What Desktop Environment do you use?
- Thread starter dos2unix
- Start date
Well, I guess y'all know that Puppy is - of course! - unique here.
In 'standard', OOTB trim she doesn't use a 'DE' at all. Various Puppy spins do use XFCE, Plasma or LXQT (where their authors have specified this).....but as built by Woof-CE - and thus 'official' - our Pup's 'DE' is constructed from the JWM window manager in conjunction with ROX-Filer's "pinboard" extension....which integrates the file-system into the 'desktop' & everything connected with it.
I've used XFCE before now - used to quite like it! - yet despite everything being controlled via XML files I have to confess that I like the ROX/JWM combo. Call me a dinosaur if ya like, but I guess I've just gotten used to it; it's lightweight, endlessly configurable.....and like everything else about Puppy, it's VERY 'snappy'.
(Sorry, guys; couldn't resist the pun!)
Mike.
In 'standard', OOTB trim she doesn't use a 'DE' at all. Various Puppy spins do use XFCE, Plasma or LXQT (where their authors have specified this).....but as built by Woof-CE - and thus 'official' - our Pup's 'DE' is constructed from the JWM window manager in conjunction with ROX-Filer's "pinboard" extension....which integrates the file-system into the 'desktop' & everything connected with it.
I've used XFCE before now - used to quite like it! - yet despite everything being controlled via XML files I have to confess that I like the ROX/JWM combo. Call me a dinosaur if ya like, but I guess I've just gotten used to it; it's lightweight, endlessly configurable.....and like everything else about Puppy, it's VERY 'snappy'.
(Sorry, guys; couldn't resist the pun!)
Mike.
theLegionWithin
Well-Known Member
not a fan of gnome but v50 ditched x11 entirely so I may try a distro featuring it soon just to give it a spin
Currently Cinnamon,[on LMDE] but also use gnome, XFCE,LXQT, in fact I'm a bit of a slob and will use whatever is placed in front of me by the distribution builders as long as it works
Rocketing-warp9
Well-Known Member
At Present, I use mostly KDE Plasma and XFCE, older PCs with Fluxbox, While having LXQT kicking around on a dual-GUI setup with XFCE on Lubuntu. Used to use Cinnamon, hoping to dive into that again..
I3/sway was confusing for me when I ran a SUSE VM on my M1. Might jump into COSMIC once that's ready. Also ran LXDE not too long ago. Unity was always a sweet spot for me when I ran it on a older Ubuntu install.
Boy that was a Incoherent Paragraph!
I3/sway was confusing for me when I ran a SUSE VM on my M1. Might jump into COSMIC once that's ready. Also ran LXDE not too long ago. Unity was always a sweet spot for me when I ran it on a older Ubuntu install.
Boy that was a Incoherent Paragraph!
MzQ1NjExN2
Well-Known Member
XFCE here but if I were stuck with any of the desktop environments I've used so far I would not complain.
The poll should be changed so a user can choose more than one desktop environment.
Some of us have several computers running different Linux distros using different desktop environments.
I didn't use the poll.
I'm using Gnome / Xfce / JWM-ROX.
Some of us have several computers running different Linux distros using different desktop environments.
I didn't use the poll.
I'm using Gnome / Xfce / JWM-ROX.
Same here, but I do a have a "main system" I use more than the others, so I was hoping for a "mostly use" answer.
Terminal Velocity
Well-Known Member
I think is not necessary to try them all, Xfce is too unpolished, I had problems with resolutions in the desktop, I had to make it x2 larger in order to use it, didn't liked it in general. KDE was to heavy for my computer at the time I tried it and also deeper menus than Cinnamon which is a fault and resembles Windows in a bad way. Cinnamon was my thing in the end, looks too simple at first but if you want advanced functionality it will not disappoint, it is as deep and as simple as needed and familiar for win7 users. Best desktop for me, way better than anything MIcrosoft is doing the last decade
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I understand.
I have computers in many different rooms so wherever I'm at in the house I'm near a computer.
I do the same thing with TVs and radios.
Years ago, KDE Plasma was buggy. It's far better now, and is all that we use here.
I abandoned gnome many years ago. I ran XFCE for years, but switched to Plasma a year or two ago, and have no plans to go back. Plasma works for me. Cinnamon and Mate are too rooted in the past for my tastes. But DE choice is entirely subjective, and everyone is free to use whichever they like.
wendy-lebaron
Well-Known Member
tl;dr (what is my name?)
i've used most of them. the ones spirallinux supported. but don't know what "soas" is. never used unity.
i even go once in a while. into an example of gnome desktop 3.38 which is spirallinux with "bullseye" base. don't use it with two keyboards at the same time. with one of them plugged in via usb. because "libmutter" is that horrible. latency pressing a key on a different keyboard. from the keyboard pressed just before. i have to do that. because my laptop's down-arrow key is broken. it affects me when i boot up.
sadly spirallinux budgie shared the same problem. more irritatingly so that what i've had was based on debian "bookworm"! i even installed the operating system with cinnamon desktop. because it's the only spirallinux iso i have now. then after successfully installed. requested budgie desktop. installed a few related things like the "rocket" widget. looks very nice but nemo is very slow. made me include thunar for a bit more comfort. otherwise the silly sliding animations i cannot stand. with xfce as well. by default plain debian "bullseye". won absolutely with xfce and lxqt. while spirallinux was a foul shot. spirallinux was best with kde plasma.
similarly i tolerate cinnamon offered by spirallinux. can i say it here? i hate linux mint otherwise. sorry, i don't think that desktop is the wave of the future. neither is cosmic. something based on qt or other gui toolkit, please.
mate, well meh. i used to have manjaro for several months. but its partition wound up marked read-only. that's why eventually i had to ditch it. i could never get better comfort than that. i do have debian "bookworm" with mate desktop. as one of my daily drivers. but that manjaro with mate was better. even with "dark" mode. and sometimes its refusing to resize windows. and the stupid compositor it has behaving itself. mate had other annoying problems for me. such as refusal to set the system clock from user preferences. the dialog is totally shut out. on that operating system i vaguely named. installed "ntp" software but still wouldn't set the clock from internet properly. i liked the menu from sparky linux. so i installed it into my debian with mate. as a result it takes twice as long, or longer. after it does the dumb panel roll at the bottom. before it shows desktop icons and becomes ready. it used to be "one-two-bang!"
mate also has a serious bug with the panel. as of 1.28 it still hasn't been fixed.
plasma... (sigh) it's beautiful, yes it is, it's like a princess. but i resist all its charms. yes i have more kde around than i really should. this includes the three latest versions of q4os! purposely put in "oxygen" theme for "andromeda." discovered sloppy "trixie" maintainers. didn't really test it thoroughly for compliance with qt6. if i keep talking about plasma here. i might lull some of you to sleep. besides someone else could do it better than me. a really famous dude whose name starts with "d".
i had "i3" three times. once i had an installation of manjaro borking itself. thanks to that infamous "five minutes hurry before you're locked out of your own spit!" even worse, this was while it was trying to finish a full-system update. once prepared endeavouros for it. but i didn't like it. also tried archbang. before they went into their name-changing spree. it was lightweight and fast. but i had to abandon it. because i had to install pulseaudio. or something else to do something about weak bass sound. while playing back music.
generally i felt fluxbox. especially done by antix and mx linux. was so awesome, made me dislike all other simple window managers presented like desktops. bunsen labs berrylium should have been at the top. but it was too top-heavy. consumed more memory than one of my kde plasma examples. with the same debian "bullseye" base. slackel with openbox. and with some lxqt elements. somehow consumed about half the memory. not much more than 350mib. but i dislike openbox for other reasons. didn't like jwm. or that other one that came with "linuxfun". or that distribution by this hyper-sensitive developer. once i commented somewhere about his distribution. and he snapped at me. so i don't care if his fugly theme. and the window manager he used. were better than openbox or anything else.
finally the people commenting on trinity. but probably not even regularly using it. i actually tried to acquire rebornos. to see how it was like and failed. their calamares was too sloppy. "pacman" kept failing to download packages. this was while i still had unlimited internet. i did get that desktop from q4os. within an hour i installed it with kde plasma instead. sorry but it wasn't like windowsxp enough to me. konqueror is one of the stupidest programs. i've ever encountered trying to do many things at once. imagine having to use that instead of firefox?
i've used most of them. the ones spirallinux supported. but don't know what "soas" is. never used unity.
i even go once in a while. into an example of gnome desktop 3.38 which is spirallinux with "bullseye" base. don't use it with two keyboards at the same time. with one of them plugged in via usb. because "libmutter" is that horrible. latency pressing a key on a different keyboard. from the keyboard pressed just before. i have to do that. because my laptop's down-arrow key is broken. it affects me when i boot up.
sadly spirallinux budgie shared the same problem. more irritatingly so that what i've had was based on debian "bookworm"! i even installed the operating system with cinnamon desktop. because it's the only spirallinux iso i have now. then after successfully installed. requested budgie desktop. installed a few related things like the "rocket" widget. looks very nice but nemo is very slow. made me include thunar for a bit more comfort. otherwise the silly sliding animations i cannot stand. with xfce as well. by default plain debian "bullseye". won absolutely with xfce and lxqt. while spirallinux was a foul shot. spirallinux was best with kde plasma.
similarly i tolerate cinnamon offered by spirallinux. can i say it here? i hate linux mint otherwise. sorry, i don't think that desktop is the wave of the future. neither is cosmic. something based on qt or other gui toolkit, please.
mate, well meh. i used to have manjaro for several months. but its partition wound up marked read-only. that's why eventually i had to ditch it. i could never get better comfort than that. i do have debian "bookworm" with mate desktop. as one of my daily drivers. but that manjaro with mate was better. even with "dark" mode. and sometimes its refusing to resize windows. and the stupid compositor it has behaving itself. mate had other annoying problems for me. such as refusal to set the system clock from user preferences. the dialog is totally shut out. on that operating system i vaguely named. installed "ntp" software but still wouldn't set the clock from internet properly. i liked the menu from sparky linux. so i installed it into my debian with mate. as a result it takes twice as long, or longer. after it does the dumb panel roll at the bottom. before it shows desktop icons and becomes ready. it used to be "one-two-bang!"
mate also has a serious bug with the panel. as of 1.28 it still hasn't been fixed.
plasma... (sigh) it's beautiful, yes it is, it's like a princess. but i resist all its charms. yes i have more kde around than i really should. this includes the three latest versions of q4os! purposely put in "oxygen" theme for "andromeda." discovered sloppy "trixie" maintainers. didn't really test it thoroughly for compliance with qt6. if i keep talking about plasma here. i might lull some of you to sleep. besides someone else could do it better than me. a really famous dude whose name starts with "d".
i had "i3" three times. once i had an installation of manjaro borking itself. thanks to that infamous "five minutes hurry before you're locked out of your own spit!" even worse, this was while it was trying to finish a full-system update. once prepared endeavouros for it. but i didn't like it. also tried archbang. before they went into their name-changing spree. it was lightweight and fast. but i had to abandon it. because i had to install pulseaudio. or something else to do something about weak bass sound. while playing back music.
generally i felt fluxbox. especially done by antix and mx linux. was so awesome, made me dislike all other simple window managers presented like desktops. bunsen labs berrylium should have been at the top. but it was too top-heavy. consumed more memory than one of my kde plasma examples. with the same debian "bullseye" base. slackel with openbox. and with some lxqt elements. somehow consumed about half the memory. not much more than 350mib. but i dislike openbox for other reasons. didn't like jwm. or that other one that came with "linuxfun". or that distribution by this hyper-sensitive developer. once i commented somewhere about his distribution. and he snapped at me. so i don't care if his fugly theme. and the window manager he used. were better than openbox or anything else.
finally the people commenting on trinity. but probably not even regularly using it. i actually tried to acquire rebornos. to see how it was like and failed. their calamares was too sloppy. "pacman" kept failing to download packages. this was while i still had unlimited internet. i did get that desktop from q4os. within an hour i installed it with kde plasma instead. sorry but it wasn't like windowsxp enough to me. konqueror is one of the stupidest programs. i've ever encountered trying to do many things at once. imagine having to use that instead of firefox?
Not a lot of point in my voting, I'd have to vote 7 times, lol.
Wiz
Wiz
Fedora Sugar on a Stick Spin
Sugar on a Stick is a Fedora-based operating system featuring the award-winning Sugar Learning Platform and designed to fit on an ordinary USB thumbdrive ("stick"). Sugar sets aside the traditional “office-desktop” metaphor, presenting a child-friendly graphical environment. Sugar automatically...
It's short hand for "Sugar On a Stick". The link above is a fedora spin, but I've seen it on other distro's.
Soas, is kind like Puppy is a way, it's meant to be ran for a USB drive, not as an installer, but as an installed
OS. Having said that.. it does have it's own unique interface. It's actually not a bad kids spin.
I don't know that would recommend this spin for adults, as most of the apps are geared for kids.
I would have added a few more, Cosmic and Miracle come to mind. But the poll only allows 10 choices.
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@wendy-lebaron, you can remap that down-arrow key to another key you don't use often. Maybe not really convenient, but more convenient than using another keyboard for one key.
MzQ1NjExN2
Well-Known Member
Same can be said about Xfce. I've tested Xfce and Cinnamon the most out of any distro on all my machines. In the end I found Xfce to be superior. You can do more with it than Cinnamon and its smoother and faster. I had a powerful six core laptop and Cinnamon was a bit laggy on that to my surprise. I'm still testing KDE out but it looks like it could beat Xfce for me. One con for me was I spent like two hours trying to set up a second panel/task bar on KDE which took like 5-10 minutes for me on Xfce.
I use KDE on a 2013 chromebook and it actually runs decently. The thing only has 4 GB RAM and it never went over the RAM with many, many browser tabs open. Might want to give KDE another shot. Its supposed to be lighter than what it used to be in the past from what I read online.
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