Which Desktop Enviroment?

Zacariaz · Post by **Zacariaz** » Sat Apr 05, 2008 10:24 am

As some may or may not know, it won't be long before I convert to Linux, or to be more specifik, Ubuntu. I do, however, still have some trouble deciding which flavour to choose, so I thought it would be appropiate to make a poll. Do remember to include your pros and cons though, otherwise it's more or less meaningless as it will "just" be your personal oppinion showing.

NB.
I do realise that more enviroments could be included in the poll, but I believe it is best to limit it and on a personal note I'm not really interested in the other right now, allthough some of the looks neat. I have included an "Other" option though, so I won't have to hear for that.

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As you might have guessed, my experience is somewhat limited, but I get to vote anyway and I vote Gnome. Mainly due to my dislike of KDE, but also because Gnome looks neat and is fairly userfriendly.

AdHawk · Post by **AdHawk** » Sat Apr 05, 2008 10:52 am

If you want something that feels like windows or has the most eye-candy KDE is probably your best choice. Otherwise I would use xfce because I honestly don't know why anyone would use GNOME. Maybe because you like GNOME widgets?

I use xfce, because I find it decently easy as well as small. A KDE install is ~250MB, GNOME ~240MB while xfce is ~15MB.

Also... I would suggest you check out http://www.distrowatch.com because I find Ubuntu to be incredibly obtuse in how it handles somethings. Mostly it's out of the box hardware support isn't very good for my laptop and it's a nightmare to get it working with U/K/Xbuntu.

Btw, I use ZenWalk, or formally names MiniSlack, a Slackware based distro. Most people say Slackware isn't for beginners, but as long as you know how to use google and arn't afraid of compiling things on your own it's great. And being this forum I assume you know that much. Especially when automake does just about everything for you.

Zacariaz · Post by **Zacariaz** » Sat Apr 05, 2008 11:01 am

AdHawk wrote:And being this forum I assume you know that much. Especially when automake does just about everything for you.

That is where you are wrong, I am very inexperience in that regard.

Anyway, this topic wasn't ment to be about me as such, but more of a generel discusion on this topic. Still I am gratefull for any advise.

nekros · Post by **nekros** » Sat Apr 05, 2008 1:11 pm

Gnome, It acts more like a windows environment, easy to configure.
When I mean more like a windows environment I mean by the point and double click interface. Very easy to get a wireless network set up.

jzgriffin · Post by **jzgriffin** » Sat Apr 05, 2008 1:19 pm

If I were you, I'd play with both. Generally the first or second desktop you try sticks the most--for example, my first was KDE on SuSE back in '04. Then I tried GNOME and that stuck. KDE just doesn't seem very...usable. Kate is a great text editor, but GVim can do similar stuff, without the pretty interface.

In the end it's really your decision. What works best for you.

p.s. Fluxbox is also a nice choice, I've used it many times in the past, and it's almost as good as Ratpoison.

JamesM · Post by **JamesM** » Sat Apr 05, 2008 1:54 pm

Hi,

KDE vs. GNOME is an old debate - basically the design choices differ. KDE goes for customisability and is very similar to a windows environment in that you have a start bar (K menu) and a control panel etc.

GNOME goes for the "users are retards who want everything done for them an no choice" route, its ugly and a pile of wank. All clever people choose KDE.

I think you know where my vote went

inx · Post by **inx** » Sat Apr 05, 2008 3:37 pm

JamesM wrote:KDE goes for customisability and is very similar to a windows environment in that you have a start bar (K menu) and a control panel etc.

GNOME goes for the "users are retards who want everything done for them an no choice" route, its ugly and a pile of wank. All clever people choose KDE.

I've heard basically this exact same argument both in this form and reversed so many times over since before GNOME had its own window manager. =p Personally, I think both are ****, but I can't say GNOME is too much uglier than KDE. They both have control panels that don't work, they both have start bars/menus with **** configuration, they both allow for the same level of customization. They might as well be the same damn thing by this point, just different APIs.

Started out with KDE 1.x back when I was still dealing with a Pentium I, and moved to GNOME because KDE was too damn slow. Couple years later, I moved back to KDE because GNOME was too damn slow. Finally, back to GNOME because KDE became too damn slow again. Now I keep them both around for the library dependencies and use a custom CTWM configuration. It stays out of the way without trying and failing to be Windows.

It's all a matter of preference, and by this point I'd much rather use EvilWM or 9wm than either GNOME or KDE. GNOME/KDE both try to be all-encompassing UIs for Unix without actually integrating very well. Ubuntu does a good job with the integration these days, though, with both systems.

At this moment, it boils down to KDE = More eye candy, GNOME = same thing with less animations. You can turn off the animations and various other cycle-stealing bullshit in KDE, and then it boils down to KDE = brighter colors, GNOME = more subdued colors. But from that point, you can use theming to make GNOME brighter and KDE more subdued. It just doesn't really matter. Personally, if I had to choose, I couldn't. The features I actually like in these environments are mutually exclusive. I can't get all of them on one or the other.

But until the distributions become real OSes with good integration between the crud they pile on top and the actual OS and decent package management, I'll just steer clear from "desktop environments" completely. PC-BSD actually comes the closest to having the right balance there, for me, but the way they achieve it is broken in the same way OS X's package management is broken.

But I digress. Ubuntu does a good job, as I said, but it's still cycle-stealing crap to run either. That's mostly X's fault, and it has gotten better if you make sure you have shared memory set up right and have a card with decent acceleration. As far as a compromise, Xfce is pretty good. It's based off GTK, same as GNOME, but it's much tighter and quicker than either GNOME or KDE, with about the same level of features.

Zacariaz · Post by **Zacariaz** » Sat Apr 05, 2008 6:40 pm

So basicly what all are saying is don't use KDE and don't use Gnome... That leaves XFCE for now, as i have to have a desktop enviroment. I'm not exactly a linux console freak who dreams in bash.

inx · Post by **inx** » Sat Apr 05, 2008 10:24 pm

Zacariaz wrote:I'm not exactly a linux console freak who dreams in bash.

Hey, that's only happened like 4 or 5 times.

Usually it's C or just BX sessions. Although it's mostly BSD for me.

xyzzy · Post by **xyzzy** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 12:46 am

nekros wrote:Gnome, It acts more like a windows environment, easy to configure.
When I mean more like a windows environment I mean by the point and double click interface. Very easy to get a wireless network set up.

KDE also has a "point and double click" interface...

Some distros make it single click by default but you can change it almost instantaneously. Most people say KDE is more like Windows than GNOME.

Combuster · Post by **Combuster** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 4:18 am

Beryl

*ducksandruns*

inflater · Post by **inflater** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 5:23 am

KDE is disgusting and overactive. Not to mention headaches from it's default color scheme/theme/etc and it's stability (type sudo <any X-server application> in Kubuntu 7.04)

With Compiz, it looks a'la Vista. Bleh.

I prefer GNOME. It looks fine, can be easily configured, it's stable and it has way better language localization than KDE. If I would need 3D desktops and such, Compiz or Beryl suits right on.

Altough KDE vs GNOME - it's just a personal opinion.

xyzzy · Post by **xyzzy** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 6:09 am

Combuster wrote:Beryl

*ducksandruns*

Beryl/Compiz/Compiz-Fusion aren't desktop envs, they're window managers

I dislike KDE3, I find it too... clunky. KDE4 is nice though, I may switch to it once Fedora 9 is out at the end of the month (with KDE4 included).

GNOME... I use it atm, and it's mostly stable but there are some stupid bugs with it. For example, I changed the colour scheme settings and half my apps crashed, did the same when I changed the GTK theme too.

ucosty · Post by **ucosty** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 8:33 am

KDE4 is still a way off but looks promising. One thing, that I really dislike about modern linux interfaces is the enlargification of user interface elements. Everything about the kde4 default interface is huge which made my screen space feel cramped (which it shouldn't given I'm running a 24"+20" displays)

Combuster · Post by **Combuster** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 8:39 am

AlexExtreme wrote:Beryl/Compiz/Compiz-Fusion aren't desktop envs, they're window managers

I know beryl isn't a desktop environment of its own, but it makes whatever desktop environment you put on top of it give a significantly different experience. (in essence you override the WM part of KDE/Gnome/...) Hence, its IMO worth a mention of its own.

inflater wrote:With Compiz, it looks a'la Vista. Bleh.

That's the wrong way around - Vista came later