What Do YOU Look For in a Desktop Linux? How Do YOU Choose?

[MikeWalsh]

We're not talking about application icons or shortcuts.
The wife wants to be able to right click on any web page or website and create a desktop shortcut or icon just like she does in Windows.
I'm using Puppy Linux and cannot right click on a web page or website and create a desktop shortcut.

So.......your "better half" has a desktop covered in web-site addresses?

(sheeesh)

Boy. I know I would get very, VERY confused if I started doing that. I'll keep my bookmarks where they belong - in the browser! - thank you very much. I don't want mine scattered around, cluttering-up the place like a bunch of sticky Post-It notes. It'd drive me up the wall.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~​

But it does go to show just how "set in their ways" many people become. Your wife's got used to doing things this way; I daresay she's quite happy with her set-up. Of course, she then goes somewhere else where this capability doesn't exist, and.......suddenly, it's a MASSIVE problem. Because she hasn't retained the flexibility to be able to switch from one method to another, mid-stride, without missing a beat.

And she's not alone in this. Oh, no. I honestly get the impression that 90% of computer users don't actively interact with their systems at all. Instead, most of the time they're on "auto-pilot", following a pre-set routine, which they've learnt "by rote"......to the point where much of the time, they're not REALLY there!

And if they are, you can pretty much guarantee they're barely paying attention.


Mike.

 

[atanere]

The wife wants to be able to right click on any web page or website and create a desktop shortcut or icon just like she does in Windows.

Have you watched her do this? I have Windows 10 both on bare metal and in a virtual machine, and I don't see this option when I right-click on anything. Instead, Windows 10 works just like I described above for Linux Mint Cinnamon... that is, drag-and-drop the padlock icon from the browser to the desktop to create a shortcut.

Even Microsoft Edge behaves this way.

Or I'm missing something? (It wouldn't be the first time! )

 

[sphen]

We're not talking about application icons or shortcuts.
The wife wants to be able to right click on any web page or website and create a desktop shortcut or icon just like she does in Windows.
I'm using Puppy Linux and cannot right click on a web page or website and create a desktop shortcut.

I'm confused by this, because it seems to work for me "right out of the box". I just drag and drop the address itself from the address bar to the desktop, and an icon appears. If I double-click the icon later, it launches the default browser and goes to the website just as the wife would expect.

(I have a friend who has been working on a website. He wanted me to see it and test it as it evolved. I wanted to watch it from a dedicated, separate, independent system, so I set up a Linux Mint Cinnamon, opened the default Firefox, entered the URL, saw the page, and then drag-n-dropped the icon on the desktop. That's all I did. Thereafter, I booted the system, logged in, double-clicked the icon on the desktop, did the work for my friend, shutdown. Repeat as needed.

The only difference that I see is I am running all those .iso distributions and have not tried Puppy Linux yet.

Here are the distros that I currently have in VMs for evaluation, so I booted them all and tested them quickly:

• Linux Mint Cinnamon: Tested and works. See text above.
• Manjaro - Tested and works. A mini-dialog-box appeared and showed me the parameters and icon that would be used. I could have changed them, but clicked the OK button and the desktop icon appeared.
• Zorin - Tested and works.
• Pop OS - Tested and works.
• Debian 12 Cinnamon, administrator account - Tested and works.

What simple thing am I missing about this question?

 

[KGIII]

Why, for God's sakes?

I'm using Puppy Linux and cannot right click on a web page or website and create a desktop shortcut.

shrugs

I can't say a darned thing about Puppy other than to say I've played with it in the past.

 

[craigevil]

20+ years on running Debian on too many systems to count. Never saw the need to really give any other distro a real try. Oh I played around Puppy and others over the years, but Debian has always been my main OS.

 

[The Duck]

Have you watched her do this? I have Windows 10 both on bare metal and in a virtual machine, and I don't see this option when I right-click on anything. Instead, Windows 10 works just like I described above for Linux Mint Cinnamon... that is, drag-and-drop the padlock icon from the browser to the desktop to create a shortcut.

Even Microsoft Edge behaves this way.

Or I'm missing something? (It wouldn't be the first time! )

I have not watched her do this although she uses dual monitor set up and has a pile of desktop shortcuts or icons on them.
She learned how to do this where she used to work.
Seems like I remember her saying she had to change something with the desktop Windows shell maybe I don't know.
Her desktop don't look like the standard Windows 10 default desktop.
I don't know anything about Windows 10 don't use it much.

 

[The Duck]

I'm confused by this, because it seems to work for me "right out of the box". I just drag and drop the address itself from the address bar to the desktop, and an icon appears. If I double-click the icon later, it launches the default browser and goes to the website just as the wife would expect.

(I have a friend who has been working on a website. He wanted me to see it and test it as it evolved. I wanted to watch it from a dedicated, separate, independent system, so I set up a Linux Mint Cinnamon, opened the default Firefox, entered the URL, saw the page, and then drag-n-dropped the icon on the desktop. That's all I did. Thereafter, I booted the system, logged in, double-clicked the icon on the desktop, did the work for my friend, shutdown. Repeat as needed.

The only difference that I see is I am running all those .iso distributions and have not tried Puppy Linux yet.

Here are the distros that I currently have in VMs for evaluation, so I booted them all and tested them quickly:

• Linux Mint Cinnamon: Tested and works. See text above.
• Manjaro - Tested and works. A mini-dialog-box appeared and showed me the parameters and icon that would be used. I could have changed them, but clicked the OK button and the desktop icon appeared.
• Zorin - Tested and works.
• Pop OS - Tested and works.
• Debian 12 Cinnamon, administrator account - Tested and works.

What simple thing am I missing about this question?

I've used Linux for a while but have never tried any of the Linux distros you have listed.
I've used Linux Lite and have just trid Lubuntu LXQT.
My Linux Lite desktop just died so no Linux Lite at the moment.

https://linux.org/threads/my-desktop-died.45635/

I'm now left with Puppy Linux installed as a frugal on a usb flash drive on the desktop I installed Lubuntu on for the wife to learn Linux on.
Some days it just seems like Murphy is kicking my behind with everything I do.
May just be easier to buy the wife a new Windows computer and give up trying to get her to use Linux.

 

[sphen]

I've used Linux for a while but have never tried any of the Linux distros you have listed.
I've used Linux Lite and have just trid Lubuntu LXQT.
My Linux Lite desktop just died so no Linux Lite at the moment.

https://linux.org/threads/my-desktop-died.45635/

I'm now left with Puppy Linux installed as a frugal on a usb flash drive on the desktop I installed Lubuntu on for the wife to learn Linux on.
Some days it just seems like Murphy is kicking my behind with everything I do.
May just be easier to buy the wife a new Windows computer and give up trying to get her to use Linux.

Well, I guess it is time for me to see what Puppy Linux is about.

By the way, after reading the above more carefully, I understand that your wife wants to right-click in the address bar and create the icon from there. Not drag 'n' drop. Got it.

I tried the right-click all around the address bar in Linux Mint Cinnamon and Manjaro. No joy. There was a drop down menu, but it was edit items like Cut, Copy, and Paste.

Very late edit:
I accidentally left a duplicate of the the "P.S." here so I deleted it now. It is the start of the next post...

 

[sphen]

P.S., about 45 minutes later:

I just spun up a fully patched Windows 10 Pro virtual machine and logged in as an unprivileged user on a local account. This is a "plain vanilla" Windows 10 setup for testing purposes, so no other browser is installed there.

I launched the default Edge browser, went to Microsoft's website as an example, and right-clicked around the address bar. I also looked in the Settings for the Edge browser.There are many customizations, but Edge does not include a right-click-makes-desktop-icon feature. I looked on the web and found comments saying that, too.

Could the right-click-makes-desktop-icon be a feature that is available only in certain browsers, perhaps? Does it require some kind of add-on or extension?

I FOUND A POSSIBLE SOLUTION:
I think that the right-click-makes-desktop-icon feature is specific to the Chrome browser. I installed Chrome on the Manjaro Linux. I launched it, went to Linux.org, and clicked:
3-dots menu -> More Tools -> Create Shortcut. A desktop icon (with Linux.org's penguin logo) appeared. When I double-clicked it, I got a dialog box about file permissions and concerns for third-party applications. I can't get it back, but the choices included a launch once and a mark as executable. I did the latter, and double-clicks launched the Chrome browser.

Chrome is doing something different with shortcuts. Before I ran the test in Manjaro, I tried it in Chrome on Mac. Instead of creating the typical Mac shortcut (alias) icon, it created a small app and put it in a Google Apps folder in the local user Applications folder that I created in my personal unprivileged account. Few Mac users do that. I think Chrome looks for a local Applications folder first, before /Applications. My hypothesis about Mac apps and that "executable" (??) in Manjaro is: Google uses it to force the shortcut to launch Chrome, even if it is not the default browser, which it was not on that Manjaro installation.

In my opinion, the Chrome "solution" is too complex for @The Duck's wife.

 

[greenmarty]

We're not talking about application icons or shortcuts.
The wife wants to be able to right click on any web page or website and create a desktop shortcut or icon just like she does in Windows.
I'm using Puppy Linux and cannot right click on a web page or website and create a desktop shortcut.

In that case (at least in Firefox on Linux Mint FXCE) it works the same way as on Windows.

You drag and drop little "lock" icon next to web page address to your desktop.

Also in Windows 11 i don't really see way of right click doing that. So again if you get her new Windows she will be in same situation IMHO

Hopefully i have not misunderstood again

Edit. People have commented this above, i didn't see those comments until refreshing the site. i didn't mean to repeat it needlessly.

 

[sphen]

Well, I guess it is time for me to see what Puppy Linux is about.

I give up on Puppy Linux. Apologies to those who are fans and advocates.

I looked at the live trial of FossaPup 9.5 64-bit in a VMware virtual machine. The basic operational paradigm is different than the other distros I looked at.

I have been trying to get a basic installation up and running to see what it is like in real-world usage. It has not gone well. If it were not for the Puppy people here, I would have given up and moved on early in the process.

Basic installation documentation is scattered all over the internet. Much of it is old and has gone unmaintained. It does not quite match what I am seeing. I also tried "just doing it", but ran into issues with various steps, including Grub2Dos. This is just a basic VMware guest installation to try it in a real usage scenario. If I am fighting with it up front, that is not a good sign. Perhaps it is me and my style of working; that's okay - to each their own.

Bottom line:
It was an interesting experience and I learned about a very different usage paradigm. Puppy is too different to consider as a long term solution for an eventual migration from macOS to Linux for the computers here. Nice try, but no cigar.

 

[f33dm3bits]

I just install what I want to run and then install whatever I need and want to use. When it comes to DE's it evolved over time, I started out with Gnome2, then Gnome3 came and I switched to MATE, then later Xfce and thento Cinnamon. I ran Cinnamon for quite a while, then somewhere before the pandemic I switched to i3wm and shortly after I tried and run Sway for a while. About a year ago I switched to KDE Plasma because I had never tried it and about two months ago I switched to Gnome 44.

To get back to the question it kind of evolved over time but since the question is about now, when I look for something in a desktop I want something easy to use and modern looking, good Wayland support because I would like to move to Wayland rather sooner than later(but there are still some issues with Wayland so I am still using X11). Something that I can customize a bit if I want to but don't have to. So currently the two that fall into that category are KDE Plasma and Gnome, so there you have it! I hope that helps @sphen!

Just one comment Gnome3 was a nightmare because it was constantly crashing and I didn't understand the new Gnome workflow then, also the reason why I switched to something different then. Since I have used two tiling Window Managers in the last couple of years and found out what actually the Gnome workflow is, I have gotten to like Gnome because it's a slick modern looking desktop and limited amount of settings and where you don't get lost in the settings. Still customizable and it has similar concepts of work-spaces like with tiling Window Managers without having to go through setting everything up manually.

I still like KDE Plasma but I just like Gnome more now and I just don't think tiling window managers are worth my time anymore, since I just like to get to work without having to install and configure every little part of my setup.

 

[MikeWalsh]

@sphen :-

Oh, it's not just you, mate. Many folks run into issues with "our Pup".

For one thing, anybody who's got used to mainstream distros will find problems when they go to do a lot of stuff in the terminal. Puppy uses Busybox, and that uses a stripped-back subset of the standard Bash commands. Yes, you can install the commands you want, but that's all extra work.

GRUB2 has trouble recognising Puppy's initrd.gz. It can see the kernel, but it doesn't seem to know what to do with it....

If I'm honest, I think the biggest problem is that Puppy has never had a single, central 'team' to handle & co-ordinate all development work. Most Puppy releases are usually the work of a single individual, and, once released, don't tend to get much - if any! - in the way of follow-up maintenance and/or updates. The usual thinking is that if you want to update, install a newer Puppy....

We have a single individual who handles development work on the Woof-CE Puppy 'build' system over at Github. This individual believes the Debian model is the one Puppy should follow, but there's much resistance to this idea within the community. He IS now tailoring the build-system to include the apt-get / Synaptic package management system, regular updates, and working toward fully-integrating both Wayland and Pipewire into the OS, but many community members don't like the way this is heading.

Allied to the installation "issues" is the fact that there's been much development work on various new & 'improved' installers over the last few years, each one of which has their adherents & detractors. We really need, as a community, to decide on ONE specific installer, and then spend as much time as is necessary to make that system as easy-to-use and user-friendly as possible. But the community being what it is, that seems as far off as it's ever been.

I wouldn't say the community is fragmented. Many of us are in full agreement that a better system needs implementing.....but, as usual, nobody wants to step forward and take the lead. Everybody is waiting for someone else to make the first move, so as always, nothing gets done.

When Barry K was the "benevolent dictator", things progressed steadily, year on year. He stepped-down in 2015-16, and handed over the reins to another member of the community. That individual has now all but finished their involvement with the community.....yet no-one seems certain of what the next step is going to be.

Unless a more formal framework/leadership/development model is forthcoming, Puppy is destined to remain a minor, hobbyist distro.....and will NEVER progress further.

(shrug)


Mike.