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Thread: Desktop Environment Preferences

  1. #11
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    Re: Desktop Environment Preferences

    When I first started with Linux, I didn't care for the old Gnome 2 desktop and quickly switched to Openbox. After testing Unity for a couple of months in the alpha/beta's for 11.04, when the final release came out I went back to Openbox...and missed Unity. If you are a keyboard user, Unity really grows on you.
    "The Linux philosophy is laugh in the face of danger. Oops. Wrong one. Do it yourself. That's it." --Linus Torvalds

  2. #12
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    Re: Desktop Environment Preferences

    I've been through many desktop environments over the years, but for about the first 7 years or so I used mostly KDE. KDE is great, and it doesn't *have to* look like Windows if you don't want it to. I've also used XFCE, LXDE, and custom environments built on IceWM, Fluxbox, Openbox, etc.

    I spend a lot of time on a computer, and I had a lot of time to think about my workflow, think about what I love or hate about working with some desktop environments, and try a bunch of different environments to see what clicked. I'm constantly trying to tweak my environment for efficiency and easy workflow.

    For about the last year or maybe two (I forget how long) I've been using Awesome window manager. It fits me perfectly. It's not for beginners, and probably not for non-programmers; it's not pretty or full of eye-candy. But at some point I decided to stop configuring my Linux box to impress other (non-Linux-using) people and start configuring it to work the way I wanted it to.

    Point being, choose the desktop environment that works for you, and don't be swayed by silly ideas about whether your environment looks too much like Windows or isn't the big hot desktop environment everyone's talking about. It's your computer, make it do and be what you want.

  3. #13
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    Re: Desktop Environment Preferences

    I didn't care for Gnome 3 or Unity when I switched up to 12.04.

    Then, I started linux with Mepis using KDE3.

    I had a very brief stent with KDE 4 before finding the familiarity I'd become accustomed to in XFCE--Now sitting at 4.10 thanks to a PPA.

    Turned on CCSM, some wobbily windows, installed avant-window-navigator, swapped a choke-on-file-transfer Thunar with PCManFM, and compiled emerald and I'm back up to snuff.

    "I had thirty years experience guarding a cranberry silo!"

    I don't know where this, "unity more friendly to typists" thing is coming from. The application finder in xfce is a grand thing. Nothing a simple ALT+F2 can't get me to. It doesn't get me document searches or web searches on the desktop. That's what catfish and any web browser are for.

    "Back in my day, we compiled dependencies with constant failure rates through RPM dependency hell in the snow for thirty miles! Uphill both ways!! It was torture! I needed a program, so, I tied an onion to my belt, which was the fashion in the day, and I grabbed what I thought I needed from freshrpm, but it needed another library, so I kept trying, with my finest red fedora hat, and took the ferry to RTFMville where mysterios things were revealed to me for the price of time and frustration..."

    My, this post makes me sound curmudgeonly.
    And, isn't sanity really just a one-trick pony anyway? I mean, all you get is one trick: "rational thinking."
    But, when you're good and crazy? Oooh! Oooh! Oooh! The sky is the limit!

  4. #14
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    Re: Desktop Environment Preferences

    For me KDE is the best, not only is it "modern looking" but its highly configurable and much easier to tweak to ones liking then its closest competitor.

  5. #15
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    Re: Desktop Environment Preferences

    I value simplicity as well as beauty, and I need a desktop that doesn't eat up a lot of resources on my aging old Dell. I learned Linux mostly in Xfce and a little KDE on a friend's computer: Crunchbang Xfce edition, Linux Mint, PCLinuxOS (both the KDE standard version and Phoenix - the Xfce variant), Mepis, Ubuntu, SalixOS, and Xubuntu. While KDE is gorgeous, it was a resource hog on this poor old hand-me-down computer, and I found it confusing to use. Gnome 2 on Ubuntu was easier to use, but I fell in love with Xfce right away and kept going back to it even while my friend and Linux teacher was distro-hopping and experimenting with all kinds of new stuff. It's so easily made into just about whatever I want it to be, easy to configure, so pretty and so simple and easy to use. Xfce is the default desktop in several distros aimed at children, so I think that speaks very well for it's simplicity as well.

  6. #16
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    Re: Desktop Environment Preferences

    I use MATE, because I love the customisability that Gnome 2 had (and that Gnome 3 took away).


    Quote Originally Posted by zombifier25 View Post
    ...

    I personally use Unity because it saves screen space and it makes finding things faster.
    Unity may have its good points, but surely those are two things it doesn't do?
    It's (relatively) a resource hog, its icons are huge, and default behaviour is full screen windows...

  7. #17
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    Re: Desktop Environment Preferences

    Quote Originally Posted by Horbo View Post
    It's (relatively) a resource hog,
    Not a problem for my machine. I can even play some fullscreen games on it with with the new version which enables "Unredirect Fullscreen Windows" by default.
    (though of course, Unity is not a DE to play games on. When I want to play heavy games, I switch to Openbox or GNOME Classic with no effects)
    Quote Originally Posted by Horbo View Post
    its icons are huge,
    I shrunk them down to 32 pixels, which looks good.
    Quote Originally Posted by Horbo View Post
    and default behaviour is full screen windows...
    ?
    Last edited by zombifier25; December 29th, 2012 at 11:52 AM.

  8. #18
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    Re: Desktop Environment Preferences

    Quote Originally Posted by Horbo View Post
    I use MATE, because I love the customisability that Gnome 2 had (and that Gnome 3 took away).




    Unity may have its good points, but surely those are two things it doesn't do?
    It's (relatively) a resource hog, its icons are huge, and default behaviour is full screen windows...
    I don't think there is any relationship between your statements and what you are arguing against...

    What else are you saving screen space for if not your windows?

    The "finding things faster" obviously referred to getting to your scattered files efficiently, and had nothing to do with DE performance.

  9. #19
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    Re: Desktop Environment Preferences

    Quote Originally Posted by kevinmchapman View Post
    The "finding things faster" obviously referred to getting to your scattered files efficiently, and had nothing to do with DE performance.
    I agree with you in this. If one keeps everything organized, it would be easy in a desktop environment.

    I like Crunchbang, but moving around the snaking menus becomes headache after sometime. Menus like Cardapio, Mintmenu, Cinnamon menu allows you to find what you want quickly, but you have to remember the names more accurately. If you use the Dash in Unity, you can see your apps and files it is more comforting. If you use dash without Unity launcher and the global menu, it is even more comforting.

  10. #20
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    Re: Desktop Environment Preferences

    Quote Originally Posted by zombifier25 View Post
    ...

    I personally use Unity because it saves screen space and it makes finding things faster.
    I also was some kind of Unity hater, but I discovered that I work faster with it... I don't really know why, but I always liked its concept. The only bad thing it has is the unstability -sometimes- and the buggyness -other times.

    Catbuntu
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    CPU→Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2,00GHz. RAM3GB. Graphics card→NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS. O.S.→Ubuntu 14.04 «Trusty Tahr» 64 bit
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