Best *nix Desktop Environment/Window Manager/whatever

[aleflamedyud]

What does "DX" mean?

OK, just spent a while trying out CairoDock. It's far better than Avant, and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants a Linux Dock. While it's not perfect and polished yet, it's got more features and cool eye candy than Avant, such as multiple "views" for a dock (such as curved, 3D plane, parabolic, rainbow, et al) and "sub-docks" (think Stacks from OS X) accessible as launcher icons from your main dock. You can use one of the built-in themes, customize one of the built-in themes to your liking (what I did), or even write your own theme if you're really OCD about your desktop experience.

[b.i.o]

I actually really like Aqua, but it's not the best I've ever used.

The best goes like this. Start with GNOME running on top of Compiz Fusion. Reconfigure the hot keys to behave like OS X for the "Expose"-type functions (ie: show windows of current desktop, show all windows, show desktop) and shifting between virtual desktops. Add the desktop cube and curved desktop plane that I can see by pressing F8 (just like Spaces), both with reflections. OK, now take away the bottom panel and replace it with Avant Window Navigator or some other Dock-like application. Add the "brightside" package to enable hot-corners. Turn on the Ring Switcher for Alt-Tab. Use window snapping. Oh yeah, and turn on window previews.

NOW you've got the best desktop and GUI I've ever used. I don't actually understand why Ubuntu bothers to ship with its normal Windows-imitation appearance and hot-keys instead of imitating Mac style (but with the 3D effects and animations available on Linux).

EDIT: It appears Cairo-Dock might be better, but it requires either compiling from source or sourcing to Cairo's own package repository. Hence why I didn't know about it. Lemme go try it!

Well it might have something to do with the fact that doing that would make a lot of people's computers crash and burn when trying to run Ubuntu. That might give you a whole lot of eyecandy, but some of us like our UIs to be as responsive and quick as possible, not as flashy as possible.

[TheGZeus]

Well it might have something to do with the fact that doing that would make a lot of people's computers crash and burn when trying to run Ubuntu. That might give you a whole lot of eyecandy, but some of us like our UIs to be as responsive and quick as possible, not as flashy as possible.

Aye.

I've pared my computer down to the most useful/responsive programs/interfaces, mostly command line work, and keyboard controls for nearly everything.

Approachability VS Usability.

I'll start a thread on that in a bit.

[aleflamedyud]

I actually really like Aqua, but it's not the best I've ever used.

The best goes like this. Start with GNOME running on top of Compiz Fusion. Reconfigure the hot keys to behave like OS X for the "Expose"-type functions (ie: show windows of current desktop, show all windows, show desktop) and shifting between virtual desktops. Add the desktop cube and curved desktop plane that I can see by pressing F8 (just like Spaces), both with reflections. OK, now take away the bottom panel and replace it with Avant Window Navigator or some other Dock-like application. Add the "brightside" package to enable hot-corners. Turn on the Ring Switcher for Alt-Tab. Use window snapping. Oh yeah, and turn on window previews.

NOW you've got the best desktop and GUI I've ever used. I don't actually understand why Ubuntu bothers to ship with its normal Windows-imitation appearance and hot-keys instead of imitating Mac style (but with the 3D effects and animations available on Linux).

EDIT: It appears Cairo-Dock might be better, but it requires either compiling from source or sourcing to Cairo's own package repository. Hence why I didn't know about it. Lemme go try it!

Well it might have something to do with the fact that doing that would make a lot of people's computers crash and burn when trying to run Ubuntu. That might give you a whole lot of eyecandy, but some of us like our UIs to be as responsive and quick as possible, not as flashy as possible.

So basically running Compiz Fusion makes a lot of people's machines crash and burn. Fair point, it certainly slows my T22 to a fucking crawl. But if your machine can handle it, that's definitely the best user-interface I've ever used and it's extremely responsive.

Admittedly, the graphics setups currently available kind of suck. If you don't want a gaming-grade 3D graphics card, you're basically stuck with "integrated" graphics that route all graphics calls back to your CPU (AFAIK). I really don't understand why nobody offers a 2D accelerator capable of running Quartz compositing and/or a Compiz Fusion (possibly stripped down) with most eye-candy effects turned off. Window pickers, the move-windows-to-show-desktop hot-key, and virtual desktops are genuinely useful features that really don't require 3D graphics.

Also, Cairo-Dock is most definitely better than Avant Window Navigator. For one thing, it does have the ability to run in the absence of compositing with certain effects turned off. Secondly, it's far more customizable than Avant.

[b.i.o]

Well it might have something to do with the fact that doing that would make a lot of people's computers crash and burn when trying to run Ubuntu. That might give you a whole lot of eyecandy, but some of us like our UIs to be as responsive and quick as possible, not as flashy as possible.

So basically running Compiz Fusion makes a lot of people's machines crash and burn. Fair point, it certainly slows my T22 to a fucking crawl. But if your machine can handle it, that's definitely the best user-interface I've ever used and it's extremely responsive.

Best how?

From what I recall of Compiz when I was messing around with it, the vast majority of the stuff it did was useless eye candy.

There are a few useful things you mentioned, but it's not like there aren't much lighter UIs that can quite easily do the same thing.

Admittedly, the graphics setups currently available kind of suck. If you don't want a gaming-grade 3D graphics card, you're basically stuck with "integrated" graphics that route all graphics calls back to your CPU (AFAIK).

They don't route graphics calls to the CPU or they'd be even slower--it's just that they're not dedicated graphics cards and most of them don't have the horsepower to drive this kind of stuff (although AMD's newer chipsets probably do).

[tylerwylie]

I use GNOME when I have to, or when I'm lazy. On my workstation I use Fluxbox with gtk apps like gVim, leafpad, etcetera.

[Zoris]

KDE 4.1 might look nice, but it's not useable. I personally use Gnome and Xfce the most, although I did use Open Box on my Arch machine for a while. The problem with things like openbox is that it isn't a desktop environment; sure, it might be clean and fast, which I admire, but for daily use you can't just use it and not think about it. I like gnome because I don't have to think about it; the functionality is just there.

I'll consider changing to KDE is it gets less buggy. I used KDE 4.1 for a week and Kwin kept crashing and creating ugly artifacts on my screen. Otherwise I could see myself using the system if it was better quality.

[godrik]

Well, i should start with tools i use.
I am mainly writing latex on my computer.
So i use emacs, make, xfig for drawing, and xpdf to display the result.
Sometimes i am doing some programming. Since i work on low level problems, i don't need graphical tool (and yes, i am perfectly confortable with gdb)
When i do not write latex, i am doing "web stuff", browsing with conkeror (not konqueror), mailing with thunderbird (i know, i'm going to hell), chating with xchat and pidgin.
all my auxilarry tools are console-based such as calcurse for calendar, alsamixer, or mpg123 (and derivative).
The point is that i don't need my mouse for almost every classical task i perform. So i am using ion3 because i can do all window management stuff without using my mouse. I used WindowMaker in the past, and i won a lot of reactivity by going to ion3

remember, your mouse is useful for graphical stuff. I completly agree that you need a mouse wit gimp and xfig. But for most stuff it is useless and counterproductive.

[HadouKen24]

I'm using KDE at the moment, but I used to use Enlightenment 16 with Gnome, and I'm considering doing something along those lines with KDE.

Gnome is... okay. I don't have all that many complaints against it except Nautilus. But when I'm doing file management-type tasks, I'm more likely to take it to the command line, anyway. The lack of configurability doesn't bother me too much. I only bother with that kind of thing when I have a specific need for it, which isn't often.

Enlightenment 17 is gorgeous, but buggy and incomplete. I think I'll be waiting until it's release (if ever) to start using it. But I suspect I will be using it. I gave it a try a couple years ago, and really liked the direction it was going.

[AttackAttack]

When I install Fedora tomorrow, I'll be using LXDE.

I tried the main three, GNOME, KDE, and Xfce, on Ubuntu and disliked them. I also hated Ubuntu, so I didn't try any others. Fedora's a decent OS, though, so I'll be keeping around long enough to look around and play with all of them.

Fight about which one is best. This is educational for me.

[scarecrovv]

Fedora is indeed awesome (I'm using it at this moment). However, I'm afraid I can't be of much help in the GNOME/KDE/Xfce/etc. debate. I like GNOME perfectly well, and though I've logged into KDE on my system a handfull of times, all I did was setup KDM the way I liked it (I didn't like how GDM looked, and it was hard to customize, so I use KDM to log into GNOME), so I don't know much about it.

[felixalias]

Primarily I use Gnome, but if e17 was less of a pain to get working properly, I just love the look of it:

Screenshot 1
BTW, if anyone knows the name/download URL of that theme used, I'd love to know

I don't really like KDE (based on 3.0 and 3.5) that much, just because it feels too "glossed" and gimicky. The way I see it, desktop effects should serve SOME slightly useful purpose (pretty much like Mac OS X): slightly translucent terminal windows serve a purpose to me, as I can read off of text in the background. Wobbly windows are just pure useless eye candy (though fun to play with). The more eye candy, the better, however I don't like the feeling that my desktop environment is getting in my way just to try to impress me.

There is no "perfect" or one size fits all desktop environment, it is always a matter of choice. For example, I can't stand Windows XP for productive work, because with even just a few windows open, my screen is full and I can't even read the names of the windows off of the taskbar. In any Linux environment, I just hit another workspace, and in Mac OS X, I make use of Command-H (Hide all of an application's windows). I know plenty of people who are just the opposite (always with the reason of "just preferring" XP).

[Berengal]

I've only really tried Gnome and KDE, and out of those I now like KDE the best. It was very buggy and most of the time completely unusable when I first tried it, just when 4.0 came out, but now I'm enjoying it alot. What I like the best about it are the apps, of which I use Amarok and Kate the most. Plasma is also very nice, and I like the plasmoids. Xkcd, dictionary, notepad, fuzzy clock etc. I was a bit sceptical of the tight intergration at first, but I've come to enjoy it alot, even though some things aren't as plug-and-play as I'd like them to be. Still not as smooth an experience as gnome was, but it makes up for it in other ways.

[wing]

To be honest, they all suck. Gnome, KDE and other heavyweight window managers are too heavy and require too much configuration to do fiddly little things efficiently. xfce and other lightweight window managers are too lightweight and require too much configuration PERIOD and are difficult to do big, gross things with. Tiling window managers have all the disadvantages of being stuck at a TTY and the only advantage they bring from GUIland is that you can use GUI apps.

[qbg]

Fluxbox is nice for minimal memory usage, and StumpWM is an awesome window manager.

[Infernalis]

*First things first, if this threads been done post some linkage and yell at me.

So moving along, I just managed to dredge my laptop from the depths of the computer afterlife and I want to put linux on it. Now keep in mind I've never really used linux before other than a couple minutes on my roommates computer so I'm still new to the whole linux scene.

After some extensive research and googling I settled on Ubuntu for my distro and thought I was done. Then I learned that linux is a far more flexible operating system than windows and that I would need to choose a GUI for it too. KDE and Gnome seem to be by far the most popular and advanced so I'm going to go with one of them, I just don't know which one. I've done my research and I hear that neither is "better" per say, it's just a matter of user preference. Annoyingly though I cant seem to find any breakdowns of the technical differences between the two, so I though you guys might be able to help. Please feel free to be as obnoxiously technical as you like in your postings.


Something to keep in mind is that I'm really looking for something that will teach me the most about the operating system. My goal in installing linux is to learn about it.

Oh and on a side note, what's the difference between /tmp and /var?

[Marz]

Oh and on a side note, what's the difference between /tmp and /var?

• /tmp -- Temporary files (see also /var/tmp). Often not preserved between system reboots.
• /var -- Variable files, such as logs, spool files, and temporary e-mail files.
• /var/tmp -- Temporary files to be preserved between reboots.

And I use neither; when I do use X (I use the terminal most of the time), I use wmii.

[ndansmith]

Yeah, you will quickly find out KDE v. Gnome is way oversimplistic. What about XFCE, Enlightenment (and e17), Fluxbox, WindowMaker, Etoile, etc. Heck, I even ran a console-only machine for a while (complete with mail, IM, IRC, web, etc.).

Learning to use KDE and Gnome don't really teach you about Linux per se. After all, they are just the desktop environment and can run on other operating systems like FreeBSD and Solaris. If you want to learn Linux, maybe do a Gentoo or Slackware installation, or maybe use the text-mode Debian installer. There you can learn more about the nuts and bolts of Linux distros.

[Marz]

ndansmith is right; a desktop environment won't really help you learn the system - the reason why GUIs exist is so that you don't have to. Assuming that when you say you want "to learn about it", you mean you want to learn how the system works, rather than simply using it in the same way one might use Windows, it would probably be better to ignore X completely, for the time being. (This is the opposite advice I would give anyone who just wants to use GNU/Linux in order to use GNU/Linux.)

If this is indeed the case, I would suggest you install text-only Debian (that is, Debian, with all installation options (Desktop, Standard, Laptop, etc.) unticked, when it asks what you would like to install initially). Learn a few simple commands (cat, cd, cp, mv, nano, apt-get...) and learn how to administrate your personal system (expect this to take some time - GNU systems are not perfectly designed, so there is somewhat of a learning curve). This will help you learn more about the system, and quicker, than any GUI ever could. Once you know how to do this, perhaps try other systems - Arch Linux, or Gentoo, perhaps? They will further you in your education.

I'm also sure that if you have any questions, the xkcd fora will be happy to help.

(If this is not the case, and you just want to use GNU/Linux as you would Windows, install Ubuntu, with Gnome, and get on with your life.)

Edit 1: I am relatively new to GNU/Linux. I decided to abandon Windows and move on, about a year ago. However, I jumped in the deep end, destroying Windows completely, and installing a GUI-less Debian system. And a year later, well, although not a "Unix Guru", I basically know my own system inside-out. With the thick Ubuntu wallpaper, this would never have been possible.

Edit 2: I suppose the reason I believe in this method of education is because you become intimate with your system, rather than simply being a user of it. While one may use Windows, and be happy, as soon as something happens which they do not expect, it's very unlikely that they will be able to do anything about it. Those Windows apps are fine, until they stop working, and then you're absolutely lost. On the other hand, if you understand a Unix system, which consists of many tiny programs which interact and compliment eachother, if something goes wrong you can quickly devise a method of fixing the problem, because you do not own a device, you own a toolbox.

Edit 3: Just to ensure I'm not trolling or anything, I'll answer the original question, undiluted. Gnome is simple, like Windows, and is fine if you just want to use it as you would Windows. This is why I say, if you don't want to truly understand GNU/Linux, use Gnome. On the other hand, KDE is a lot more configurable, which allows it to be more modified to suit you. However, it is thus more complicated, as you can change more. It's also (delving into Religious War territory), pretty wank - too much varnish, too little table.

Edit 4: Best *nix Desktop Environment/Window Manager/whatever Merged this into there, along with a couple of other threads on the same topic - Phlip

[qbg]

KDE 4.2 (i.e. next generation technology) is coming to you in 6 days. *drools*

[b.i.o]

My overly brief summary of KDE and Gnome at the moment:
Gnome: They're doing nothing new. They rely only on tried and tested UI paradigms and generally do them well. This is why Gnome is the dominant desktop environment right now. This is also why Gnome is boring as hell and is not going to continue to be as dominant unless they start adopting some of the better new ideas.
KDE: They're doing some cool new stuff, but their implementations are (at least in my experience) less responsive and buggier than Gnome. If they can apply the necessary level of polish KDE has a chance to come back and beat out Gnome. If they can't...I fear for the future of the Linux desktop.

[OOPMan]

IEnlightenment 17 is gorgeous, but buggy and incomplete. I think I'll be waiting until it's release (if ever) to start using it. But I suspect I will be using it. I gave it a try a couple years ago, and really liked the direction it was going.

Er, try it again. I run E17 as my primary WM right now and it rocks. It's fast, very stable and extremely powerful. Additionally, when it does crash, it presents the option to just restart itself and this works very very well...

For anyone looking to try E17, I recommend the easy_e17.sh shell script. It works very well. I usually run it on Monday every weeke to keep my E17 up to date

[jaearr]

I tied WindowMaker with FVWM

When I'm frustrated with the OS X window manager (Expose-ing 8 windows on a 15in screen), I miss Gnome.
When I miss-hit the "Desktop Folder" KDE Plasma desklet when dragging and dropping, I start to wonder "for what purpose was the KDE desktop designed?"

With WindowMaker (not the one Etolie is working on, but the one GNUStep Live provides), I get a simple layout with no base UI tools at all. Bring your own file manager (GWorkspace.app maybe?), editor (Textedit.app?), and keep a 'tail' on dmesg so you can manually mount your hardware. Like CDE (I didn't see anyone mention that classic UI), its simple, gray, and hides icons in drawers. Also, the window manager menu is accessed by clicking on the desktop. It's (only(?)) annoying feature is the WM doesn't distinguish between the menu bar and the editing window, so after starting terminal.app & textedit.app you have to click on the editing window before typing commands.

[qbg]

KDE 4.2: Holy hell fuck yeah!

[Berengal]

KDE 4.2: Holy hell fuck yeah!

KDE 4.2 is the shit. I was already comfy in my 4.1 environment, appart from a few minor inconveniences, but since upgrading, I've discovered that more and more of those are gone. I've now got speak support back, not just headphones. Neither Gnome nor Windows could deal with my setup (gnome was the most intelligent about it, even though I've found linux generally sucks at sound) but now KDE has finally gone and done it properly, and selecting either is easy.

Seriously, KDE > Gnome

[Lamp]

I cannot stand desktop environments. GNOME, KDE, E17, you name it, they all make me want to gag. I'll choose my own software, thank you very much. I know my favorite apps for the things I need to do; I don't need somebody to pick them for me. I also don't need a GUI for every single thing. There are lots of awesome terminal apps, and plain text files are by far the best way to configure things, IMO.

My distro does not include any GUI by default. I've made my own streamlined setup using Openbox and lots of keybindings. I don't use a panel, and I have conky for date/time and to display my CPU usage, email, weather, disk space, and battery status. Aside from that, I have about a dozen GTK+ apps:
- Abiword
- Firefox
- Asunder (CD ripping)
- AcidRip (DVD ripping)
- Graveman (CD burning)
- Pidgin
- gtkPod
- Gimp
- Evince
- guvcview (webcam)
- roxterm

And lots of console utilities, like:
- irssi
- rtorrent
- mpc
- vi
- feh (couldn't live without it - image viewing & wallpaper)
- shellfm
- netcfg2 (Internet connection)
- scrot

...and so on. Simple, clean, fast. Just the way I like it.

[sakeniwefu]

dwm
You can't have anything better in less than 2 KLOCs.

[zombie_monkey]

Not to be pedantic, but

In addition to obviating the need for the mouse, the xmonad developers make heavy use of semi-formal methods and program derivation for improving reliability and enabling a total line of code count less than 1200, as of version 0.7;

[sakeniwefu]

Not to be pedantic, but

In addition to obviating the need for the mouse, the xmonad developers make heavy use of semi-formal methods and program derivation for improving reliability and enabling a total line of code count less than 1200, as of version 0.7;

Not counting the GHC.

[Berengal]

I'm pretty sure dwm doesn't run without being compiled first as well.

[Minstrel]

Prefer KDE 3.5, voted Gnome, but maybe that'll change somewhere between KDE 4.2 and 4.5. KDE 4.0 made me puke in my mouth a little and I gave 4.1 a shot a while ago when I installed openSUSE 11.1. A number of things still seemed to be "not there yet" so I decided to wait a few more releases.

Tried XFCE and it looks like it could make a nice desktop. Another rainy day project.

[GourdCaptain]

I'm a fan currently of LXDE and XFCE in the lightweight GUI set. XFCE is probably more practical, but there's a particularly annoying USB mount glitch that I've reported and got ignored. LXDE looks cooler (in my mind) is about as, if not more efficient, but is still in early development (I'm always nervous when I hear the phrase "No Stable Versions.")

[OOPMan]

I cannot stand desktop environments. GNOME, KDE, E17, you name it, they all make me want to gag. I'll choose my own software, thank you very much. I know my favorite apps for the things I need to do; I don't need somebody to pick them for me. I also don't need a GUI for every single thing. There are lots of awesome terminal apps, and plain text files are by far the best way to configure things, IMO.

My distro does not include any GUI by default. I've made my own streamlined setup using Openbox and lots of keybindings. I don't use a panel, and I have conky for date/time and to display my CPU usage, email, weather, disk space, and battery status. Aside from that, I have about a dozen GTK+ apps:
- Abiword
- Firefox
- Asunder (CD ripping)
- AcidRip (DVD ripping)
- Graveman (CD burning)
- Pidgin
- gtkPod
- Gimp
- Evince
- guvcview (webcam)
- roxterm

And lots of console utilities, like:
- irssi
- rtorrent
- mpc
- vi
- feh (couldn't live without it - image viewing & wallpaper)
- shellfm
- netcfg2 (Internet connection)
- scrot

...and so on. Simple, clean, fast. Just the way I like it.

Wow, what a lame post. Dude, what exactly are you trying to say? Seems to me like you're missing the point and squawking pretty needlessly.

First of, just a pet dig. E17, Ion and most of the other light WMs are Desktop Shells. They do not dictate what applications you can and should use. I know first-hand that this is espcially true of E17 and Ion. Simply put, your rant about the WM choosing your apps for you is completely retarded. Some apps may be associated with a given WM due to their reliance on shared libraries. That does not mean the damn WM is foisting the apps on you.

Secondly, holy cow. One second you're ranting about apps foisted on you by the GUI, next you're reeling of a list of GTK apps you've exonerated. Somewhat conflicted, don't you think?

Third, console for the win. I think pretty much every serious *nix user here makes extensive use of text-mode applications like ssh, vi, grep, cat and more. Granted, we don't all go as far as using console apps for every possibly thing but we're sure as hell not console virgins.

Well, blah, that's me done.

End of the day, I find my E17 svn build is simple, clean and fast. Just the way you like it. And it hasn't forced me to use applications.

[sakeniwefu]

KDE4 is getting better and better, but it is still far too unstable for me in 4.2 release. It crashes once per session for no apparent reason.
Some features are still crappy, but at least they are reported as bugs and hopefully will be fixed some day. Composition is specially buggy, maybe it works for the devs' nVidias, but it is constantly corrupting my display.
This is the first version *I* would have released as beta.

[qbg]

Composition is specially buggy, maybe it works for the devs' nVidias, but it is constantly corrupting my display.

Do you have the latest driver?

[sakeniwefu]

I do not use nVidia cards. The devs obviously are. Nothing works as it should on Intel or AMD. The bugs are there in the tracker, still open, so updates won't help. Once all the bugs are squished, I might consider using it instead of XFCE in Ubuntu, as it is pretty fast, and it can autohide a panel, but it is still too unstable even disregarding visual bugs right now. Something still crashes randomly once per session.
Some UI defaults deserve criticism, but as they are mostly configurable it can be forgiven. I thought single click activation for file browsers had born and died in 1998 with MS ActiveDesktop.

[qbg]

I do not use nVidia cards. The devs obviously are. Nothing works as it should on Intel or AMD.

Strange. I know it works fine for me on a Intel 915GMA and Kubuntu 8.10...

[scarecrovv]

Well just a few days ago I made the jump from GNOME to e16. I really like it. I tried e17 too, but I couldn't find any documentation on customizing the menus (and I tried and failed to figure it out myself too), and the updates over e16 didn't seem that important in comparison. e16 is really cool, and FAST, which is especially important on an old machine I'm setting up at the moment.

[OOPMan]

Well just a few days ago I made the jump from GNOME to e16. I really like it. I tried e17 too, but I couldn't find any documentation on customizing the menus (and I tried and failed to figure it out myself too), and the updates over e16 didn't seem that important in comparison. e16 is really cool, and FAST, which is especially important on an old machine I'm setting up at the moment.

Erm...

What?

Question 1: Did you compile E17 from SVN? If not, do so!

If you're running the latest E17 then adding apps the the menu system is easy enough:

Left click on Destkop, Enlightenment->Settings Panel->Apps Tab->New App
Once you input the details and save it all you need to do is type the name of the app in at the run window
and you're set.

Maybe not the same as adding it directly to the menu system, but I personally find it a hell of a lot easier to just hit the Run shortcut key and type in what I want to run

[sakeniwefu]

KDE4 is teh screen garbage:
http://www.zdnet.com.au/insight/software/soa/Is-it-Windows-7-or-KDE-4-/0,139023769,339294810,00.htm
Funnily, people still prefer it to Vista.