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spupy
August 13th, 2009, 01:53 PM
This post is about GUIs, WMs, DEs and other 2-3 letter abbreviations.

I recently switched from a source-based distro (Gentoo) to a binary one (Arch Linux). Since the installation time is shorter, I decided to make a test install first to try out KDE 4. Keep in mind that in the last year I've been using fluxbox with gtk apps exclusively.

I have to say that I liked KDE 4. I really did like it very much. I liked how it looked, the options it gave me, and many more little things I don't need to mention. In fact, I think it might be the best DE on any OS there is. But that is not the point of my post.

Even though I liked KDE 4 that much, the next day I realized that it is not for me. I missed my Fluxbox environment. After spending so much time in it, I tailored it to a system that includes exactly what I need. It had no bells and whistles, it had little eye candy; but it was lightning fast, rock-solid and worked exactly as I needed it.

I think I just prefer the minimalism. I need only the set of tools I need :), after all.

What is it that you look for in the software that you use?

Tibuda
August 13th, 2009, 02:04 PM
What about a minimalist eye-candy that get the job done?

TheNosh
August 13th, 2009, 02:10 PM
i cast my vote for all of them.

speed - well of course i want it to run fast

features - the more the better as long as it doesn't make the interface confusing

stability - i'd rather the features work and will continue to do so with future updates, and that it won't break

Minimalism - not in appearence or function, but in terms of resources i'd like it to use very little

Does the work - well thats kind of the most important thing. what good is fast, stable, feature rich, resource light software that won't do what i need?


had i not been able to pick all of them in the poll the ones i find most important are the ones in red

RiceMonster
August 13th, 2009, 02:18 PM
Well, of course I like things to run fast, but I'm trying to get away from being concerned about how lightweight things are, seeing as I had a quadcore processor that's 2.6GHZ and 4 GB ram. Pretty much everything runs pretty quickly on my computer.

I've also been using KDE4 recently too. I really like it, and I think I'm going to stick with it. However, my situation is sort of similar to yours. I've been using Xfce for a long time, and I have it set up just perfectly for me, so I keep wondering if there's any real reason to switch out of it.

In the end though, what I really look for is not really based on any criterea, it's just how well it works for me. Sometimes minimalism is better for me, sometimes it isn't. I can appreciate dwm and kde4 at the same time.

spupy
August 13th, 2009, 02:25 PM
Well, of course I like things to run fast, but I'm trying to get away from being concerned about how lightweight things are, seeing as I had a quadcore processor that's 2.6GHZ and 4 GB ram. Pretty much everything runs pretty quickly on my computer.

I've also been using KDE4 recently too. I really like it, and I think I'm going to stick with it. However, my situation is sort of similar to yours. I've been using Xfce for a long time, and I have it set up just perfectly for me, so I keep wondering if there's any real reason to switch out of it.

In the end though, what I really look for is not really based on any criterea, it's just how well it works for me. Sometimes minimalism is better for me, sometimes it isn't. I can appreciate dwm and kde4 at the same time.

I might try KDE 4 again when I replace my current laptop with something more powerful.
One core of 1.4GHz runs KDE not as fast as I would like to.

Barrucadu
August 13th, 2009, 02:34 PM
Speed and features. It just so happens that it's almost entirely CLI apps that provice those for me. The only graphical programs I run regularly are Opera and claws-mail. Less regularly, I run Easytag, Emelfm2, VLC, GIMP, and Kildclient.
Everything else through the CLI.

xhatman
August 13th, 2009, 05:09 PM
What is it that you look for in the software that you use?

For me that has changed...

In the past I wanted to tweak and customize everything.
But that takes time.. and who wants a desktop/workstation that breaks on updates?

"If a train station is a place where a train stops, what is a workstation?"

Now I want something that just works out of the box with minimal maintenance.
Running Kubuntu/KDE4 and compiz on the desktop today.

It may not be very minimalistic.. it may even be considered bloat.. But it's good.
And over here.. It fires fast enough.

samjh
August 14th, 2009, 02:13 AM
1. Functionality
2. Reliability

Everything else is dependent on those two qualifiers.

Minimalism? I appreciate elegance, but only if it is required to solve a particular problem (eg. low system resources, high performance computing, etc).