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Goverp
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 Posted: Wed May 19, 2021 10:34 am Post subject: Best GTK3 desktop environment - 2021 views? |
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I know the answer is "install them all and see what you like", but ...
New Raspberry Pi 4B, needs a DE, but not much of one - it's main use is going to be background stuff (switching lights on and off, running a camera for security, environmental monitoring) but occasionally I'll want to use firefox, pdf viewers, maybe watch YouTube or summat. So what's a decent lightweight DE now? I've scanned the forums and t'Internet and most of the reviews are old, so I thought I'd ask for current views.
My take is it's a toss-up between Xfce and Enlightenment. AFAIK they're the only lightweight GTK3-based DE's. (I appreciate I could build a DE from smaller bits, but I'm lazy.). Other factors, probably Wayland and systemd if either of them have an impact. (I'm currently using Arch linux, though I will switch to Gentoo when I've got the builds working for some other apps; so at the moment it's going to use systemd.).
I've rejected LXDE as it's basically moribund, even if the Pi foundation use if for their desktop, and LXQt is, of course, Qt based, and firefox isn't. Gnome and KDE are too heavy.
Thoughts please...
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fedeliallalinea
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| Posted: Wed May 19, 2021 10:59 am Post subject: |
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what I don't understand is why you need a DE.
For what you have described you just an WM with some applications.
-- edit --
However of those that I have tried the lightest seems to me xfce (I never liked Enlightenment).
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sdauth
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figueroa
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| Posted: Thu May 20, 2021 4:14 am Post subject: |
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I use OpenBox on my main daily desktop with LXPanel and PCManFM. OpenBox-Menu provides the dynamic menu. I've written about configuring OpenBox in this forum.
It is said that LXDE is obsolete and has no maintainer at this time in Gentoo, but I think LXPanel and PCManFM are the best tools, though with OpenBox the user has many choices.
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Andy Figueroa
hp pavilion hpe h8-1260t/2AB5; spinning rust x3
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pjp
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| Posted: Thu May 20, 2021 4:26 am Post subject: Re: Best GTK3 desktop environment - 2021 views? |
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| Goverp wrote: | | My take is it's a toss-up between Xfce and Enlightenment. AFAIK they're the only lightweight GTK3-based DE's. |
What part of Enlightenment requires GTK3 (or any GTK)? When I emerge -p, I don't see any GTK being used. Only superficially related to your question since I didn't think it was a GTK based WM.
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Goverp
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| Posted: Thu May 20, 2021 10:06 am Post subject: Re: Best GTK3 desktop environment - 2021 views? |
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| pjp wrote: | | ... What part of Enlightenment requires GTK3 (or any GTK)? ... |
I think one of the "best Linux desktop" articles I read said it did, but I can't find the reference. Looks like I got confused.
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sitquietly
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 23 Oct 2010
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Location: On the Wolf River, Tennessee
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2021 6:16 pm Post subject: Re: Best GTK3 desktop environment - 2021 views? |
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| Goverp wrote: | | .....it's main use is going to be background stuff (switching lights on and off, running a camera for security, environmental monitoring) but occasionally I'll want to use firefox, pdf viewers, maybe watch YouTube or summat. So what's a decent lightweight DE now? ..... My take is it's a toss-up between Xfce and Enlightenment. |
Agreed. Enlightenment 0.24 is very light and I like the file manager. After all, it is targeted for use on small devices. Try enlighenment. |
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Zucca
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2021 9:01 pm Post subject: |
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Wayfire fanboy here. \o
I use Thunar and other gtk programs with it. Wayfire panel is a gtk program too so it fits.
My second choice would be xfce. It's traditional and relatively lightweight.
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Goverp
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| Posted: Sat May 22, 2021 10:18 am Post subject: |
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He he! Now I've got more choices. I'll have a play with them.
Thanks.
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stonespheres
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| Posted: Sat May 22, 2021 1:50 pm Post subject: |
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I would give bspwm + lightdm a go, should be lightweight enough for your needs while still allowing you to get a bit of a desktop feel. 
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asturm
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| Posted: Tue May 25, 2021 6:31 am Post subject: Re: Best GTK3 desktop environment - 2021 views? |
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| Goverp wrote: | My take is it's a toss-up between Xfce and Enlightenment.
[...]
Gnome and KDE are too heavy. |
jfyi, if it can run Xfce, it can run KDE Plasma more than just fine, before even Gentoo's build options configurability gets involved. If otherwise none of your planned applications is using Qt anyway, then on a resource constrained system, where "DE" comfort is secondary anyway, it probably does not make sense before one of the other choices.
"KDE" by itself means nothing, it is a community.
Last edited by asturm on Tue May 25, 2021 6:38 am; edited 1 time in total |
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fedeliallalinea
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| Posted: Tue May 25, 2021 6:38 am Post subject: Re: Best GTK3 desktop environment - 2021 views? |
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| asturm wrote: | | "KDE" by itself means nothing, it is a community. |
You right, but old habits are hard to break and changing names often doesn't help (now are no longer kde applications but kde gears).
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asturm
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| Posted: Tue May 25, 2021 6:43 am Post subject: Re: Best GTK3 desktop environment - 2021 views? |
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| fedeliallalinea wrote: | | You right, but old habits are hard to break and changing names often doesn't help (now are no longer kde applications but kde gears). |
Applications are applications, I'm certainly not going to force anyone adopting KDE's latest branding for them.
KDE Plasma on the other hand exists for well over a decade, and whenever I'm reading "KDE" and heavy in the same sentence I'm wondering if that person is aware that Plasma by itself does not even install an application like a terminal emulator or a basic text editor. |
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pjp
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| Posted: Tue May 25, 2021 7:11 am Post subject: |
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Interesting, I had not heard that. But I've only used it briefly on a few occasions (possibly only as KDE). In case anyone else is curious, the rebranding was announced in November 2009.
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Zucca
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| Posted: Tue May 25, 2021 9:09 am Post subject: Minimal KDE? |
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| asturm wrote: | | whenever I'm reading "KDE" and heavy in the same sentence I'm wondering if that person is aware that Plasma by itself does not even install an application like a terminal emulator or a basic text editor. |
Many don't.
I, myself, am aware that one can customize "KDE" (Plasma) to a lightweight state. But that's about the only thing I know. How much can it be stripped down?
Looking at KDE wiki article I did a quick and dirty search for "minimal", which gave null.
Surely this wiki page needs its "minimal install" section.  Right? Or even KDE/Minimal_install page.
But I also think many look at the depency list and think it's heavyweight: | Code: | $ emerge -qp --autounmask --autounmask-backtrack=y --backtrack=10000 plasma-desktop 2> /dev/null | grep '^\[ebuild' | wc -l
138 |
... on my laptop with wayfire. To me 138 doesn't sound too bad considering there's kde and qt framework stuff.
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Goverp
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| Posted: Tue May 25, 2021 9:28 am Post subject: Re: Best GTK3 desktop environment - 2021 views? |
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| asturm wrote: | | ... "KDE" by itself means nothing, it is a community. |
Sadly, I've never gotten my head around the separation between plasma and frameworks, or indeed where Qt fits into this. Somehow, 3 layers that big seem excessive when all you're doing is drawing some boxes on the screen (hey, doesn't X already do that?). IIRC the much vaunted (at the time) split of Qt and so forth were supposed to make it possible to install parts rather than the whole shebang; I bet more than 90% of users install the whole lot, even on Gentoo where it's possible to configure less.
(All that said, I'm still a KDE user on my desktop and laptop machines; it just seems to have too many moving parts.
For irrelevant reasons, I've been playing with Smalltalk, which of course introduced window and GUIs, and does it all within Smalltalk. OK, not quite as pretty, but a heck of a lot simpler.)
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stonespheres
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| Posted: Tue May 25, 2021 10:30 pm Post subject: Re: Minimal KDE? |
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[quote="Zucca"] | asturm wrote: |
I, myself, am aware that one can customize "KDE" (Plasma) to a lightweight state...
Looking at KDE wiki article ...Surely this wiki page needs its "minimal install" section. Right? Or even KDE/Minimal_install page.
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Perhaps you are right, I might look into this a little further. I've been looking for a new project since bzip2...
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Threadt
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| Posted: Mon Jun 07, 2021 10:49 pm Post subject: |
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| I also use OpenBox + FBPanel + Spacefm. I'm very satisfied. |
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figueroa
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| Posted: Tue Jun 08, 2021 2:40 am Post subject: |
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FBPanel -- I hadn't considered that before. Looks attractive. But, it's GTK+2.
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Andy Figueroa
hp pavilion hpe h8-1260t/2AB5; spinning rust x3
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DeIM
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| Posted: Sat Jun 26, 2021 4:17 pm Post subject: |
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I used openbox + tint2 + spacefm for many years.
Now I'm several months trying enlightenment since I was unable to flawlessly use picom - compositor with openbox. enlightenment have compositor built-in.
I switched to compositor mainly because intel drivers obsoletes and modesetting driver don't support tear-free mode (or I didn't found how) :-/ |
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Hund
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| Posted: Tue Jun 29, 2021 4:44 am Post subject: |
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Why does it have to be GTK3? Can't you just use any lightweight window manager?
| figueroa wrote: | | FBPanel -- I hadn't considered that before. Looks attractive. But, it's GTK+2. |
What's wrong with GTK2?
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mv
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| Posted: Tue Jun 29, 2021 9:23 am Post subject: |
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| Zucca wrote: | Wayfire fanboy here. \o
I use Thunar and other gtk programs with it. Wayfire panel is a gtk program too so it fits.
My second choice would be xfce. It's traditional and relatively lightweight. |
++ though my second choice is fvwm (more specifically: fvwm-crystal). But eventually you might have to switch to wayland anyway, and wayfire is great and lightweight and can be configured to behave rather similar to fvwm-crystal or xfce. |
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asturm
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| Posted: Tue Jun 29, 2021 9:41 am Post subject: |
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| Hund wrote: | | What's wrong with GTK2? |
It's dead. |
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fedeliallalinea
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| Posted: Tue Jun 29, 2021 9:46 am Post subject: |
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Tell that to the gimp devs, that have created gtk  .
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asturm
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| Posted: Tue Jun 29, 2021 9:58 am Post subject: |
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| No need to, GIMP-2.99.6 is GTK3-based and in tree, what will become 3.0. |
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Desktop Environments
