KDE, Gnome, xfce4, Fluxbox etc.

rivitir · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 04 Oct 2005 Posts: 105

OK, first off I want to ask everyone to please don't let this thread turn into a blood bath of which X is better. The reason I'm starting this thread is because I currently use KDE, I love it's configurability, and all the programs it comes with. However, is seems to be some what unstable or at least a little buggy on my system. So I would like to try some other display managers out, but I want to see what all of you think are the good and bad sides of each of them are.

I'm really wanting something that is configurable, appealing to the eyes, easy to navigate, and preferably light weight.

Thanks for all your input.

broken_chaos · Posted: Mon May 15, 2006 8:23 pm Post subject:

For what you want, perhaps try Fluxbox (for just a window manager) or XFCE (for more of a complete desktop).

bekkra · n00b Joined: 13 Sep 2004 Posts: 57

For a user coming from KDE or Gnome, falling back to a custom enviroment will seem empty, or poor. However, the *box window managers will give you a good foundation: a window manager and an application menu, plus some simple utilities. You can then add monitors, desktop managers, a composer, but all of this will be your own work, which may be fine if all you want is control, but it may become challenging in a changing environment, as you get nothing for free.

I was a blackbox, then later a fluxbox user, but for almost a year now, I have been using XFCE, because of its simplicity. It is much less developed than the two major desktops, but it gives you a solution somewhere between a completely manual set-up and a complete environment. I do not often recommend this, but the unstable XFCE line is worth the risk; it feels stable for me and it is almost finished as it seems. Why don't you try it ?

Other than the change of paradigm ( from a "desktop environment" to a "window manager with custom tools" ), you could try less unstable packages. Maybe Gentoo makes it too easy to update often, but you don't *have to* do that all the time

So, fluxbox will be blazingly fast, but aw so bare... and xfce MIGHT be worth a try.

Good luck !

//
_________________
Bugs don't "go away" ( Steve McGuire )

psycophobia · Guru Joined: 08 May 2005 Posts: 510 Location: uk

The enlightenment desktops are nice to use and there is lots of configuring, well there was for me anyway

The new version that is here http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_emerge_e17 comes with warnings,I Installed e16 "enlightenment" and its great.
Fluxbox, openbox,IceWM,FVWM I think are all great, have fun

Nice place to look http://themes.freshmeat.net/browse/59/

rivitir · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 04 Oct 2005 Posts: 105

I trying xfce, I've tried it before but this time I'm going to give a little more time with it. I like how light it is, I just wish is was more configurable (I've only tryed the gui config, havn't looked into editing config files yet). I like everything that I found when I ran: