Manjaro with XFCE

TheProf

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I've been playing around with Manjaro XFCE edition in a VM. I find Manjaro did a really good job of customizing the XFCE theme... I compared it to the EndeavourOS XFCE install, the Manjaro version looks way better out of the box.

Sorry, short post, probably fit for a tweet or something, but with all the Linux folks on here, figured I'd start a convo and get other folks opinion. Do some of you chose a distro mainly due to looks out of the box, or is more related to other things, like package managers, release types, etc?

Btw, good work team Manjaro.
 


I don't think anyone in their right mind would choose OOTB looks though. I mean customization is one of the strong points of Libre OSes. I'd never (it's pointless for me anyway because I have "My Theme" which I pretty much setup on any distro). Functionality or philosophy will always come first. Most Debian users are more on the philosophy side, i.e. they tend stronger towards Libre than functionality, however they're willing to accommodate situations where people want/need to use closed-ware. I'm somewhere in the middle because I agree philosophically, but only because I value my privacy and vendor-user trust. I wouldn't care about FOSS if I didn't want privacy/trust, and control. Ubuntu users are more on the functionality side of things. It's nice to be "free" by their own definition, as in free of Windows, but they're more than happy to include closed-ware as a part of their everyday routine. Arch users are sort of hybrid, but a more hyper version. Their philosophy is complete control, simplicity (example: no unwanted managing of the user, no "helpful" installers), functionality/compatibility at all costs (they support less platforms to optimize this, they'll use proprietary software without blinking because Linux is a choice of OSS for functionality to them, not a philosophical protest against MS or Apple).
There are many more "types" and what I've written above is superficial at best. Someone here should do a distro version of a Myer's Brigg's test for OS-personality type. It'd be fun, lol.

Anyway, no, I don't think any experienced user would, but many newcomers and novices may. For newcomers, it's because a lot of them have the MS/Apple mentality of "this is what the OS looks and functions like" regarding the DE. So to them, a Kubuntu OS is a completely differentu OS to a Xubuntu or vanilla Ubuntu. Even though a vanilla Ubuntu can be stripped, configured, etc.
On the other hand, some, emphasis on some, novice users may be a little lazy because they don't have the experience to setup/customize their DE, so they may just choose whichever is closest to their needs OOTB.
The novices and newcomers are probably the only reason that the big distros offer different DE spins.
Anyone at intermediate level and up is going to want to control their DE. They probably would like a base to work with, so that's the advantage of distros offering several preconfigured DEs to choose from in the installer.
With me, when I started with pure Debian, I used to install only the base system, then Fluxbox -- and later XFCE. I avoided display managers like the plague because I liked starting an X session if and when I wanted to and I was OCD about "bloat". The world changed and so did I and I'm sure most users feel like this: install the preconfigured desktop and change it because installing things component by component is arduous and one reason I quit Fluxbox. These days IDC that LightDM gets installed, I just disable it (trying to purge it breaks things). I copy my backup of my old XFCE config onto my new install, then just fix whatever doing that breaks, smooth the rest out. The whole process is under an hour (I obviously install all my software beforehand). I do the same with all my applications' configs.
I think most others will agree here as well, but even if you had to choose a distro and only use the OOTB config of the DE, it's better to go for functionality/performance over eyecandy.
That's my verbose take, anyways.

TheProf said:
I've been playing around with Manjaro XFCE edition in a VM. I find Manjaro did a really good job of customizing the XFCE theme... I compared it to the EndeavourOS XFCE install, the Manjaro version looks way better out of the box.
[...]
Btw, good work team Manjaro.
IDK, last Manjaro I used was 19 IIRC and their XFCE looked awful IMO. Someone recently showed me a screenshot of their Gnome DE and it looked really good. Ironically for me, XFCE default looks decent in Debian's preconfig, but Gnome looks hideous. Of course that is preference, too.

TheProf said:
Sorry, short post, probably fit for a tweet or something, but with all the Linux folks on here, figured I'd start a convo and get other folks opinion. Do some of you chose a distro mainly due to looks out of the box, or is more related to other things, like package managers, release types, etc?
Oh, I made up for that for you, man, lol.
 
I agree with you on the fact that I think a lot of new to Linux users will definitely prefer a nicer desktop that resembles their OS.

Another example could be that the DE has most of the configuration done so it makes it easier to just add/remove some additional settings and make it your own. But for sure, no distro should be picked only based on looks. I think that having a good looking desktop, or should I say, a themed desktop to a certain extent would definitely be more appealing to new users. Either way, Linux is highly customizable so any distro can be made to look which ever way you want it to, but if you're new, you might not know that right away, but eventually figure it out if you stick with the OS.

I am just speaking from experience. For me, it was basically picking a distro that I thought would fit well with my goals and at the same time, I went for something that I found to be visual appareling to use. At that time, I liked Fedora + Gnome, but these days I am on EndeadvourOS with KDE Plasma. I think a lot of the fun comes from discovering the different things you can do.

My thought about DEs, was more around, picking a DE that you find visually appealing to use for a better user experience, regardless of the distro, although depending on the distro you go with, out of the box experience could be different.

Funny thing is, after using Windows for many years, and now even MacOS for work. I find Linux to be the best looking OS thanks to the larges amounts of customization you can do in different DEs. Windows has rainmeter which can do a lot of cool theming, but not at the Linux level. Either way, we all have a preference to how we want our desktop environment to look like, picking one that actually looks good to use might make the new user stick around longer.
 
Edit: typos
Do some of you chose a distro mainly due to looks out of the box, or is more related to other things, like package managers, release types, etc?
Hi there.

I am using Manjaro since mid last year, coming from Debian. Here are the drivers for me to select my Linux distribution, from most to least important.
  1. Frictionless DE-of-my-choice experience. I almost never customise the appearance of the desktop; if anything, I set up a couple of extra keyboard shortcuts. I just want the distribution to not get in my way at all. In my case, this is all around Gnome because particular reasons that don't really matter --apply this to your DE.
  2. Scriptable / very minor tasks after reinstall. I make some heavy experimentation sometimes, so I always have a very streamlined set backups for both my home directory (duplicity / deja dup) and some snapshots for / (Timeshift). No matter what, I want to be able to "flip the switch" and start over in a matter of a cup of coffee. A distribution that doesn't make me boil the ocean after install has most of the possible points. Manjaro is one of them.
  3. Either plenty of software (Arch and Manjaro have pacman + all flavours of sandboxed repos and AUR) or the most standardised compilation environment to ensure I can get all what I need (Debian lives in this other side of the spectrum)
  4. Hardware Codec support out of the box. Sometimes I encode video; when I do, I want the system to have built-in ready to install support for my hardware, either VA-API or NVENC.
I have to say that, in this case, Manjaro's schema of releases (rolling release) is a problem for me. Sometimes you need a 200kB package and, for that package and its pulled dependencies to not break everything, you must upgrade the system first. Sometimes that upgrade before your tiny package takes GiB to download, so beware!

Btw, good work team Manjaro.
Indeed!
 
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i don't really care what my distro looks like i only had a couple of criteria:

1) Can i get done, the things i want to, without too much work on my part
2) Do i think i can find my way aroind the os and think that with a bit of a learning curve i will be able to do more after reading up docs etc
3) Can i understand and not have to put too much effort into getting extra software as requirments come up

So for example i was on slackware14.2 php version was nowhere near 7or 8
php frameworks i wanted to play with needed at least 7. So that meant either having to install 7 or look for alternatives

Then i got a new laptop wifi card was not recognised have i ever compiled a kernel etc I can yes to that but why stress myself. So i shifted to slackware "current" then i just got fed up with effort of installing software.

I looked at Debian - i read up on it but package management and their approach with testing old , very old and priority of pkg system. So i dabbled with Arch derivitves when opportunity arose.

Really liked EndeavourOS which i installed on a spare laptop then my wife gave it away as a present to her neices. So i then had a go with Arch vanilla. To my brain fits like a glove - been able to do everythin i want so far
 

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