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AvengingAngel718
November 22nd, 2007, 05:05 AM
I personally use Gnome, KDE, and XFCE, switching between them pretty much on a whim whenever I feel like it. Gnome is definitely the one I have the most experience with, but the others are fun too. Gnome definitely has the eye candy factor in it's favor, KDE seems easier for windows users to adjust to, although it's odd to me because it uses a lot of its own applications, not the ones i'm used to (which may or may not be a bad thing), and XFCE is nice because its neat, clean and very efficient.

So here's my question: What is everyone's favorite environment and why? I think Gnome is the best, but I'd like to hear your opinions about it.

santiagoward2000
November 22nd, 2007, 05:08 AM
I love XFCE. Smooth, efficient and it can look great too!

AvengingAngel718
November 22nd, 2007, 05:33 AM
I actually love all of them, but XFCE is pretty amazing. I set up my girlfriend's PC for school with Xubuntu and she loves it, and it runs smoothly even on older systems.

JetskiDude911
November 22nd, 2007, 05:35 AM
I mainly use GNOME, but I also like XFCE. KDE isn't bad, but I just haven't used it as extensively as the other two.

doorknob60
November 22nd, 2007, 09:00 AM
I like Gnome the best because it's easier for me and it looks nicer. Also, it seems to be more stable than KDE to me.

Royall
December 11th, 2007, 02:40 PM
I tried fluxbox the other day. I liked the fact that it took less than a second to login, but I couldn't figure out the GUI. Maybe I should RTFM, but I'd rather just get to clicking. RIght now I'm using Enlightenment/KDE which seems to work pretty well. It feels quicker, but I think it may just be a placebo.

Anyone else got suggestions for some lightweight environments?

AvengingAngel718
December 11th, 2007, 03:35 PM
XFCE is pretty lightweight and fast. It's also more or less like gnome with just a few things in different places, like your personal settings and what-not. I don't care for the default apps too much, but just install rhythmbox and openoffice.org and you're good to go. The more i use KDE the less i like it. It just doesnt run as smooth as gnome and it has a lot of unnecessary stuff that aggravates me, like the little bouncing icon next to the cursor when you'r trying to start a program.

Anyways, if you don't already know, to get XFCE just go into synaptic and install the package called Xubuntu-desktop. Then when you reboot, find the option on your login screen called "session", open it, and switch to "xfce session" then login as you normally do. It'll give you the option of setting it as your default if you so desire.

yeah i tried to RTFM once, but i think it's quicker to learn the hard way, and you learn a lot more, like how to fix your inevitable mistakes :D like the time i chowned my entire /home folder, which disabled all accounts but mine. or the time when i was a noob and deleted my panels and didnt know what to do. Or the time someone got on my computer when i wasnt home and somehow switched my default desktop manager (which is how i learned to change it from xfce to gnome and kde whenever i feel like it)

EDIT: come to think of it, they didnt just change my defaults, they somehow deleted gnome! after my panic attack, i figured out what happened and fixed it, but it was pretty fun.

Royall
December 11th, 2007, 03:49 PM
In the last hour I've changed from E-KDE to just E and it's now my favorite desktop, hands-down. It does everything I need without getting in my way and I'm certain everything is going faster than it did in KDE.

smartboyathome
December 11th, 2007, 04:18 PM
I used to use GNOME as my favorite DE, but now I use Enlightenment 17. Its nice and simple, and doesn't get in your way (while still providing plenty of eye candy ;)).

samjh
December 11th, 2007, 04:21 PM
My favourite is KDE, but I'm not sure about KDE 4.

Current desktop environment is Gnome. Simple, does most of what I want, and well-supported by Ubuntu.

XFCE is quick and nice, but has some usability issues for me.

SunnyRabbiera
December 11th, 2007, 05:27 PM
It depends on the distro, but on Ubuntu gnome is the best

khurrum1990
December 11th, 2007, 09:17 PM
I think KDE is the best. In my opinion KDE can be customized to look like whatever u want, and I love KDE applications. I find them more stable. than gnome. Only on Ubuntu do I use gnome sometimes cause usually on other distros like openSUSE for instance gnome sucks.

akiratheoni
December 11th, 2007, 10:27 PM
Right now I'm using GNOME. I've seen a lot of Fluxbox and OpenBox desktops that I like and eventually I'll switch. I've tried them before but I can't be bothered to customize it yet (too busy with school) and I like my Compiz-Fusion :(

-grubby
December 13th, 2007, 03:42 AM
all three of them equally, but right now, I have fluxbox fever!

new2*buntu
December 20th, 2007, 03:34 AM
I really like how XFCE plays well with Compiz Fusion. Gnome kept on crashing with it.

BSDFreakNo2
December 20th, 2007, 03:40 AM
KDE in most distros, in Ubuntu, Gnome, Kubuntu truly sucks, it neads to be scrapped and reworked from the core with all of it's current devs gone.

I mean look at PCLinuxOS or SuSE or even Slackware, they got a KDE that is really really great, in choice OS's like FreeBSD or OpenBSD they are superior from the ge go.

I don't mean doing too much crap like Sabayon, just do it right with the programs, Konakt, Koffice, Amarok, Konqueror, Kynaptic and so on.

Why anyone would include firefox or openoffice in a KDE install is beyond me.

Linuxratty
December 21st, 2007, 12:44 AM
KDE here...Although I do want to give Enlightenment 17 a run for it's money.

Darkhack
December 22nd, 2007, 07:52 PM
I like all of them in some ways, but I'm currently addicted to IceWM because it has plenty of features that I need while being super lightweight. Even when running fairly heavy applications, I've yet to touch swap while using it with only 512 MB of RAM.