Which desktop system do you recommend?

bjorntj · Guru Joined: 01 Jun 2005 Posts: 402

I have been using Gnome for awhile but there are a lot of small things I don't like, so I am thinkg about trying something else.. (and not KDE)
Which desktop system should I try?

(I need to run both Gnome apps and KDE apps, but that shouldn't be a problem?)

Regards,

BTJ
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spOOwn · Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 9:16 am Post subject:

Let's try xfce , it is much more light than gnome or kde !

And if you want one more lightweight than this one, use fluxbox, really fast x windowing system, this is the one I prefer .
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bjorntj · Guru Joined: 01 Jun 2005 Posts: 402

And dual screen is no problem with xfce or fluxbox?

BTJ

zoni · Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 9:46 am Post subject:

xfce has excellent support for that, and it's what I'd recommend you to try out first as well. I wouldn't know about Fluxbox, though I'm pretty certain it would run after some tinkering.

spOOwn · Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 10:07 am Post subject:

I don't known if fluxbox support it, but it will probably needs more tweaking than with xfce I think.

If you only used kde or gnome, the best choice for you will probably be xfce, as it is easier to use at the beginning.
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bjorntj · Guru Joined: 01 Jun 2005 Posts: 402

How about support for switching keyboard layout on the fly? (is it included in the window manager or do I need to set it up using xorg.conf? )

BTJ

bjorntj · Guru Joined: 01 Jun 2005 Posts: 402

zoni · Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 10:27 am Post subject:

bjorntj · Guru Joined: 01 Jun 2005 Posts: 402

zoni · Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 10:42 am Post subject:

Sorry for any confusion, the edit referred to the general question of 'What desktop would you recommend', not the keyboard layout switcher thingie

I think the panel plugin could do what you want, but only via a mouse click.. There are probably non-desktop specific commands for it as well though.

bjorntj · Guru Joined: 01 Jun 2005 Posts: 402

zoni · Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 10:56 am Post subject:

I'd stick with the recommendations of xfce then. It's not as lightweight as one of the *box variants for example, but it's still very fast and lightweight nonetheless, without loosing much of the features something as huge as gnome/kde offers you.
It also has a built-in compositor which, although nothing as fancy as compiz, does give some pretty transparancy effects.
You can also have compiz take over from xfce's WM without many issues if you really do want all the fancy effects. (I played with it a good while ago and it worked pretty well that time)

B-one · n00b Joined: 24 Mar 2008 Posts: 59 Location: France

yngwin · Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 1:31 pm Post subject:

If you want something light and simple, I'd recommend openbox or pekwm. If you want a full desktop environment, I recommend kde (3.5, not 4).

B-one: you can always use applications from other environments, it doesn't matter which DE or WM you are using.
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zoni · Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 1:53 pm Post subject:

You can run gnome/kde apps on any desktop environment. However, to start a kde/gnome application, all the underlying programs needed by kde/gnome respectively have to be started up as well.
It doesn't really matter on a modern PC, though if you were tight on resources you'd likely notice the added ram/cpu usage.

To do this loading when you start xfce, as opposed to when you start the first kde/gnome app, you can go to Settings->Sessions and Startup and enable the "Launch Gnome/KDE services on startup" checkboxes under the advanced tab.
You can do it manually too, I'm pretty certain it's "kdeinit" for KDE, though for Gnome I have no idea.

You will have the default KDE theme/colors though. xfce is gtk based, which means gnome apps will look and feel the same, but KDE being qt based means they won't blend in unless you put in effort.

B-one · n00b Joined: 24 Mar 2008 Posts: 59 Location: France

Thanks zoni and yngwin for your answers.

zoni, you say that all the underlying programs needs to be started up as well. So, if my idea was to get a faster environment with xfce, will it be slowed down by this background kde-running ?

Pandor · Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 10:23 am Post subject:

while1 · n00b Joined: 18 Sep 2007 Posts: 17 Location: Lund, Sweden

Maybe a little late but if you are looking for a fast and configurable window manager check out FVWM. It is not that nice looking in the standard config but if you give it a little time configuring, the look and feel is awesome.

pilla · Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 12:11 pm Post subject:

Moved from Desktop Environments to Gentoo Chat.
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Zvezdichko · n00b Joined: 25 Apr 2008 Posts: 23

KDE 4.0.3 - my favourite, unfortunately it's hard masked.

yngwin · Posted: Sat May 03, 2008 8:04 pm Post subject:

Zvezdichko · n00b Joined: 25 Apr 2008 Posts: 23

It's quite stable on my machine:

http://www.linux-bg.org/cgi-bin/y/index.pl?page=gallery&key=403240189&layout=clean

it almost never crashes.

alistair · Retired Dev Joined: 15 Jul 2005 Posts: 869

bladdo · Guru Joined: 19 Jul 2004 Posts: 334 Location: NJ

pekwm, fast, pipe menus, light... what more do you need

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i92guboj · Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 3:05 am Post subject: