[Desktop environment] What do you use ?

T

timfa21

Hello world !
I want to have a desktop environment / window manager which is powerfull / customizable.
I don't know what should I use... Gnome ? It is gnome 3.28.2 instead of gnome 3.36... It is a bit old...
LXQT ? It's not really supported (like cinnamon ?). Plasma ? (a little old too...) Open/Fluxbox (dead ?)
I can't choose...
So, what is your DE / WM ?
What can you recommend to me ?
 
KDE5 Plasma on my desktop. Because my desktop is current hardware and plasma looks really good.
i3 On my laptop. Because i3 is basically all I need anyway.
 
You're asking for personal preference and that's going to get responses of all kinds from all over the place. The only way to find out is to try them yourself and search for suggestions to this same question asked hundreds of times before all over the internet.
 
I'm using MATE for the following reasons :

- Its interface is clean, simple, consistent and intuitive => no training required, close to what people are already used to with Windows.

- Its utilities are well finished and featureful (in particular, the date format can be configured in the file manager and the image viewer displays EXIF data) => no need to install diverse additional utilities with inconsistent look and feel.

- It is very easy to customize the default configuration of the desktop to improve user experience on first login => little or no need for further per-user customization.

But as drhowarddrfine said, GUI is a matter of taste and if you don't define your own evaluation criteria, you're unlikely to be more able to choose after reading our opinions than before. ;)
 
I personally use x11-wm/xfce4, but if you are using a login manager like x11/sddm, switching between environments is trivial. That would give you a chance to try several different ones out at the same time, provided you aren't space constrained.
 
I use the window manager "Window Maker", and no matter what else I'm trying: I always come back. For me, the question whether a ready-made desktop environment or a window manager is the better choice has nothing to do with "small or powerful computers", but with "am I willing to invest the work to create my own desktop environment". And so for example the Linuxers in my personal surroundings all use LXQt today (formerly they used Xfce). Apart from that I like the approach of Lumina: Few dependencies to third party components.
 
jmos said:
I use the window manager "Window Maker", and no matter what else I'm trying: I always come back.
Click to expand...

Just out of curiosity, is it only a matter of personal taste, or are there concrete, practical reasons that make you come back to Window Maker?
 
20-100-2fe said:
Just out of curiosity, is it only a matter of personal taste, or are there concrete, practical reasons that make you come back to Window Maker?
Click to expand...

My beginnings with X11 are more than 20 years ago, so a good part of my choice could actually be "personal taste". But I'll try to be a little more objective…:

No GTK, no Qt, rock-solid, no start bar - but a separate, configurable start menu on a mouse button (in my opinion, a start bar is a nice and intuitive, but not really a effective concept), no tiling (I don't like it), good keyboard handling, dockapps, "X11 root screen" available (for tools like root-tail etc.), no desktop icons (I need the desktop for windows, not to have access to applications and/or files), simple but elegant look (with a theme engine with which I don't have to use provided themes or study how to build them), "focus follows mouse" well implemented (I use it), good compromise of "all included" and "find your own tools", separate area to change a window size only vertically (also: zoom fullscreen, zoom horizontal and zoom vertical), my own setting f.e. via "xset" are (almost) completely preserved, and good transparency of all processes. A desktop with Window Maker doesn't revolve around itself, but provides a desktop for other applications - and that's how it should. And yet there is eycandy in abundance...

In my opinion Window Maker is a successful compromise between comfort and flexibility. Of course others will say the same about Xfce, FVWM2, WM2 etc. - and that's the way it should be - but such a desktop is always a very individual matter.

In the end, a desktop environment always brings me too much garbage that I don't need. While others say "don't bother, you don't have to use it", I simply don't want to have garbage installed - I don't buy a drive for that. It doesn't matter to me whether it's an irrelevant 100 KB or more - it's just unnecessary ballast that needs to be kept up-to-date. But Window Maker is almost a small desktop environment due to the presence of themes, wide configuration capabilities, start menu and the dock - you only need a file manager and you have your basic setup.
 
timfa21 said:
I want to have a desktop environment / window manager which is powerfull / customizable.
Click to expand...
So, kind of, everything at once, huh? Can you define "powerful"? Customizable to what extent? It really doesn't matter whether it's a full-blown desktop environment or just a standalone window manager?

For the full-blown desktop, I personally prefer KDE (Plasma 5). Reason: It's really well-integrated, looks and feels nice, and has a reasonable amount of configurable options (in contrast to e.g. Gnome).

Recently, I decided to take a step back and use FVWM on my desktop, because it's getting old and instead of buying more powerful hardware, let's first see what can be done at the software end of things. FVWM is what I would call powerful and customizable, but here, this means editing (potentially huge) config-files, so you *will* invest some time until you're satisfied. I'm very happy with the speed as well.
Here's the latest result: fvwm-20200316.jpg I'm using the following additional software with it, so it has enough "desktop functionality" for me:
x11/xscreensaver for screen saving, locking and energy saving
sysutils/gkrellm2 for a few stats like CPU load and email notification
x11-wm/picom as a compositing manager with a nice blurred-translucency feature (unnecessary eye-candy)
x11/stalonetray as a "systray" in my FvwmButtons-based "taskbar", e.g. for kteatime, pidgin, etc
x11-clocks/xclock the "taskbar" also needs a clock in the corner I'm used to looking for it
x11/eterm for Esetroot which sets a background image in a way that works with compositors.
x11/rxvt-unicode as a terminal emulator
 
I bounce around a lot but mostly use x11-wm/fluxbox. Light, fast and does what I need it to. I do like x11-wm/windowmaker very much but the huge desktop icons always bug me. It is light and fast as well though and does a great job as a stand-alone window manager. My favorite full blown DE is mate. Also light and fast but provides good functionality without being overly complicated. I was a long time Gnome v2 user and when Gnome moved to v3, I walked away and never looked back. Mate` gives me my good old Gnome v2 back in a way.

I do like Plasma (KDE 5) but it is so complex, in that it installs a ton of files, plus the number of config files in the user's /home is pretty large. That really doesn't matter I guess because they don't take a lot of space, but I am pretty OCD-ish about keeping my /home clean. My issue, not KDE's...functionality wise, the file manager is my favorite part. Other than that, it's too much for me.
 
I use Mac OS X at work. So I choose XFCE years ago.
But the fullscreen mode in Mac OS X change my mind. As it has a very good potential, the implementation is a nigthmare (when an app is open in fullscreen, I can not guess the place it takes. When an app make a notification, sometimes the place change sometimes no etc.)

So I decide to try a WM that only handle the fullscreen mode. Now, I am very happy with dwm.
(I search a minospaced font with the freebsd logo in some inused utf8 char... )
 
I run KDE with SDDM. Besides KDE being my favorite open source DE, that combo is the easiest to set up on FreeBSD thanks to the Instant Workstation script and the fact that there's at least once dev (the guy who wrote that script) who works on both projects (or at least works on one and uses the other.) Purely from my observation that last part is extremely difficult to find when it comes to DEs and any BSD.

My opinions (note the emphasis) on other DEs:
  • MATE: Looks good, but too barebones for 2020. If Gnome hadn't developed systemd dependencies MATE would have no reason to exist
  • XFCE: Development too slow
  • LXDE: Basically an ugly MATE. If you have more than 4 GB RAM don't use this, the tradeoffs aren't worth it
  • LXQt: Gaudier LXDE
  • Gnome: The only real alternative to KDE in terms of raw functionality, IMO. Unfortunately it now has a lot of systemd dependencies that make support of other OSes difficult
  • Cinnamon: The DE for Windows XP/Vista refugees and people who stopped learning new personal computing paradigms and concepts after XP
  • Budgie: Insufficiently widespread to be relevant or well supported
  • Solus: See Budgie
  • i3: The "Do you even lift, bro?" option. Only hardasses, masochists, and greybeards need apply. Normal people with things to do should look elsewhere
  • Pantheon: Cinnamon for macOS refugees and people who need current gen Mac horsepower but can't afford a new Mac
If you don't like KDE, I'd choose XFCE, if only because FuryBSD supports it (as it does KDE) so it's relatively easy to get it up and running. If you don't like either of those 2, use MATE.

Current gen DE RAM usage arguments aren't meaningful unless you have less than 16 GB RAM.

Gnome may be tempting but you're gonna have a bad time with it on FreeBSD.
 
I'm testing MATE now, I think it is a great agreement between Gnome and KDE. But I've heart that mate will include some dependencies with systemd in a future release...
So, I will test Xfce too...
And, why not FVWM after all ?
 
timfa21 said:
But I've heart that mate will include some dependencies with systemd in a future release...
Click to expand...

Where have you heard that?
And what kind of dependencies?

I like the simplicity of XFCE too, but I don't use it because it has stopped halfway between a window manager and a desktop environment: it comes with some utilities but without the same functional coverage as MATE and with a lower quality finishing.

Furthermore, its last version brings some changes I wouldn't call 'improvements'. And customizing its defaults is difficult, poorly documented and unreliable.
 
20-100-2fe said:
Where have you heard that?
And what kind of dependencies?

I like the simplicity of XFCE too, but I don't use it because it has stopped halfway between a window manager and a desktop environment: it comes with some utilities but without the same functional coverage as MATE and with a lower quality finishing.

Furthermore, its last version brings some changes I wouldn't call 'improvements'. And customizing its defaults is difficult, poorly documented and unreliable.
Click to expand...

I've heard that on linuxfr.org :
"MATE est en cours de développement pour intégrer de nouvelles technologies (systemd, GTK+ 3, Wayland, etc.) tout en préservant un environnement de bureau traditionnel."
So, in english : "MATE is being developed to integrate new technologies (systemd, GTK+ 3, Wayland, etc. ). while preserving a traditional desktop environment."
 
FYI, if you want to quickly experiment with various desktops environments, try sysutils/desktop-installer.

On a modern machine with a fast Internet connection, you should be able to fully configure any of the lightweight desktops in well under an hour. KDE will take longer, of course.
 
I primarily use x11-wm/dwm, a tiling window manager. It's not for everyone. Works great with some applications, awkward with others. Certainly lightweight. Has a learning curve.

make config gives some handy options for it, including switching to the meta (Windows/Super key) from alt as the modifier.
 
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