Favorite Desktop Environments (1 Viewer)

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Since my introduction to Linux in December, with Ubuntu 9.10 and Mint 7, I've also been experimenting with different distros and their default desktops in VM environments. Just experimenting, trying to teach myself new things.

In addition to the Ubuntu and Mint Gnome desktops, I'm also pretty fond of the OpenSUSE 11.2 KDE desktop, due to its professional appearsance; and the Zenwalk 6.2 X desktop is kinda cool with its level of graphical simplicity.

In greatly simplified terms, from the graphical perspective of a newbie observer/user, it seems the X desktop is the simplest, most "cartoon-like" in graphics; KDE is the most "polished" and sophisticated; with Gnome being somewhere in between. I can appreciate them all, for different reasons, but find myself partial to Gnome, prolly based on familiarity, rather than some sort of preference. But I wonder if I have the "correct" desktop environment for ME?

But that got me wondering...my observations are based on superficial appearances. I'm wondering if some of you Linux gurus can shed some light on what is "under the hood" for each of these desktop environments. Advantages and disadvantages of each? Which do you prefer, and why? Or is it truly just a matter of personal preference based on superficial appearances?

Just wondering...
 
When it comes to Gnome and KDE, I don't think there's any real advantage from one to the next. It's really all about taste. I prefer Gnome simply because it gives a cleaner desktop and the menus are very basic. KDE always seemed too cluttered. I can have Gnome running, and still install KDE programs such as K3B, a disc burning program, so you're not really limited by certain programs if you choose one over the other. At least as far as I can tell.

When it comes to the various OS's, I've settled on Ubuntu. I've tried most. And keep in mind that I'm pretty much a noob. But I kind of break them down into 2 catagories, RPM-based (Fedora, Suse, etc) and Debian-based (Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, etc). It all boils down to what you prefer. Some, such as Suse, have pretty much removed any reason to need the command line.

Also, I should add that you have the painful-based (Gentoo). You'll find several threads that I started with Gentoo, but I never could get it to work properly and I just got frustrated with it. What's cool about Gentoo is that you start from scratch. You start off creating/formatting your partitions, then creating a kernel, and compiling each program you want. I learned a lot about Linux basics with Gentoo. You just have to have time and patience, 2 things I lack.
 
When it comes to Gnome and KDE, I don't think there's any real advantage from one to the next. It's really all about taste. I prefer Gnome simply because it gives a cleaner desktop and the menus are very basic. KDE always seemed too cluttered. I can have Gnome running, and still install KDE programs such as K3B, a disc burning program, so you're not really limited by certain programs if you choose one over the other. At least as far as I can tell.

When it comes to the various OS's, I've settled on Ubuntu. I've tried most. And keep in mind that I'm pretty much a noob. But I kind of break them down into 2 catagories, RPM-based (Fedora, Suse, etc) and Debian-based (Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, etc). It all boils down to what you prefer. Some, such as Suse, have pretty much removed any reason to need the command line.

Also, I should add that you have the painful-based (Gentoo). You'll find several threads that I started with Gentoo, but I never could get it to work properly and I just got frustrated with it. What's cool about Gentoo is that you start from scratch. You start off creating/formatting your partitions, then creating a kernel, and compiling each program you want. I learned a lot about Linux basics with Gentoo. You just have to have time and patience, 2 things I lack.

For anyone else who cares to know, I found this article which does a pretty good job of explaining what's "under the hood" for each:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/ar...hoose_a_linux_desktop_environment.html?cat=59

Personally, I also lean toward Gnome, but there are some KDE features that I wish were in Gnome...for instance, I really like the KDE icons over their Gnome counterparts...just not enough to switch to the KDE environment. I'd like to customize my Gnome with more options than are currently available, but not as many options as KDE provides...too many choices for me!

I've zero'd in on Ubuntu also...they seem to be the most "user-friendly" for Windows migrators like myself. Additionally, they seem to have spawned the most derivative distros, which tells me other Linux users are using it as a baseline to "roll their own"...that speaks volumes to me! According to Distrowatch.com, a 6-month rolling average of distro-download popularity, the five (5) most popular distros right now (in order) are Ubuntu, Fedora, Mint, OpenSUSE, and Mandriva; the 6th most popular is Debian. Including #6, 3 of the 6 most popular are debian-based; and Mint is basically Ubuntu in a green wrapper!

Tried them all, liked them all for different reasons, but staying with Ubuntu. You have me curiious about Gentoo though. When I have some more free time to experiement, I'd like to do that and see what knowledge comes of it! Thanks for the tip!
 
You can probably find an icon set like the one you saw in KDE (I'm imagining it's one of the oxygen or air ones). I really like the ClearLooks OSX ones I'm using now. Like Buickman I prefer the simplicity of the Gnome menus. For style, I actually have more of a KDE look. I use an Emerald theme I customized from something like Nice and Clean. I use Cillop for my controls (buttons/scrollbars) and Chameleon for my pointers. You can definitely mix'n'match and customize just about anything for your look. Whether you use KDE or Gnome. The biggest differences are in the menus, how you get to things and the file manager. I prefer Gnome's Nautilus to Dolphin, so because of that and the menus I go with it, but either one can be customized to bring over a lot of the things you like about the other.
 
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You can probably find an icon set like the one you saw in KDE (I'm imagining it's one of the oxygen or air ones). I really like the ClearLooks OSX ones I'm using now. Like Buickman I prefer the simplicity of the Gnome menus. For style, I actually have more of a KDE look. I use an Emerald theme I customized from something like Nice and Clean. I use Cillop for my controls (buttons/scrollbars) and Chameleon for my pointers. You can definitely mix'n'match and customize just about anything for your look. Whether you use KDE or Gnome. The biggest differences are in the menus, how you get to things and the file manager. I prefer Gnome's Nautilus to Dolphin, so because of that and the menus I go with it, but either one can be customized to bring over a lot of the things you like about the other.

Like you, I prefer the simplicity of Gnome menu, but it does need more style...the Gnome icons are either very plain, or very cartoonish. I much prefer KDE icons.

Ironically, I found the Emerald Theme designer and Gnome Colors earlier this week, but I'm not sure they'll allow me to customize the shape of windows decorations in the manner I want to.

How about a screenshot of your custom Emerald Theme? I'd like to see what tweaks you can make with that program?!
 
I've been in a monochromish mood, so it may be a bit gray. I'm missing Seattle weather :) The window buttons pulse with a blue halo (red for close), and I think I have menus and terminal both at about 60% opacity.

I also have a couple of sets of additional animations in compiz and have most of them on random, but close fixed to "Beam Me Up". I'm totally in love with the bright Clear Looks OSX 3 icons. It took a while for me to get them to install though, as the Appearance app didn't like the longer folder name it used. Once I shortened up the folder name to ClearLooksOSX3 they installed just fine. It's a pretty complete set. I like the little ones in the menus, but absolutely love them in Nautilus. It makes it nice and easy to recognize what kind of files you're looking at.

 
Gnome, KDE = meh! I find them both too bloated.
My wife likes Gnome so I have to keep it installed on the home system.

I use Openbox, mostly.
http://openbox.org/wiki/Main_Page
You can actually run openbox inside gnome/kde :idunno:
There is Thunar, from xfce, that is a nice file manager that uses less juice than Nautilus.
http://thunar.xfce.org/index.html

My "other" wm is what I use when I am in the terminal all day and most likely the worst spelled application, ever!
http://www.scrotwm.org :covri: Bad name, good stuff.


Galbreath34, I see you use Banshee?
I like it best on *BSD, but have found gmusicbrowser to be the best in Linux (at least for me). Pretty sure it is in most Linux repos these days.
http://gmusicbrowser.org
 
Honestly, I don't listen to enough music to care that much about it. I'm mostly browsing with TV on in the background at home. I've been trying lately to be good about saving music vids I listen to on YT, so eventually that may wind up being my music library. I'll definitely give the gmusic browser a looksee. I just relocated back to Pullman this weekend and haven't figured out where I'm gonna set up my nettop yet, so I'm on the Windows laptop for a night or two.
 
How bout freeDOS! j/k First post, trying get 5 post to PM someone!
 

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