reconsidering my decision

[Lord DarkPat]

Well, I switched to xfce. I like it. But I still don't like it?(wha.......?)
I like KDE a lot, but I wanted to go ahead and try somthing new. I hate GNOME to the core, no comments there. FluxBOX is just plain ugly, tried IceWM on puppy, didn't like it.
So, I wanna go back to Kubuntu, do you think it's a good idea? I really want people to completely brief me as to why/what xfce has over KDE. I really like xfce, but I think it's more complicated than I would like. The menu editor is complete crap.
It seems weird, though that I started the xfce chat thread yesterday, and here I am. I don't know, I'm really confused.
And please don't tell me, "follow your heart", or "depends on what you want" or "xfce/KDE rocks!! stick to "xfce/KDE" This is a serious decision for me.
Thanking you sincerely,
Lord DarkPat

[bufsabre666]

i really dont like xfce that much, and i love gnome and i disdain KDE

but based on the fact that xfce is so limited like you can even browse network shares with it including alot of other limitations id say go back to kde

[loell]

uhmm, but really,.. follow your heart,

from the looks of it, you didn't like how xfce does things and you loved KDE to the core, so might as well go back to kubuntu,

if you like something new then perhaps KDE 4 is for you? ;)

[Lord DarkPat]

ok, thx. xfce maybe limited, but my biggest turnoff is the menu editor its a major pain in the (beep)

[Lord DarkPat]

uhmm, but really,.. follow your heart,

from the looks of it, you didn't like how xfce does things and you loved KDE to the core, so might as well go back to kubuntu,

if you like something new then perhaps KDE 4 is for you? ;)
I'm not unstable KDE material yet :D

[Gigamo]

but my biggest turnoff is the menu editor its a major pain in the (beep)

It's really easy to edit the menu in the config file.

Have a look at /home/`username`/.config/xfce4/desktop/menu.xml

[bufsabre666]

ok, thx. xfce maybe limited, but my biggest turnoff is the menu editor its a major pain in the (beep)

my biggest xfce turn off is the menu itself, its just ugly

now im saying this, i do install xubuntu on older machines its just a preference, not to have the xfce faithful flame me, it does serve a purpose but on my personal computer ((the one in my sig)) i think you can see i got plenty of power to run what i like

but other than that go back to KDE, prolly 3.5 wait till 4.1 comes out

[quinnten83]

It's really easy to edit the menu in the config file.

Have a look at /home/`username`/.config/xfce4/desktop/menu.xml

well no...
My Xubuntu menu config file has an "include" included and for the love of me I don't know where that file is....
plus you can't browse network. really annoying.
I tried a fix on the internet, but I can only see my own computer in my workgroup and not the windows machine or the Ubuntu laptop.

[mrgnash]

It may be a serious decision for you, but this is a ludicrous thread.

[Paul820]

I really don't see how anyone can recommend which distro to use as it's all down to what you feel is the best for yourself and what you enjoy using. It may be a serious decision for you, but only you can make that decision, as everyone else has their own preference as to what is the best and most comfortable for them. Good luck in finding the one you like though.

[mali2297]

You cannot customize the system-generated menu with Xfce's menu editor, but you can create your own menu from scratch without too much trouble.

* Open the menu editor and Xfce's application finder side by side.
* Choose to create a new menu in the menu editor.
* Remove the system entry.
* Drag and drop the applications that you want to add from the app finder to the menu editor.
* When finished, save your new menu.
* Done.

[macogw]

FluxBOX is just plain ugly

On Damn Small Linux, yes. In general, no. It can look really good. It's just a matter of finding the right theme. It also can make you look really 1337 (I had some guy come up to me in a coffee shop staring at my computer going "I'm sorry, but I have to ask...what are you doing?" "changing the volume" (i was using alsamixer) "oh. but, what is that?" "Linux" "really? I never saw a girl use Linux before" which made me laugh). Pretty much all of the hackers' computers in movies run Fluxbox or Openbox or Blackbox. You never see them using something "simple" like GNOME or KDE (funny the way the word "simple" works in that context...Fluxbox is undoubtedly a simpler interface in terms of complexity of design and also I'm sure implementation, but the others are simpler in terms of how much thought the user needs to do more complex tasks).

I use one called DarkLight:
screenshot (http://themes.freshmeat.net/screenshots/34578/36697/)
info page (http://themes.freshmeat.net/projects/darklightz/)
I use Eterm for my terminal so I can have a transparent background like they do in the screenshot. One of my friends laughed at me because I use the lightest window manager and the heaviest terminal. I make a point not to use gnome-terminal as my Fluxbox terminal because my hard drive is kind of messed up and the gnome libraries seem to be getting corrupted or something because they don't always load, leading to gnome panels not loading, gnome-terminal crashing, xchat-gnome crashing, etc. Regular GTK apps like pidgin and gimp are fine. And the Enlightenment libraries are fine, so at least I know that terminal will keep working.

[p_quarles]

On Damn Small Linux, yes. In general, no. It can look really good. It's just a matter of finding the right theme.
+1

Fluxbox looks like whatever you want it to look like. I've only been using it for about a month, but I've gotten seriously spoiled by the fact that I can change the look of my desktop using nothing but Vim and Agave.

[Lord Illidan]

On Damn Small Linux, yes. In general, no. It can look really good. It's just a matter of finding the right theme. It also can make you look really 1337 (I had some guy come up to me in a coffee shop staring at my computer going "I'm sorry, but I have to ask...what are you doing?" "changing the volume" (i was using alsamixer) "oh. but, what is that?" "Linux" "really? I never saw a girl use Linux before" which made me laugh).
A girl using Linux? What? Can I marry you? :lolflag:

Personally, I think the best XFCE implementation belongs to Zenwalk!

[kvonb]

-

[Tundro Walker]

I popped back to XFCE for a bit after partaking in a thread Fuscia started on the subject. XFCE would normally be right up my alley, because I really don't have much running, and don't use lots of applets.

Pro ... XFCE generally uses less memory than GNOME / KDE

Con ... I've gotten hooked on the Gnome Weather applet, but the XFCE version didn't want to work.

Con ... the menu editor, as you said, sucks, and I'm not one to edit it via config files. (Not that I can't, it's just I don't want to).

Con ... to overcome the menu editor short-coming, I reinstalled alacarte for Gnome, and it required a whole bunch of extra Gnome stuff to come with it. Well, that defeats part of the purpose of installing XFCE (IE: cutting down on bloat), since I had to re-bloat my system to get something I personally find GUI-critical.

Con ... after using Windows at work, and Gnome at home for so long, there's just little things you get used to, like being able to mass-select desktop icons by dragging your mouse to lasso them. You can't do that in XFCE.

There were just subtle nuances that I found annoying, which out-weighed the "pro's" of the situation. And if you have 1gb of RAM (which I do), there's not much point in trying to trim down from Gnome to XFCE. You'd do better by just keeping Gnome, and merely cutting back on the number of applets you have going in your panel (which some kooky folks have loaded with every little applet under the sun...ugh).

So, switch back to Kubuntu. Better yet, help work the bugs out of KDE 4.0.

[Mateo]

be hardcore and use wmii or dwm.

[Lord DarkPat]

I think I'll go back. I just don't feel "Home" with xfce. I can't bear that you can't click and drag(I used to randomly do that when bored)
So, KDE wins!!
Now, a cousin of mine has a really old comp and wants me to install linux on it(not becuz he likes it or anything, he ust wants to be "cool")
Let the OS/*box competition begin!

[EdThaSlayer]

Just go back to Kubuntu, life will be easier and you wouldn't have to create this thread.

[DigitaLink]

Well, I've been a KDE fan for YEARS now ... since I first tried linux back in 2000. Never could get a good feel for Gnome, and pretty much gave up on it. Until very recently at least.

Last week I started distro hopping pretty hard. Tried 4 of 'em last week. CentOS 5.1, Fedora 8, openSuSE 10.3, and Ubuntu 7.10. Up until then, I've been a very happy user of PCLinuxOS with KDE.

openSuSE is still a disaster in my books. Hate the installer, can't stand the desktop when it's installed. That monstrosity of a KDE menu they use makes me want to pull out my eyes with a rusty fork and eat them. It's that bad. And it's a big strike against KDE4 in my books too. Hate that system in Vista too.

CentOS had issues installing for me. Turns out it was because the hard drive was about to puke, so I can't blame them for the failed installs.

Fedora 8 is ... slow. I don't know why, but it was almost as slow as openSuSE. And while older (Sempron64 2500+, 1GB DDR, new 250GB SATA drive, ATi 9250 128MB AGP video), it's never been a slouch before. It just didn't feel right to me.

And then there's Gutsy ... my first foray into Ubuntu proper, having used Kubuntu Dapper for several months when it first came out. And I've gotta say, Gnome is winning me over - although I still prefer some KDE apps to their Gnome counterparts. The Gnome file browser (is it Nautilus?) doesn't hold a candle to Konqueror for me. I love my Konqi!! And I haven't found a burner app on ANY operating system including Windows that holds a candle to K3B for me.

I really don't know what the difference is with Gnome now, versus Gnome a few years ago, but I find that I actually prefer it now for some reason. Maybe because it defaults to panels top and bottom of the screen, which is something I did in KDE anyway ... I don't know. Can't put my finger on it. But the Gnome camp may have a new convert.

All I know is my machine is currently set to triple boot PCLOS, Fedora 8, and Ubuntu Gutsy ... and I haven't booted into anything else since I tested the Grub setup to make sure everything would work correctly. Great work to all involved. This distro is REALLY coming along nicely since last I ran a *buntu. :)

[wolfen69]

if you have enuff memory, why would you want xfce? it's the poor mans gnome.

[Lord DarkPat]

good point :D
Actually, I lied. I started using xubuntu cuz my kubuntu crashed for good, and so did windows. I hoped to have some luck with xfce, I liked it at first, but I'm getting claustrophobic on the computer screen(due to xfce). I went on ranting about how good it was, but KDE is really the ultimate DE for me

[Praadur]

Looks like you've figured it out, DarkPat.

When I see threads like this though, I'm always reminded of my old pen & paper days, picking classes and such. There are so many parallels I could draw. One could choose a path and stick to it, customising little elements as they pursued their chosen profession or they could multiclass and take bits of lots of things, but it'd never feel as cohesive and intuitive as if they'd chosen one way of doing things.

Often, when I consider things like desktop managers, I first find out which one I'm most comfortable with. I take into consideration the stability, how it feels, the resources it takes up and I look for a good balance of all of these things. The most important is and always will be--for myself at least--how it feels, though. This is because if I pick something that doesn't feel right to me, then no matter how amazing it is, I'll never really feel satisfied with it and that choice will never truly see its complete potential.

I tried KDE for a time, for example. It was incredible graphically, it was full of wow, shiny, and awesome, this I cannot deny. I did find it to be slightly unstable but I was willing to overlook that. I did switch from it occasionally though because it didn't feel right at the end of the day to me, it felt more like an intense multimedia experience where performing simple tasks didn't really feel simple because everything was so impressive. Does that make any sense at all?

Of course, the brain of every person is wired differently, and no two brains are exactly the same. So what I found to be awkward could be another person's ambrosia, and they should go with that because that's how they realise their best possible desktop experience. That's why you can't go with what you're told is the best, you can't go with what other people try to convince you with stats, opinions, and lies about what's best, you have to go with what feels right to you and nothing... nothing else can matter.

You can always mix and match a bit, for example one could install kdelibs in Gnome and fiddle around with KDE apps, but again this leads to the problem of things becoming a bit of a haphazard mash-up of different elements. This is why I eventually chose to go with Gnome pure, and these days I pretty much only look to Gnome for my applications, purely because Gnome feels right and if I use anything which isn't that then it seems like I have an anomaly on my desktop, which I find grating over time.

So if you feel KDE is best, go with KDE, stick out any minor bad bits and just enjoy yourself and have fun with it. If you can include bits of other desktop managers without thinking it seems rather awkward then include those bits, otherwise keep it pure. You have to go with those feelings, because even though your mind tells you otherwise, you'll find your experience being uncomfortable later on.

If you're worried about stability in KDE then buy a tape drive or some other backup device and make backups frequently. Set it up so that your computer makes an image of itself, or at least backs up the most important bits, when you're sleeping. That way if you ever come up against a serious problem you have something to roll back on. And there are so many options for this... partimage, QuickStart (that new backup solution I see floating around the cafe), and many others.

If you feel you want something, then you have to pursue it. If it doesn't work, hammer on it until it does because you have to make it work. And after that, you have to make it yours, so it's the OS you're comfortable with, the OS that no individual other than yourself would really understand. Then you'll have the perfect OS you've always wanted. It might take work, but I think it's worth it.

...lordy, that was longer than I intended.

[zipperback]

My opinion is that you should use which ever Desktop manager you feel most comfortable with using.

If you like KDE then use it. Use what ever works best for your needs.

- zipperback
:popcorn:

[urukrama]

Con ... I've gotten hooked on the Gnome Weather applet, but the XFCE version didn't want to work.

Have a look here (http://bapoumba.wordpress.com/2008/01/04/add-gnome-applets-to-the-xfce-panel/).