which desktop environment

clownfish · 2009-03-26 21:49:28

Hi forum,

i thought i would find a lot of threads with discussions about which desktop environment suits best for different users - but the forum search wasnt successful, so i just ask THE question: Which desktop environment would suit best for me?

i touched arch the first time about three years ago, was happy and used it for over two years. i used GNOME for a long time because KDE was too much "Windows" for me. i tried XFCE, but was not happy because i felt using GNOME without a roof, doors and without nice painting. i worked with openbox for about half a year, but was sick of the pure and simple desktop. so i switched back to GNOME for a short time and then tried using compiz-fusion which slowed down the desktop and the work. i really missed some eye candy, so i decided to give windows vista a chance. i like the eye candy in vista, and i was surprised about vista beeing pretty stable for my purposes.

now, after half a year of working with windows, i am sick of it again. i still like the eye candy and it still does the job - but sometimes i am bored of it and i miss the way you can configure and tweak your system using GNU/Linux. i dont even think about trying ubuntu and all the others, arch is my choice. but i am really helpless about the question, which desktop environment to use.

thats the story, some facts about how i use the box and for which purposes:
- surfing the web, reading and writing emails
- writing some documents, maintaining my finances using a spreadsheet
- listening music
- sometimes gaming (CIV 4...)
- maintain a couple of websites
- if i find time: developing web applications and some kind of my own PHP "framework" (currently its just on paper and i like calling it my swiss php knife)

currently i sit on my chair, arch and xorg set up, running firefox within an X session and hoping, that anyone can tell me, which DE would suit best for me, my purposes and which will satisfy my needs for eye candy.

Thanks for your opinions!

MazurMe · 2009-03-26 21:53:45

If you want eyecandy you should try Kde 4.2, it is quite stable now.
Surfing the Web - Konqueror, Opera, Arora
Emails - kMail
Music - Amarok 2
Gaming - No Idea
Webmaster - kWrite is great
For multimedia, disc burning you can use VLC, SMplayer and k3b. btw, try kdemod.

X/ax · 2009-03-26 21:57:34

I hear enlightenment (e17 last I checked) is a real eye-candy DE, not really integrated with other apps, but that makes the choice even greater.

JawsThemeSwimming428 · 2009-03-26 23:46:53

If you are thinking about trying KDE, you should definitely look into KDEmod. It is a project for Arch Linux that makes a fully customized modular version of KDE they appropriately call KDEmod. It is beautiful. Can be found here:

http://chakra-project.org/

jumzi · 2009-03-26 23:55:22

Yeah go for KDE... The new versions actully looks quite sweet.

I still just want to suggest to atleast try a tiling WM (wmii, dwm, musca, xmonad, awesomeWM etc.), it's really sweet when you've gotten used to it, altough it can be a small mess to set up, especially with all the side apps you'll probably need. But then on the other hand you wont have it as hard later if you encounter a bug etc.

Ranguvar · 2009-03-27 00:40:58

The one thing I would recommend is to stay away from picking a DE based on aesthetics. While it's true some DEs and more specifically WMs have special features or lack them, it's trivial to take Xfce, Gnome, or KDE, and make them look nearly identical to each other.

I have personally grown addicted to simple WMs, tiling and non. I enjoy building up my desktop for me specifically.

Teoulas · 2009-03-27 00:43:42

How about Gnome + Compiz? You seem to like Gnome more than the others. You can try disabling some Compiz plug-ins and tweak it to be as fast as you want. I'm sure you will find the perfect combination of plug-ins and settings, if you tweak it enough.

As for myself, I'm a Gnome/XFCE guy. I find KDE too cluttered with countless options. Yes, it's beautiful, but I don't want every little option getting in my way.

Last edited by Teoulas (2009-03-27 00:44:31)

adamlau · 2009-03-27 01:47:13

JWM + u_no_hu's tiling script. Stack, float, or tile what you want, when you want. Very light on resources, just follow the wiki to get started.

clownfish · 2009-03-27 08:03:24

awesome, i was afraid that i get flamed for asking this question but you are great - everyone of you and the whole arch community.

i gave kdemod a shot because of the many recommendations: i really like the eye candy. my first impression was, that kde isn't that "windows-like" anymore as when i tried it one or two years ago. but i think my box hasn't enough power for it. i'm currently at work and don't know the exact data, it's a HP pavilion dv6500 laptop - i'll post the data when i'm home again. just for interest, i tried compiz-fusion within kdemod and i really wonder why the experience with compiz-fusion was smoother and faster than with KDE's window manager. maybe it's worth, trying this combination for a couple of days or weeks.

@Teoulas: you're right, i think i'm a little gtk addict

maybe i should try XFCE or GNOME...and the recommendations about simple WMs sound interesting too. maybe i should go with openbox again? but that's what i wanted to avoid - try all the DEs and WMs again, installing, uninstalling, endless configuring. this always ended up in beeing frustrated that i don't get what i want.
what about XFCE, is it still some kind of a tiny GNOME?

Teoulas · 2009-03-27 08:36:04

clownfish wrote:

what about XFCE, is it still some kind of a tiny GNOME?

Yes, pretty much. It depends on what you need from your DE. I really like GVFS and the built-in ability of nautilus to connect to SSH, WebDAV, FTP and Samba shares. On the other hand, Thunar is one of the fastest file managers around, but it doesn't have this feature. If you don't need those extra gnome features, XFCE is a solid DE.

tlaloc · 2009-03-27 10:37:43

You may also try LXDE. It is also based on GTK, and I think that XFCE is not really that much lighter than Gnome these days. Essentially it is kind of a "pimped Openbox" but still a full DE - well integrated, not too bare-bone.

Last edited by tlaloc (2009-03-27 10:38:23)

generic_ · 2009-03-27 15:14:21

actually I prefer the "windows-like" set up. Kide Desktop Makes me want to shoot my self but gnome is pretty much sensible for me. On my main computer i use gnome + compiz i like the eyecandy and compiz is pretty fast. Do you want eye candy or productivity? I prefer the eyecandy

Skripka · 2009-03-27 15:20:25

X/ax wrote:

I hear enlightenment (e17 last I checked) is a real eye-candy DE, not really integrated with other apps, but that makes the choice even greater.

I would love to run e17-the catch bing that e does not support hardware graphics acceleration-and will not until e18 from what I hear....also under Arch I have big stability issues running it with any of the nicer eye-candy turned on (i.e. Bling module).

skottish · 2009-03-27 15:25:44

Skripka wrote:

I would love to run e17-the catch bing that e does not support hardware graphics acceleration-and will not until e18 from what I hear....also under Arch I have big stability issues running it with any of the nicer eye-candy turned on (i.e. Bling module).

Personally I don't think that waiting to the year 2037 for E18 to come out is an option.

Nepherte · 2009-03-27 15:41:56

From what I've read, you seem to have had no issues with gnome. Why not continue with gnome?

Inxsible · 2009-03-27 15:43:33

clownfish wrote:

awesome, i was afraid that i get flamed for asking this question but you are great - everyone of you and the whole arch community.
i gave kdemod a shot because of the many recommendations: i really like the eye candy. my first impression was, that kde isn't that "windows-like" anymore as when i tried it one or two years ago. but i think my box hasn't enough power for it. i'm currently at work and don't know the exact data, it's a HP pavilion dv6500 laptop - i'll post the data when i'm home again. just for interest, i tried compiz-fusion within kdemod and i really wonder why the experience with compiz-fusion was smoother and faster than with KDE's window manager. maybe it's worth, trying this combination for a couple of days or weeks.

Well if its flaming that you desire... I shall give you flaming.... RTFM !! (just kidding )

Being windows like is the primary reason I have hated KDE from the day I knew what KDE was. But you say that KDE isn't windows-like anymore...Hmmm Maybe I should try out a live cd of some distro like Ubuntu or something -- just to see what the hype is about the latest KDE 4.2. Although I have seen enough thread about the issues...that I am not convinced yet.

I have now gone on the other side -- that being using tiling wm's all the time. I still have openbox installed....but I haven't logged into it since more than a month by my count. No huge DE's for me -- and that's also because my 9 yr old lappy here cannot handle them

skottish wrote:

Personally I don't think that waiting to the year 2037 for E18 to come out is an option.

I tried E17 once...but found it too cumbersome in terms of configuration or personalizing. It also doesn't seem to play well with apps not specifically designed for E.

Oh, and LOL

Last edited by Inxsible (2009-03-27 15:45:19)

Skripka · 2009-03-27 16:11:15

skottish wrote:

Skripka wrote:
I would love to run e17-the catch bing that e does not support hardware graphics acceleration-and will not until e18 from what I hear....also under Arch I have big stability issues running it with any of the nicer eye-candy turned on (i.e. Bling module).
Personally I don't think that waiting to the year 2037 for E18 to come out is an option.

QFT.

I thought of saying something better like that...better for it to come from a mod though

pogeymanz · 2009-03-27 16:23:30

Teoulas wrote:

clownfish wrote:
what about XFCE, is it still some kind of a tiny GNOME?
Yes, pretty much. It depends on what you need from your DE. I really like GVFS and the built-in ability of nautilus to connect to SSH, WebDAV, FTP and Samba shares. On the other hand, Thunar is one of the fastest file managers around, but it doesn't have this feature. If you don't need those extra gnome features, XFCE is a solid DE.

I disagree completely. Just because it uses GTK apps does not make it a Gnome replacement. This mentality comes soley from Ubuntu's spinoff Xubuntu, which is an abomination to the usability of XFCE.

By default, XFCE offers your main menu upon right-click on the desktop, which I prefer because I like the *box WM. Also, Xfwm4 is a way nicer WM than Metacity, IMO. And it is pretty good at compositing, which Metacity doesn't seem to be, in my experience.

Plus, if you need Nautilus's features that badly, then just use it in XFCE! You can tell Nautilus not to control the desktop and then just uninstall Thunar. I'm willing to bet that Nautilus+Gnome deps+XFCE is still less disk space than full Gnome.

XFCE is very customizable. You can set it so that your minimized apps appear as icons on the desktop, which is something that Gnome can't do. Plus XFCE is modular, you can uninstall the panel, thunar, terminal, mousepad, whatever...

Some people have a problem with XFCE's setting GUI, but I find Gnome's to be way worse, especially the Window Settings GUI.

pogeymanz · 2009-03-27 16:25:52

tlaloc wrote:

You may also try LXDE. It is also based on GTK, and I think that XFCE is not really that much lighter than Gnome these days. Essentially it is kind of a "pimped Openbox" but still a full DE - well integrated, not too bare-bone.

This isn't true. It uses about the same amount of RAM as my openbox session upong login. This is not even close to what Gnome uses.

JK3mp · 2009-03-27 16:34:34

I've used gnome and loved it since KDE seemed a little too plane and windows like to me. But i too will have to give a try to KDE.

bgc1954 · 2009-03-27 19:00:48

If you liked vista but want to try something completely different, you could try out pekwm with the pekwm-themes from AUR. There is a vista_black theme that gives you a little of that look and pekwm is lightweight like openbox, but personally I prefer it over openbox since it can use bitmaps in the themes so they're not quite as plain as the openbox look.

Like Inxsible, though, I've pretty much sworn off the boxes and am sticking to tiling wm's now. But who knows what tomorrow will bring.

clownfish · 2009-03-29 10:31:10

I tried to work with KDE(mod). It works pretty smooth now with KDEs own window manager too, but it is not the way i like it. I don't feel well with KDE.
I decided to switch to the 64 bit arch, did a clean install, installed Xorg and some font-packages and backed this up so i can mess around when trying DEs and WMs. I hope that I don't end up beeing frustraded again.
I already tried XFCE and was amazed about how fast and smooth my box can be . Now I'm on GNOME, I'll try it for some days now. Maybe I'll give openbox another shot or try LXDE.

As there are a lot of recommendations for tiling WMs now, I think that I should try it too. Which can you specifically recommend?

Crooksey · 2009-03-29 10:34:42

If you have a free Sunday, you could always see where you get with fvwm, you can customise that to some extent and is quite a rewarding process.

snorkel · 2009-03-31 15:11:11

KDE 4.2.1 is pretty nice. I was running gnome for awhile, but never really liked using it. I had always preferred KDE, but decided to stay away from 4.0 and 4.1, when 4.2 was released I installed that and thought "It's Back"
I think the whole desktop effects has been implemented much better in KDE 4.2 than in gnome.
I really think the KDE 4.x series is going to take off big time.

SomeGuyDude · 2009-03-31 15:32:55

For all that? OpenBox. It's really, really not that hard to set up save getting your menu rolling. It's simple, it functions, can look just as nice as anything else (save the compositing).

Plus, once you have a right-click menu binded to a keyboard command, you'll absolutely despise having to click on a button in a taskbar to open said menu.

Arch Linux

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