019-08-05 17:05:13 GMT from United Kingdom)
I seem to be in a minority of one as I'm running Manjaro and Mint with a Cinnamon desktop on both.
I've tried Mate but
(a I don't like it - seemed dated to me
(b I've struggled to get it to play well with my hardware
(c I like Cinnamon, it just works (for me at least)
Back in the day I ran Suse with KDE which I liked but always felt it needed a lot of resource which is probably why I have avoided it since I began using Linux again. Also used Ubuntu but I don't recall what desktop. Dropped it when they introduced Unity which I hated.
But I'm not someone who worries overly about the size of the cursor or window transparency or endless tweaks etc.
I'll probably just change the desktop background and get on with it.
40 • This weeks reviews (by Jediknight on 2019-08-05 17:12:50 GMT from United Kingdom)
I don't think I'd have the gall to criticise the Distrowatch team for a review unless I was a paying subscriber (I'm not, but YMMV).
I look forward to a new edition each Monday and appreciate the effort they put in week after week.
Sometimes the comments section reminds me of the good old days on Usenet.
41 • Thanks for reviews, such as they are. (by Vakkotaur on 2019-08-05 17:16:37 GMT from United States)
1. They DID tell of the approach or intent.
2. They told of how things din't go as hoped.
3. They did NOT say the efforts were pointless or stupid - just "needs work" really.
Overall, three "negative" reviews that aren't *really* negative - in each case I know if I want to keep an eye on things, or direct attention elsewhere. Resilient is a Neat Idea. PrimeOS is something I think I'd like to try, if the connections hold. Not sure about BlueLight, but I look forward to another review (or attempt at such) sometime in the future.
For those complaining: Hey, it's NOT "yet another *buntu respin" or some such. (And I am typing this on Mint, alright?)
42 • Custom DEs (by M.Z. on 2019-08-05 18:21:43 GMT from United States)
I like a vanilla setup for most DEs, but it still depends a bit because the only DE that needs customization to be useful to me is Gnome 3. I'll go with something with a vanilla version of nearly any other DE, but on Gnome there really is no point because I don't want to bother with trying it again unless there is a total revamp of the design. I played a little with Pinguy & their custom Gnome & thought it was fine & had some nice touches, though I've mostly stuck with KDE & Cinnamon on Mageia & Mint. Those both seem friendly & ready for typical PC users out of the box & can be customized to my tastes fairly quick & easy, so vanilla works there.
43 • OpenSUSE's blend of KDE (by Microlinux on 2019-08-05 18:42:35 GMT from France)
In the past, I did quite some heavy tweaking on the desktop side. I'm one of those guys who manually wrote build scripts for GNOME 2.x for Slackware back in the days. Nowadays I've settled with OpenSUSE Leap and KDE, with almost no tweaks to their setup.
https://github.com/kikinovak/opensuse/tree/master/15.1/scripts
44 • Custom DEs (by Garon on 2019-08-05 19:01:47 GMT from United States)
As far as desktop environments goes I really liked Unity. If a person took a little time to learn the desktop it was one of the most efficient ones I ever used. Alas it is no more. What I really like now is Q4OS. Its a great light distro and it has a very good implementation of the Trinity desktop. I find the distro so refreshing with not many apps installed and the way it's setup that I even made a contribution to Q4OS. They also have a plasma version also. There's a lot to be said for simplicity.
45 • Window Managers (by Martin on 2019-08-05 19:11:25 GMT from United Kingdom)
@13 I agree that there should be another option for stand alone WM. I use lightly customised versions of either Fluxbox or Openbox, on Devuan and AntiX.
Efficient , fast and suits the way I work.
46 • Debian Testing + Cinnamon (by James on 2019-08-05 19:30:06 GMT from New Zealand)
Debian Testing + Cinnamon desktop = best of both worlds. I use it for a file server, backup server and media centre. I have no need for Mint tools or being on an older base.
47 • Custom DEs (by Titus_Groan on 2019-08-05 19:59:41 GMT from New Zealand)
prefer the default desktops available from my preferred distro.
tweaks, are, mouse pointer and sometimes wallpaper - no others needed.
48 • desktops (by dogma on 2019-08-05 20:20:55 GMT from United States)
I haven’t found a reason yet to leave ol’ fvwm…
49 • Distro DE's (by Phil on 2019-08-05 20:28:21 GMT from United States)
Whether I'm using Debian, Mint, FreeBSD, or any other *NIX-like setup, and the type of configuration it's being used for, then the desktop environment doesn't really matter to me, just as long as it works. Because, I'm going to configure the desktop how I want it, anyway.
50 • EndeavourOS (by Keith on 2019-08-05 23:32:12 GMT from United States)
I finally found an Arch keeper! I've never ran an Arch distro, but something lead me to download EndeavourOS yesterday and have a look. I'm hooked! It's light, fast and runs well on my old desktop. Minimal apps installed, so not a lot of junk to remove. Also, there is no gui package manager, so everything is command line. No biggie, I'm used to command line on Xubuntu to update, install, and remove apps. However, Arch is a whole new command line environment. Since Arch has been around for so long, and very popular, everything I needed to know was answered with a simple web-search.
As long a you read the current release notes about how to install EndeavourOS, the Calamares installer worked perfectly!
My thanks to the EndeavourOS team for this new experience.
51 • flat-snaps come to manjaro :( (by cyan on 2019-08-05 23:51:21 GMT from New Zealand)
Having been on the Debian/Mint wagon for 11 years or so, I have been exploring wider as the Snap / Flatpak stuff has caused some issues the last 2 years or so. As a direct consequence of that I now run half my machines on Manjaro. And now they are going to add Snaps and Flatpaks. Darn.
The advantage WAS, for example: Mint stuck on GiMP 2.8 unless you Snap and then can get 2.10 - BUT then not all things align again properly for daily operation. Manjaro simply came with 2.10, job done. Darktable - a similar tale - add a PPS versus just the latest by default in Manjaro. If they go ahead it looks like I will just revert to Mint in the long term. At the end of the day I use the machine to get work done, not to fiddle under the hood half the time.
52 • desktops (by ed on 2019-08-06 03:31:46 GMT from United States)
My favorite desktops so far are very customizable, linux mint LMDE3 cinnamon with the dark theme (one with most downloads very nice) & latest KDE neon which I have been using the most lately. Hardf to believe these awesome operating systems are free. I only wish dual booting were easier to setup on UEFI bios, very difficult I gave up.
53 • Waiting List Reviews (by Andre on 2019-08-06 06:57:05 GMT from Canada)
@16 "Searching with Distrowatch shows 21 [distros] based on Arch, and 23 based on Pacman. Perhaps the Arch specialists can explain this."
A package manager need not necessarily be tied to the distribution it originated from. As an example, KaOS--which you listed--uses pacman as its package manager, but it is not in any way based on Arch. A more extreme example of a project that uses pacman would be something like MSYS2, which is a Cygwin-inspired distro for Windows.
@52 "I only wish dual booting were easier to setup on UEFI"
Using separate disks makes this easier. Fast USB drives are your friend.
As for this week's reviews, I'm glad you did them Jesse, even if they did turn out to be less than fruitful. It was interesting to get a glimpse at some of the kind of distros you have to deal with behind the scenes.
54 • GNOME and KDE ? (by Kragle Schnitzelbank on 2019-08-06 07:01:42 GMT from United States)
"GNOME and KDE … sponsor the Linux App Summit in Barcelona" This may be fun to watch - from a distance.
55 • Custom desktop (by Francesco on 2019-08-06 10:25:00 GMT from Italy)
I prefer custom desktop when the default desktop config isn't that good.
For example i greatly prefer ubuntu mate against mate on debian.
That said i still modify something, but starting from a better base is imho a good thing.
I also like for example the tde Debonaire theme offered by q4os, that has made trinity desktop environment really up to date in terms of look (and it was much ahead of its time even when it was called kde3).
56 • desktops (by noar on 2019-08-06 11:27:30 GMT from United States)
Since I've dropped the clutter by going to Openbox, it is somewhat a moot point. Granted, Bunsen Labs Helium does have a great deal of customization, but most of that felt less a reworking of the DE and more like a gateway for your own customization efforts.
Prior to that I have enjoyed the vanilla Trinity of EXE, and the more or less vanilla of MX. Generally I used to always strip most everything away (except tools) and rebuild to my liking. That is why I preferred mostly vanilla (with extra tools) and why I migrated to Openbox.
57 • @ 37 Distros and reviews (by slcha on 2019-08-06 12:01:27 GMT from United Kingdom)
When you put a distro in the waiting list, that distro has to be checked, downloading, running live and installing. I've a feeling that none of these are checked before they are placed in the waiting list. And, also most of them are never been submitted by the person, who created it.
Most of them are usually uploaded to a certain website that hosts them free. We make them, but we don't submit them here, only upload them there for anyone to check, play with. Few of mine are here too on the waiting list. But, none had been downloaded by anyone at Distrowatch, or otherwise there'd be a mention about them. But, there are lot of reviews in the Youtube, with good and bad commenting.
I remember Distrowatch as a place for distro hoppers, but most of the distro hoppers go there (the free hosting site) to find a new arrival. And, they check them out, on VMs, on bare metal etc. And, as a result, I created my own remix/variant/what-you-call-it and uploaded them for others to play with.
It is pretty simple to create another live installable distro off the one you have on your computer. Once, you get the hang of it.
58 • @51 Snap / Flatpak Manjaro (by John Hopkins on 2019-08-06 13:26:09 GMT from United States)
As long as I can still install using the package manager, I'm fine. Because "Snap / Flatpak" is the first package I remove. I have no use for it. Old School.
59 • Manjaro FreeOffice (by Jimbo on 2019-08-06 15:32:42 GMT from United States)
Supremely disappointing to see Manjaro going the Linspire/Mandriva/Xandros route to pre-bundled proprietary software hell. Time to find a new distro I guess. I wish mainline Arch wasn't such a hassle to install.
60 • Manjaro - not for me (by Pobox on 2019-08-06 16:22:16 GMT from Brazil)
I tryed manjaro a couple of times and it never worked as the Project would like it. Problems with printers and authentication.
Good that I never wasted time trying to fix it.
Arch linux works well, debian/mint also. Waiting Slackware 15.0.
61 • Business desktop environments (by ACDBill on 2019-08-06 18:50:35 GMT from United States)
I use Linux Mint Cinnamon at home and am perfectly happy with it (once I installed Windows 10 Dark Master window controls). But if I were to need a business desktop then I would use Mint Mate. It has the most business like appearance of all the DE's in my opinion. From the lock screen to the menu to the window borders and controls it has the most "business professional" desktop look to my eyes. Many desktops just look cartoonish to me or have dialogs that look like they came from the 90's.
I'd be curious what others thought.
62 • @59 and @60 (by Corentin on 2019-08-06 19:02:21 GMT from France)
@59
Exactly the opposite here. I don’t really know FreeOffice but I have SoftMaker Office on a Windows box. It is excellent, one of the best competitors to Microsoft Office Suite. Much better that this piece of sh** of LibreOffice. So, I guess FreeOffice should be not bad.
@60
Here, Manjaro runs perfectly without problem at all. My all-in-one HP Printer works perfectly. :)
63 • choice (by mmphosis on 2019-08-06 19:37:36 GMT from Canada)
Obviously, you want to be able to "spin" the desktop to what works for you.
I like XFCE, it's fairly lightweight and allows a lot of customization. I also change things like swapping the left Control and left Alt keys. Maybe today, I'll turn off compositing. In a world where more and more technological choices are imposed upon us, choice is a great to have.
64 • Android Distribution (by Dion on 2019-08-06 19:39:20 GMT from United States)
I really enjoyed PrimeOS. I have not had any issues with it. I may see if I can run it in a VM.
65 • Default or Custom desktop preference (by Wally Johnn on 2019-08-06 23:58:36 GMT from United States)
KDE basically is left in its vanilla state with a few tweaks by the distro publishers, but it is very complex to customise for the new Linux user. Like Windows, major updates, where older libraries are not only dropped but expunged, may break the system, causing enough frustration to make one question why one went with it in the first place.
Linux Lite Xfce, on the other hand, is heavily customised to appeal to the new, younger crowd, Linux user, but I find that it takes too much work to get it to look the way I want since it is locked down more.
Linux Mint MATE, Cinnamon and Xfce falls somewhere in the middle, providing easy customisation for the new user and enough meat to satisfy the experienced user. It's what I used at work. Appeals to all age groups.
I prefer a distro that does not have systemd. So no GNOME for me. Next I ignore Arch, Gentoo and BSD distros. since they appeal to the most advanced user. Next I look to see which distros have up-to-date kernels. Then I look at the desktops. Whichever one takes the least effort to customise, and proves to be the most stable, I stay with. I went with PCLOS.
66 • @ 37 Jesse - Distros in the waiting list and reviews (by akoy on 2019-08-07 07:24:00 GMT from United Kingdom)
If a distro is placed in the waiting list, it should be checked immediately. Otherwise, if you look into it after few years, the person, who created it had long gone. Most people upload their "creations" to the free hosting site, for they can be uploaded. Some do that, because they'd like to share. Some do it to give back to Linux. You can find lot of new creations in the free distro hosting site (starting with S) than here. Like the guy in #57 says they don't submit them here to Distrowatch.
The thing is, if you put a distro in the waiting list, it should be checked immediately. Otherwise, what's the use?
67 • off topic - vanilla (by former on 2019-08-07 08:08:37 GMT from United States)
Who come up with "vanilla" phrase for default settings?!? That's just not right! Why would one flavor be over another?!? I like chocolate!!!
@45 thumbs up for antiX!
@all - I usually like comments section better than main article. Keep them coming!
68 • Waiting list (by Jesse on 2019-08-07 10:26:53 GMT from Canada)
>> "f a distro is placed in the waiting list, it should be checked immediately. Otherwise, if you look into it after few years, the person, who created it had long gone."
That is a large part of why we don't evaluate distributions immediately. Many projects are abandoned within a few months and don't survive a full year. Which is why we usually wait a year before evaluating a distribution. Otherwise we'd end up covering a lot of distros that never have a second release. There isn't much point in covering a project that the developer walks away from almost as soon as it is started.
The other big reason is time. We receive a couple of new submissions a week, on average. There isn't time to get to them as soon as they come in. Having the delay filters out about half the projects submitted to us so we can focus on those that will last long enough to be useful to our readers.
69 • PrimeOS (by Lee Stewart on 2019-08-07 15:22:29 GMT from United States)
I have recently downloaded PrimeOS and love it. It comes in handy when wanting to use Android Apps etc... I got this on my Garage PC and planning on installing it on a few old laptops laying around. Basically turning them into a Chromebook. If you haven't tried it out yet, DO SO!
70 • @ 69 Prime... (by OstroL on 2019-08-07 16:43:43 GMT from Poland)
You did? Good.
Write a review, when you install it. Planning to, and installing are two different things. Jesse couldn't.
71 • Most mostly must (by Minion on 2019-08-07 17:57:59 GMT from Brazil)
A distro should offer a good out-of-box experience, to work around common problems users have today, and a stable updated system as well, so we can get the latest kernel and packages fixes and improvements. At the moment, the distro that mostly gets near that is Manjaro with GNOME. Of course that an entirely free system is desirable, but in today real world scenario it is almost impracticable, so the Manjaro team along with the Arch community is providing solutions for general users to continue their way with GNU/Linux.
I prefer a vanilla desktop, but I consider customization necessary as it helps the developers to see the user needs and improve their environment. I personally like to use some GNOME extensions as they don´t break the system and are can be easily disabled.
72 • Custom vs. Vanilla Desktop (by Stefan on 2019-08-07 23:33:03 GMT from Germany)
I'm not sure what to answer, since I dislike most Desktops, except (curiously) the windows 10 explorer, I usually install the server-variant of ubuntu, then Xserver and xdm, i3 window-manager, and the rofi application-launcher. i3 comes packeged with dmenu by default in ubuntu, so I change my config to use rofi, put the bar on the buttom of the screen, and make all i3-colors somewhat different from the blue-ish ubuntu-default; more grey. Then i install feh and put my favorite background in.
So I use nearly all defaults, and it's a Desktop, but not the default-Desktop.
73 • 'Customized' DEs vs. 'Plain Vanilla' DEs. (by R. Cain on 2019-08-08 01:52:09 GMT from United States)
From the Opinion Poll:
"Some Linux distributions customize their desktop environments, adding tweaks, short-cuts and special layouts to present the user with a special look and feel. Other distributions present a vanilla desktop experience, packaging the desktop with the defaults its developers chose..."
My problem(s?) in answering the poll is that (1) I have always used the distro, as downloaded, and never had a reason to 'customize' (except, possibly, for getting rid of the obnoxious background ghosting in the 'Terminal' in one of Mint's offerings), or to search out, and make certain that I had, a "custom' DE; and (2) I don't have the benefit of a large variety of comparisons between the 'same' DE in different distros, as I don't do 'distro hopping', so I don't know (as an example) which distro would offer a 'plain vanilla' version of Mate, vs. one which offered a 'custom' version.
Can someone please give some solid examples of *popular* distros, some of which offer a 'vanilla' version of _A SPECIFIC_ desktop environment, and some which offer a 'custom version' of *the exact, same* DE?
*******************************************************************
"There is a computer disease that anybody who works with computers knows about. It's a very serious disease and it interferes completely with the work. The trouble with computers is that you 'play' with them."--Richard P. Feynman
74 • @ 73 'Customized' DEs vs. 'Plain Vanilla' DEs (by pengxuin on 2019-08-08 04:59:18 GMT from New Zealand)
for Mate, have a nosy here: https://mate-desktop.org/gallery/1.22/english/
obviously running Fedora in the screen shots, but if your "Mate" is substantially different, they, your distro, has customized your desktop to how they feel it should be.
other desktops:
Xfce: https://www.xfce.org/about/screenshots,
LXQT: https://lxqt.org/
...etc
75 • Distros in the waiting list (by OstroL on 2019-08-08 07:18:46 GMT from Poland)
I was thinking about this matter yesterday. I can't remember when I last looked in that page. Usually, if there's any distro mentioned in the Distrowatch weekly page at the bottom, I usually checked them out, at least looked in their websites from the link, if there was one. Nowadays, I don't even do that. for I have my own customised installations, I upgrade regularly. It looks like my distro hopping days had come to an end. And, I come here on habit.
I don't know, whether the distros that are in the waiting list should be checked frequently or not, for Jesse might not have enough time. Maybe, some others (those, who come here) volunteer to do that? Sort of giving back to Distrowatch?
76 • just seem to like cinnamon (by dmacleo on 2019-08-08 20:25:05 GMT from United States)
have just had good luck with mint and cinnamon. works well for me.
77 • Desktop 'customization' (by mikef90000 on 2019-08-08 20:30:23 GMT from United States)
I migrated to Linux from WinXP due to the superior and easy DE customization options.
I prefer Xfce and Lxde as they are very easy to change the distro's idea of a default layout.
MATE still has some ugly features and limitations from GNOME2 days which still have not been improved. Cinnamon is puzzling - limited but improviing options, ridiculous large icons and white space. KDE requires a post grad degree I don't yet have time for. GNOME shell is condescending and keeps dumbing down important tools like file management.
My preference: no desktop icons, one left panel for launchers and top panel for everything else. Group launchers by expandable spacers. Done in ten minutes or less, lasts for the two year Mint/Ubuntu LTS upgrade span. Why all the whiners?
BTW why the pointless comparison of DE 'lightness'? Modern browsers require far more memory than the DE and operating system processes. A new low end desktop system unit with 4GB RAM can be built or bought for <$400 US; please recycle your power hungry old box.
78 • Resilient Linux running (by Marco on 2019-08-09 07:53:21 GMT from Italy)
Hi guys, thans for all the reviews.
About Resilient Linux.
I've just downloaded the image, extracted - it's 4,25GB - then written within Windows with Balena Etcher. The resulting partitioning scheme is (and must be):
Disk /dev/sdb: 29,1 GiB, 31260704768 bytes, 61056064 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: A2AAF4F7-52C8-40F3-B135-1FA4E0A79C92
Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sdb1 2048 2207743 2205696 1,1G Linux filesystem
/dev/sdb2 2207744 2732031 524288 256M Linux filesystem
/dev/sdb3 2732032 2797567 65536 32M EFI System
/dev/sdb4 2797568 8941567 6144000 3G Linux filesystem
And it's booting on everry hardware a standard Debian boots.
Number of Comments: 78
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SymphonyOS
SymphonyOS was a Ubuntu-based desktop Linux distribution featuring a custom-built desktop environment called "Mezzo". Written in Perl and Gtk2::Webkit, Mezzo uses the lightweight but highly configurable FVWM window manager to create an unusual and eye-catching desktop user interface with focus on simplicity and usability.
Status: Discontinued
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