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What is your favourite desktop?

Posted: 24 Jul 2011, 22:42
by fanthom
Here is the poll about user preferences regarding desktops. Here you can talk freely about advantages/disadvantages of each one.

Be aware that this poll is only for statistical information and the final result wont be obligatory for the development team.

i would personally hate to see Gnome winning. (YES - lets start the flame war!)
ofc i have voted on KDE-4 and if you want to get a help from me in the future then better do the same (even if you are 32bit user and never seen kde-4) :P

Re: What is your favourite desktop?

Posted: 24 Jul 2011, 23:18
by BlackRider
None of the two big desktop envirnments shoul be used in a Live system. Both Gnome and KDE are big, sluggish and bloated. This is not much an issue when you use them in a traditional OS, but if you are running from a Live CD, lightweight and speed are mandatory. Let's face it: KDE4 is slow even when it runs from RAM. Bad thing. Gnome would be even worse, as its dependencies are very invasive. Damn, Gnome3 demands you to install systemd!!! :wall:

XFCE is faster than the former, but it uses more resources that people uses to believe.

For me, the better options are LXDE, some other standalone window manager (Openbox, Fluxbox) or even a tiling window manager (wmii). They don't demand as many dependencies, are light, take less room...

The final decision depends of the target user of Porteus. Do you target Geeks? No? Then forget about wmii. KDE and Gnome have plenty of wizards to keep new guys happy, but also to annoy me :O: and slow Porteus down. They are supposed to be more funtional, well... I don't really think so. I can do with LXDE what Gnome users can do with a Gnome wizard, but LXDE starts in no time and Gnome lasts an eternity.

Re: What is your favourite desktop?

Posted: 25 Jul 2011, 02:15
by francois
LXDE to me, does not look as good as xfce. But isn't more a question of the possibility of the desktop. How these two, xfce and lxde perform in terms of possibilities compared to gnome and kde?

I used to dislike gnome, because it was not very sexy. However, I like very muche the way it looks under Mint.

Putting kde aside, will let out a lot of possibilities in terms of metapackages, the kde suites.

Re: What is your favourite desktop?

Posted: 25 Jul 2011, 09:41
by blablotin
XFCE for me! It is more beautiful than LXDE. For the working, there are some un-understanding issue for LXDE with PCman: when I am in live CD even in toram and idle, hard drive are working although every partitions are unmounted.

Re: What is your favourite desktop?

Posted: 25 Jul 2011, 10:58
by BlackRider
I know nothing about the disk access issue you mention. Have you tried to shut the drive down with hdparm?

In any other live distribution which uses LXDE (and there are many), PCmanfm does not piss the drive off unless demanded.

I would like to say that LXDE can be very beautiful If you tweak it. You can even use Compiz with it, if you are into eye-candy. However, I think that beauty is worth no much if your Desktop Environment is slow as a tortoise.

You can have a look at my Debian LXDE here: http://www.esdebian.org/foro/30269/mues ... o?page=315
(look for Black Rider)

For eample, I am writting this lines in Elinks browser, and know what? Elinks is a terminal browser. Not beautiful, not fancy, but extremely fast under unstable networks. Iceweasel might be very "featured" and "pretty", but when the difference in resources usage and speed is so big, it turns into a bad option.

This is why I prefer simple and basic graphical environments. Your desktop shoul be designed so you can manage your windows around, not to be a "beauty" for the shake of "beauty".I feel this is more true when you are working in a limited environment, such as a Live CD.

Re: What is your favourite desktop?

Posted: 25 Jul 2011, 11:31
by 82issa
I prefer the smaller lighter desktop environments. I don't use kde or gnome because of bloat. I have always been a minimalist when it comes to putting together almost anything. So you may not want to add my vote for lxde.

Re: What is your favourite desktop?

Posted: 25 Jul 2011, 18:48
by crashman
General i agree with 82issa but my favorite is xfce and fvwm.

Re: What is your favourite desktop?

Posted: 25 Jul 2011, 19:54
by Blaze
i vote for Image Gnome 3 - i think it's cool desktop Image

Re: What is your favourite desktop?

Posted: 25 Jul 2011, 19:57
by Hamza
@Blaze,
Please explain correctly your answer. I understood what is your answer, but I am not sure that all members will understand correctly.

Thank you.

Re: What is your favourite desktop?

Posted: 26 Jul 2011, 07:28
by Blaze
Hamza,
I watched this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdpKqtoDoMs and Gnome 3 was pleasant to me.
I want to see this desktop in the next release of Porteus.

Re: What is your favourite desktop?

Posted: 26 Jul 2011, 09:37
by beny
well i vote to e17 in 10 boot 8 i am in e17 desktop environment,but kde it is ok.

Re: What is your favourite desktop?

Posted: 26 Jul 2011, 09:43
by BlackRider
I don't think YouTube is a reliable way to decide if you like or dislike a Desktop environment.

The problem with Gnome is that it has very invasive dependencies, that could affect the inners of the Distribution itself. I don't know how beautiful is Gnome, but a Desktop that forces you to use a determinated booting system (systemd in this case) is not serious at all. Gnome 3 even demands you to have 3d acceleration, so it is not an option if you need the portability Porteus would need. OK, you can use the fallback mode, but what is the point of Gnome 3 if you use it as if it was Gnome 2?

For those who want a GTK desktop in Porteus, LXDE and XFCE are better options.

Re: What is your favourite desktop?

Posted: 26 Jul 2011, 11:17
by 82issa
very sexy feature of gnome3 I think I need to change my vote.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lepXx1kDelo

Re: What is your favourite desktop?

Posted: 31 Jul 2011, 20:26
by XmnemoniC
I voted for KDE-4 because Porteus should look good for users. :)
......and sorry for my English. I learn it. :D

Re: What is your favourite desktop?

Posted: 01 Aug 2011, 13:16
by blablotin
crashman wrote:General i agree with 82issa but my favorite is xfce and fvwm.
fvwm is on my repositery for i486 porteus. http://www.mediafire.com/?1aajy7ar5l3vb

I have converted fvwm crystal from ubuntu into xzm module, so don't ask me to configure fvwm myself :evil: