Desktop manager ?

TechDragon · 2008-03-10 18:31:23

Okay, I know dont ask this question, it just irritates people and you wont get a straight answer from anyone. But as it is obvious that the crowd here is more advanced, I want you opinion.

I will start off by giving you mine, I like gnome over KDE. I think technically KDE is better but gnome feels less windowsy and more polished. Plus having every single program start with a K is....well stupid.

I haven't tried any others, but I know there is a bunch.

So have at me, I have placed my flame retardant suit on and I shall ask the question that should not be asked.

What do you suggest for a desktop, windows manager. Fast, configurable, stable, just plain cool.

Will I be able to use say brasero or K3B regardless to the manager I choose? Is the software dependant on the manager. Is it easy to install several and choose the best one for me over the course of a few weeks?

Gnome, KDE, Enlightenment, xfce, others?

Thanks

valnour · 2008-03-10 18:35:53

I use k3b for burning CDs under Awesome. It works just fine.

fwojciec · 2008-03-10 19:24:26

I'd divide available "desktop managers" into three categories:

1) Desktop environments -- aim at being comprehensive all-in-one desktop solutions and include a window manager as well as a range of applications such as file manager, panel, text editor, etc. They come pre-configured and can be used out of the box. Examples: KDE, Gnome, Xfce, maybe also E17 (when it's finally done).

2) Floating window managers -- basically stand alone apps that manage application windows and, usually, provides some means of launching applications, everything else needs to be added separately. Require more initial configuration than #1 but tend to be faster and less demanding as far as system resources are concerned. Examples: Openbox, Fluxbox (*boxes in general), PekWM.

3) Tiling window managers -- even more barebone (usually) than #2 above, plus they draw/resize windows so that the screen is always fully utilized (they "tile" windows side by side according to a designated layout rather than placing newly created windows over/below other windows). These work out best if you mostly use terminal apps, they also -- usually -- require more effort to configure at first. Examples: dwm, awesome, xmonad, wmii.

Have a look in the monthly screenshot thread for examples of what different kinds of environments look like.

First of all you need to make up your mind with regard to the category you're interested in. In either case, IMO, it makes little sense to rely on recommendations as far as choosing one is concerned ultimately -- it's best to try them out and see which one you like the best... They're all pacman -S away.

Last edited by fwojciec (2008-03-10 19:25:44)

Jerry · 2008-03-10 19:44:13

Plus having every single program start with a K is....well stupid.

If it's only the name and don't mind mixing apps then you can use gtk apps and use gtk-qt. Here it is:
http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/gtk-qt

Will I be able to use say brasero or K3B regardless to the manager I choose? Is the software dependant on the manager. Is it easy to install several and choose the best one for me over the course of a few weeks?

Yes you can mix gtk and qt apps. Fire away pacman and install everything to find out which one will suit you, just make sure you have enough space in your partition.

Gnome, KDE, Enlightenment, xfce, others?

I'd recommend gnome or xfce since you already stated you prefer gnome anyway. I personally prefer xfce because it provides me with everything I expected from a desktop environment and none of the things I don't need. You will have to install a few more things but I prefer that rather than removing things you don't need.

If you feel like "building your own desktop environment" I'd suggest going for openbox as a window manager. For keyboard driven window manager we have xmonad, dwm, wmii, and ratpoison in the repos. Among these I find xmonad to be the best suited for what I need.

finferflu · 2008-03-10 20:34:12

Good question. I still can't find anything I like. I keep hopping from DE to DE and from WM to WM. So far the WM that lasted for the longest period was Ratpoison. Simple is better. Too bad it's got bad support for popup windows and similar bad design, which unfortunately is there and needs to be dealt with. I'm happy for the people who were able to settle. DEs/WMs are my biggest itch.

dyscoria · 2008-03-10 20:45:26

TechDragon wrote:

What do you suggest for a desktop, windows manager. Fast, configurable, stable, just plain cool.

I would suggest as (fwojciec described it) a floating window manager. Much faster than GNOME or KDE. Very configurable and stable, though apart from KDE 4 all DE/WM's are pretty stable. Cool definately...just check some of the screenshots on customize.org (where you can see some of lyrae's tip-top work).

I would recommend fluxbox. It's very easy, got great documentation in the arch wiki and on their website (and they have a wiki also). I love the tabbed windows feature it has.

skottish · 2008-03-10 20:46:05

I've become a very big fan of Enlightenment E17. It's right in the middle between a DE and a WM. It's small, fast, light, and can be made to be very beautiful. The only downside is that it's under heavy development right now, and in consequence can be a little quirky.

Misbah · 2008-03-10 21:50:36

deleted

Last edited by Misbah (2012-02-14 06:01:22)

fwojciec · 2008-03-10 22:10:33

I'm not sure if you can use xfce with fluxbox, but you can use xfce with openbox. Here's a link that describes how it's done: http://icculus.org/openbox/index.php/Help:XFCE/Openbox

bgc1954 · 2008-03-11 01:42:12

Like skottish, I've got to vote for E17. I'm running it on a 32 bit machine, a 64 bit machine and an old IBM Thinkpad laptop. It's got as much or little eye candy as you like and contrary to public opinion is quite stable. It takes up little space on your hdd and is fast. I take any and all opportunities to promote it.

Last edited by bgc1954 (2008-03-11 01:42:51)

TechDragon · 2008-03-11 04:30:26

how do I call forth e17 at build? What are the negatives, what can't it do? I heard somewhere that you have to combine it with another wm such as xfce to get the required functionality.

bgc1954 · 2008-03-11 04:59:53

Depends on your login manager. If you use a .xintrc with slim or startx you add exec enlightenment_start. If you use the enlightenment login manager, entrance, I believe you pick from a session menu but I'm not entirely sure as I've never liked entrance myself. With gdm or kdm you can pick from the sessions menu.

I don't know of any negatives but I'm biased. You can run kde, gnome, xfce4, etc. apps. You pick what you want. Most apps will add to the menu on their own but some will need to be added manually with configuration=>configuration panel=>applications=>new applications.

I've never had to add another wm for functionality. I use E17 but also run thunar (xfce app), graveman (gtk app), k3b on my desktop (kde app), gnucash (gnome app) ...etc... etc. It will run anything you throw at it.

Last edited by bgc1954 (2008-03-11 05:01:19)

junglepeanut · 2008-03-11 05:25:51

I switched a lot in the beginning. Gnome to KDE to XFCE to icewm to fluxbox back to icewm etc. Now I just use ratpoison and feel no compulsion to use the others except I have them all installed ,compiz-fusion installed too. I do this because I like ratpoison but when people see me working they "know" I am using linux and normally think ugh, thats to hard, its ugly, its crap etc. But then I will quit ratposion and show off kde, gnome, others etc then finish with compiz-fusion to show off. I find this normally gets peoples attention to how powerful and customizable linux is.

blu3ness · 2008-03-11 06:35:05

what junglepeanut said

i use awesome and openbox primarily, occasionally gnome and kde4 to show the cool tricks to my friends

schivmeister · 2008-03-11 07:05:31

I've been using KDE religiously since the beginning of mankind, not because it helped my migration to Linux from Windows (I couldn't have even given a quarter of my 2-litre piss), but because it did a good job at providing centralization yet remaining modular. I didn't like GNOME's archaic look (no matter how much you skin it there is always a glimmer of fugliness), and I wanted a full DE, so KDE it was. It benefits both the power user and the no0b.

I then discovered Enlightenment, and was amazed at how I could revitalize a 400MHz Windows 95 machine into looking as sexy as Mac OS X. But that's about it, at this stage E17 isn't a full environment yet.

Along the way I grabbed Xmonad, for times when I only need to get my job done as fast as possible, in as light an environment as possible.

Last edited by schivmeister (2008-03-11 07:07:10)

phisphere · 2008-03-11 08:35:27

Well, i have arch64 with gnome install and it's quite snappy (compared to fedora or ubuntu). But i also have openbox and awesome installed for occasional use. So gnome itself provides solid base for installation (basic apps and libraries) and then you can use *box or tiling window manager with backup option when something brokes.
Also i get the feeling if i use lighter wm i always tend to configure it all the time (cause it's cool) and no work is getting done.
But my suggestion is to install gnome and then seek out for different wm's.

Verner

danielsoft · 2008-03-11 10:58:14

I use icewm from cca 2004, I made two distro changes, but I stick to this WM: it has everything I need (taskbar, keyboard shortcuts,skins/themes , menu) and doesn't have what I don't need

my screenshot

wuischke · 2008-03-11 15:25:56

I use Xmonad now, but I can recommend (and use) OpenBox as well. Both are fast and do what I want them to do. Plus there's no big panel, i.e. my small laptop screen is used as well as possible nor a confusing menu (It may sound stupid, but I get confused by the menus in Windows/Gnome/KDE/...).

skottish · 2008-03-11 15:52:11

TechDragon wrote:

how do I call forth e17 at build? What are the negatives, what can't it do? I heard somewhere that you have to combine it with another wm such as xfce to get the required functionality.

E17 doesn't really have much of any useful apps. But, you can use anything you want from other projects. GTK2 and QT apps can share clipboard information, so copy and paste is a non factor. For theming, there's pretty much a GTK2 theme already made for every popular E17 theme. I use only GTK2 and QT4 apps, nothing that depends too much on Gnome or KDE at all, and quite a few apps from XFCE.

As far as log in managers go, Entrance is very nice and is working on both my 32 and 64 bit machines.

Last edited by skottish (2008-03-11 21:16:10)

schivmeister · 2008-03-11 19:10:06

And did I mention I have entrance log me in to KDE?

Sjoden · 2008-03-11 19:42:31

bgc1954 wrote:

...I don't know of any negatives but I'm biased....

No ponies.

bgc1954 · 2008-03-11 19:47:22

Sjoden wrote:
No ponies.

I must be too old to understand that one.

TechDragon · 2008-03-12 11:14:16

Does kde 4 work well with arch?

I searched for enlightenment in the repo and found 16.8 something is this e17 if not where do I find e17?

skottish · 2008-03-12 12:41:28

TechDragon wrote:

I searched for enlightenment in the repo and found 16.8 something is this e17 if not where do I find e17?

It's in the community repo under e17-cvs. It's actually 20 packages or so.

gejr · 2008-03-12 13:01:26

danielsoft wrote:

I use icewm from cca 2004, I made two distro changes, but I stick to this WM: it has everything I need (taskbar, keyboard shortcuts,skins/themes , menu) and doesn't have what I don't need
my screenshot

I agree icewm has everything you need and lacks everything you don't, but it can't be denied that it looks like pure crap. It's like windows 95 or worse.

I've been using awesome for months now, but I also like openbox, and would sincerely recommend it to anyone.

Last edited by gejr (2008-03-12 13:02:40)

Arch Linux

#1 2008-03-10 18:31:23

Desktop manager ?

#2 2008-03-10 18:35:53

Re: Desktop manager ?

#3 2008-03-10 19:24:26

Re: Desktop manager ?

#4 2008-03-10 19:44:13

Re: Desktop manager ?

#5 2008-03-10 20:34:12

Re: Desktop manager ?

#6 2008-03-10 20:45:26

Re: Desktop manager ?

#7 2008-03-10 20:46:05

Re: Desktop manager ?

#8 2008-03-10 21:50:36

Re: Desktop manager ?

#9 2008-03-10 22:10:33

Re: Desktop manager ?

#10 2008-03-11 01:42:12

Re: Desktop manager ?

#11 2008-03-11 04:30:26

Re: Desktop manager ?

#12 2008-03-11 04:59:53

Re: Desktop manager ?

#13 2008-03-11 05:25:51

Re: Desktop manager ?

#14 2008-03-11 06:35:05

Re: Desktop manager ?

#15 2008-03-11 07:05:31

Re: Desktop manager ?

#16 2008-03-11 08:35:27

Re: Desktop manager ?

#17 2008-03-11 10:58:14

Re: Desktop manager ?

#18 2008-03-11 15:25:56

Re: Desktop manager ?

#19 2008-03-11 15:52:11

Re: Desktop manager ?

#20 2008-03-11 19:10:06

Re: Desktop manager ?

#21 2008-03-11 19:42:31

Re: Desktop manager ?

#22 2008-03-11 19:47:22

Re: Desktop manager ?

#23 2008-03-12 11:14:16

Re: Desktop manager ?

#24 2008-03-12 12:41:28

Re: Desktop manager ?

#25 2008-03-12 13:01:26

Re: Desktop manager ?

Board footer