What DE or WM will you recommend?

Message

MrVahn · Post by **MrVahn** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 6:40 am

I have used KDE in Knoppix before, and Gnome in my Ubuntu box. Personally I like Gnome more than KDE. When I moved to gentoo I used fluxbox. Using fluxbox gave me the feeling of control over my system, as I am the one who chooses which to install and which will not be installed in terms of desktop applications and additional functionalities. Gnome and KDE automatically has tools, most of which I do not use. I would just like to know what you guys prefer and how you use it.

broken_chaos · Post by **broken_chaos** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 7:01 am

I like KDE over Gnome, and use XFCE or Fluxbox on lightweight systems. I prefer using a true desktop environment on a system with enough power to not notice a speed difference, and greatly prefer KDE for the high quality of almost all the applications, and the sheer variety of configuration options available, compared to Gnome. Konqueror, Kontact, Koffice are all very high quality applications, and fit exactly what I need to do with them.

Of course neither KDE or Gnome are anywhere near as bloated as Windows, and are much more configurable and complete. Either are excellent, I simply prefer KDE.

Toady · Post by **Toady** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 8:52 am

I have tried to get along with Gnome - and I just dont seem to be able to - maybe its because I started with KDE - but KDE is what fits me the best. Gentoo is all about choice - you only need to install the parts of KDE you want - although I must admit this time around I installed the lot (seeing as the machine was to be compiling for a while anyway and I have the disk space) - I might not see that as such a great idea when its time to upgrade to the new version however.

I keep telling myself that I will get around to having a go with XFCE - but I just never do - ahh well one day I guess - probably on my Sun box when I resurect it.

Given that by day I am an administrator for a firm who use M$ products only on the desktop I do have to keep a windows xp desktop in a vm - but its a small price to pay for the usability linux affords. Since having a much about with Vista I have skinned KDE to look more like Vista - but thats because I like the look of the black taskbar etc.

Another odd thing too - I decided to have a go with Beryl / Emarald - thinking that the novelty would ware off - but you know what - I'd rather not be without them now

vitae · Post by **vitae** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 9:45 am

i can recommend gnome-light as de and compiz as wm.

so you can install additional software, if you want and you are not forced to.

swimmer · Post by **swimmer** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 11:02 am

I started with Fluxbox as well but now I've reached total control & happiness
with fvwm - it is just incredible what you can do with that WM !

Greetz
swimmer

leonglass · Post by **leonglass** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 11:44 am

I have tried Gnome and KDE and of those two preferred Gnome. Lots of people are against Gnome at the moment and I can understand why. I only stuck with it for a while because I really did not like the look of KDE. Notice I said look nothing to do with its functionality. Gnome can be a pain however so I tried Fluxbox for a while and it is really good. As Toady above I wanted to try Beryl and can't use Fluxbox with it so I tried XFCE and that is pretty good to. I pretty much like the Beryl-XFCE combo and intend to stick with it. Remember that you can still use Gnome or KDE programs whichever DE you end up with.

MrVahn · Post by **MrVahn** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 3:23 pm

I myself do not like how KDE looks, but I find it more reliable and stable than gnome. I can crash gnome every now and then, but I can't crash KDE as often as gnome. What I want from a DE or WM is an interface that does not look like windows. This way, I feel that I am really using a Linux system, not a windows wannabe. Fluxbox is nice but it is not quite what I want or maybe I haven't configured it the way I want to. I'm going to try out FVWM someday.

swimmer · Post by **swimmer** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 4:16 pm

Look here to make you wanna try fvwm sooner

dtjohnst · Post by **dtjohnst** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 4:55 pm

I'm currently running FVWM on my Arch distro. I think it's great. It took some work getting configured. I've also ran e16 and thought it was amazing, I'm just waiting for a stable e17 release before I try that and transition over completely.

On gentoo I'm running gnome-light. I find I can do anything I want with gnome. If anything, I find it has more options for configuration and customization than KDE. Plus I don't like having all kinds of stupid applications I never use, and with gnome-light I have to install them all myself, so I know I only have the ones I need (although I am in the process of trying to get rid of firefox and keep it off but it keeps getting pulled in by openoffice and yelp.

Sucks for us opera folk).

piwacet · Post by **piwacet** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 11:17 pm

I use Beryl as a window manager, with kxdocker as a launcher, and rox as a file manager (not as window manager).

i92guboj · Post by **i92guboj** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 11:53 pm

If anything, I find it has more options for configuration and customization than KDE.

Isn't one of the bigger complains of some gnome users that kde has "far too much options and is too bloated"?

Seriously, look again, I don't think that gnome is more configurable than kde or any kde application in any aspect at all, in fact, I think that the configuration of just konqueror is far more complex than the gnome control panel as a whole. But that is for another topic. Plus options and complexity are not a good measure for anything, anyway.

Plus I don't like having all kinds of stupid applications I never use, and with gnome-light I have to install them all myself, so I know I only have the ones I need

Do you know that, the same that you emerge gnome-light, you can emerge kdebase-startkde?

And in that case, look at this, you might be surprised hehehe:

Code: Select all

# emerge -pe kdebase-startkde > kde.txt
# emerge -pe gnome-light > gnome.txt
# wc -l kde.txt gnome.txt
  295 kde.txt
  324 gnome.txt
  619 total

Mmmm, it seems that gnome-light DO install more packages than kde does

I know, I know, this is not a measure -not a serious one, at least-. It all depends on USE flags, to start with, and I don't have a clue what does gnome-light install, so the two installations might differ in functionality (to what side is another topic as well hehe). And the size of the packages, modularity... You know. My point is that that kind of comparisons trying to pretend that gnome-light is not gnome, or that it is lighter than anything is just pure crap. Both desktops have advantages and disadvantages, both qt and gtk are BIG toolkits as well, with strong and weak points. Let the user decide which fits best to their purpose. Both are equally "bloated" -I really hate that word, cause almost never it is used with a true meaning- as well. So, don't worry about that part of the discussion

PS: Yeah, Fvwm is really great.

dtjohnst · Post by **dtjohnst** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 4:00 am

THat's why I said ****I**** find. I *personally* find I can configure gnome more than I can configure KDE. But then, perhaps KDE just allows configuration in places I don't really care to configure, so I don't find those options. That's what makes it my opnion, not the opinion of some expert, and I made it quite clear that it was merely my opinion. Not to mention gnome-light might have more dependancies behind the scenes, but it doesn't install programs that show up in menus and whatnot. Out of sight out of mind. Plus that isn't the ONLY reason I prefer gnome, I *personally* find I can configure better.

To each their own. I explained why I prefer gnome over KDE, I don't think anyone actually took it as gospel or as anything other than my opinion. So there's no need to try and "prove" to me that my opinion is wrong. My opinion remains unchanged.

i92guboj · Post by **i92guboj** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 4:25 am

dtjohnst wrote:gospel

I am atheist -and much more in which regards linux desktops

I wasn't preaching about anything, both kde and gnome has enough downsides, and that is why I don't use either of them. I just gave additional info about gnome-light and kde which was missing in your post.

By the way, another thing to note: kde has on its menus as much programs as you install -not that it autogenerates them or anything- so, if you emerge kdebase-startkde, you will get a pretty neat menu, and, in any case, you can edit the menu by just right-clicking it. So, if you wish, you could remove the whole menu. I think that gnome has no menu editor, but I am not sure, correct me if so.

I particularly don't care at all about gnome vs. kde wars, I already saw enough of that, and really don't care about it. I am sorry that you took it personally, I was just making slight corrections to some things that you said and -I think- were not accurate.

Regards.

timeBandit · Post by **timeBandit** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 5:05 am

I use GNOME but don't care for some of the "official" components of the full desktop, so I started with gnome-light and added the components I wanted. I switched between KDE and GNOME for many years, before finally settling on the latter for Nautilus' strong similarities to OS/2's Workplace Shell (still the best desktop model ever designed and a lost, lamented favorite of mine).

tarpman · Post by **tarpman** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 5:16 am

6thpink wrote:I think that gnome has no menu editor, but I am not sure, correct me if so.

x11-misc/alacarte

dtjohnst · Post by **dtjohnst** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 8:42 am

6thpink wrote:
dtjohnst wrote:gospel
I am atheist -and much more in which regards linux desktops I wasn't preaching about anything, both kde and gnome has enough downsides, and that is why I don't use either of them. I just gave additional info about gnome-light and kde which was missing in your post.

By the way, another thing to note: kde has on its menus as much programs as you install -not that it autogenerates them or anything- so, if you emerge kdebase-startkde, you will get a pretty neat menu, and, in any case, you can edit the menu by just right-clicking it. So, if you wish, you could remove the whole menu. I think that gnome has no menu editor, but I am not sure, correct me if so.

I particularly don't care at all about gnome vs. kde wars, I already saw enough of that, and really don't care about it. I am sorry that you took it personally, I was just making slight corrections to some things that you said and -I think- were not accurate.

Regards.

Ah, very good. I was under the impression you were attempting to tell me how my opinion was wrong. I apologize if I came off harsh. When I first was introduced to *nix it was on a Solaris 8 system at University and KDE was the only option and I certainly had no issues using it. That summer they made a big upgrade and included GNOME and XDM as well. While I still spent most of my time using the CLI, I just found gnome to be more to my liking and have found it easier to make look and work how I wanted. I also don't understand the Gnome vs KDE debacle, since both are robust and effective as full blown desktops.

I guess misunderstanding are the name of the game when dealing with written text, until we develop some way to explicitely state our tone in them. Again, I apologize.

Hypnos · Post by **Hypnos** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 10:23 am

I customize the stock GNOME ebuild to remove stuff I don't use ("gnome-medium" I call it), and have deactivated the desktop items and icons. Also, I have 1GB of RAM, so things feel responsive.

I won't be switching away from GNOME soon, as I'm strongly wedded to GNOME apps like Evolution and Gnumeric. With these light modifications, I don't feel any bloat in my way. (For the curious, screenshot in sig below.)

i92guboj · Post by **i92guboj** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:51 pm

dtjohnst wrote: Ah, very good. I was under the impression you were attempting to tell me how my opinion was wrong. I apologize if I came off harsh. When I first was introduced to *nix it was on a Solaris 8 system at University and KDE was the only option and I certainly had no issues using it. That summer they made a big upgrade and included GNOME and XDM as well. While I still spent most of my time using the CLI, I just found gnome to be more to my liking and have found it easier to make look and work how I wanted. I also don't understand the Gnome vs KDE debacle, since both are robust and effective as full blown desktops.

I guess misunderstanding are the name of the game when dealing with written text, until we develop some way to explicitely state our tone in them. Again, I apologize.

Hehe, fully agree. And since English is not the native language in many cases -like mine-, that makes sometimes very easy to confuse people and be confused myself, which lead to missconceptions. Fortunately most people can solve the things speaking, and not starting a war in the forums.

@tarpman, thanks for the info, I am not a gnome user but be sure that I have an use for that application, in case it works.

MrVahn · Post by **MrVahn** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 2:14 am

Basically, the main thing that concerns me about a DE or a WM is its looks. I don't care for the extra functionality as I can add those if I need them. I think I'll emerge fluxbox, fvwm, and kde on my system. I have come across gnome more than kde that is why I'm giving kde a chance, but I don't really like how it looks like. It might end up being unmerged in the end. I like fluxbox but I just can't configure it right. lol.

adekoba · Post by **adekoba** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 2:35 am

http://www.suckless.org/wiki/wmii

you'll never turn back

MrVahn · Post by **MrVahn** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 12:10 pm

It sure looks great. Hmmm.. I'll add enlightenment on my list too. It simply looks beautiful.