What's the best desktop environment?

ravenstyles

what environment do you use? why? where can i find the pros and cons for all the different desktop envirments (kde, gnome, etc...)

ecatmur · Posted: Mon May 24, 2004 1:06 am Post subject:

-1, Troll
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ravenstyles · Posted: Mon May 24, 2004 1:09 am Post subject:

grooveman · Veteran Joined: 24 Feb 2003 Posts: 1217

I am a KDE man myself. I find it to be pretty tight, very customizeable, and easy on the eye. Of course, gnome is very good too, but my personal opinion is that KDE is the best desktop environment for a workstation -- period. (yes, better than Windows and Mac OS).

If you want full features, as far as I know, those are your two options.

If you want something lightweight, check out fluxbox, wamia, openbox, or windowmaker. I usually put fluxbox on a server just in case (If I put anything graphical at all).

If you are used to windows or Mac OS, the only real options are Gnome or KDE.

G
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ecatmur · Posted: Mon May 24, 2004 1:12 am Post subject:

Sorry, but that (short of "what's better, vim or emacs?") is the easiest way to start a flame war. I'll find you some links where this has already been discussed ad nauseam and then get an moderator to lock this thread.

OK:
https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=170713
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Hypnos · Posted: Mon May 24, 2004 1:16 am Post subject:

Art deco is a fun working environment -- intriguing, yet somehow timeless.
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ravenstyles · Posted: Mon May 24, 2004 1:18 am Post subject:

dont have it locked thats gay...

provicemo

routerguy · Guru Joined: 07 Feb 2004 Posts: 462

You're just asking for a flamewar. There is no definate best desktop, as they are all so different and hard to compare. Myself, I like XFCE4, because it has a good balance of minimal design and eye candy and makes good use of GTK 2.x. I did have to customize it a little, though. For example, I think that the taksbar and menubar are horribly outdated features and I removed them both.

Aurisor · Guru Joined: 20 Sep 2003 Posts: 361 Location: Boston MA

You'll probably find this link helpful. It has descriptions of all of the window managers out there. Sure, it's a bit outdated, but you'll get the idea.

http://xwinman.org/

Lews_Therin · l33t Joined: 03 Oct 2003 Posts: 657 Location: Banned

Raven, trust me on this one. This is like getting a few Jewish/Cristian/Muslim/Hidu/Buddhist fundies together and asking them which religion is best.

Short version:

KDE is very integrated with itself. It has probably most of the apps you will need at any given moment. It is a massive resource hog, both in memory/CPU/hard drive space.

Gnome: like KDE, except quite a bit less integrated with itself and has better integration with a lot of popular programs (Firefox, GIMP, etc).

Fluxbox: fairly easy to install, use, and change the look of. You'll have to install your own filemanager/web browser/text editor/etc.

FVWM: more like flux than KDE/Gnome, but you can probably program it to do anything (I am not exaggerating). Manual is absurdly long, not good unless you're brave and have a lot of free time.

KDE/Gnome are enviroments. That means that they come with most of the apps you will need.

For somebody new to Linux, I would really go KDE...the apps have a level of integration surpassing Windows (except they work :wink:

), and everything is pretty unified. You'll give up a pretty good chunk of space on your drive, but until you get more experience with Linux, you'll be glad for it.

Gnome is like KDE, except catering to a different widget set (apps look different). It seems to be mostly a loose conglomeration of apps that work together (and sometimes interoperate), rather than the mesh that is KDE. Of course, it is also quite a bit easier to upgrade Gnome than KDE.

Fluxbox is just a window manager with a few associated apps and scripts. Unlike Gnome/KDE, you get no browser, no filemanager, nothing except bare-bones GUI utilities that came with your X-Server (xterm, xman, etc). With the right configuration it can be much faster and easier to use than either KDE or Gnome, but without experience I wouldn't use them (think installing Gentoo from Stage 1 with about half the documentation). It's fairly easy to change the configuration, but said configuration is somewhat more limited than...

...FVWM! I'm using this right now. This is definately for people who want things their way and damn the torpedoes. It runs, in a way, without a configuration file...but it doesn't have such luxuries as minimization, more than basic apps, or anything other than a supremely ugly color scheme. Configured properly (this can take weeks or even months) it will blow all others out of the water in both speed and efficiency. But I really wouldn't want to unless you like reading manual pages and sample configuration files.

To people whos favorite WM/DE/Whatever wasn't featured...oh well. I've never used any others. These are the experiences I've had.

Sotol · Apprentice Joined: 09 Apr 2004 Posts: 192

This type of question gets asked alot. It makes me think we need a gentoo user *favorites* page somewhere on the site. Something that lists, say, the 5 most popular apps of each kind of category with descriptions of why they're used.

Sometimes I wonder things like this myself. For example, I've been curious about the easiest way to program a GTK2 app (gtk#, C, python, etc.). Don't need to answer that. But a favorites type page could easily answer questions like this.

Given M. Sur · Posted: Mon May 24, 2004 5:31 am Post subject:

kamagurka · Posted: Mon May 24, 2004 2:43 pm Post subject:

do i detect a couple of sensibleerection people here?
-1 flamebait
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plate · Posted: Mon May 24, 2004 3:42 pm Post subject:

Terminating the umptienth attempt to discuss desktop environments. ravenstyles, search before you post, please, and add to the oldest thread you can find.

Everybody else, do spare us the voting nonsense. :roll: