why you've chosen your desktop environment? (no war !)

[behrouz khosravi]

Hi. I have been using the gnome for some time(in other distro's) and I
had no complaint. However after switching to gentoo I installed i3 and
it is very great.
I really love it, but I was considering to install a DE too.
Before jumping to gnome I wanted to evaluate my options.
I have heard that " It is a matter of taste" but think it is not all
of the story.
I have heard that the gentoo community is more inclined toward KDE
too. So KDE must have some advantage that makes people like it's
taste!
So can you please tell me why you have chosen a specific DE and not
the other options ?
thanks.

[Tsukasa Mcp_Reznor]

xfce4 here, very light weight, customizable, boots up instantly for me.I use nfsv3 and netboot many box's with it as a shared read only root

Date: Sat, 16 Aug 2014 20:43:29 +0430
Subject: [gentoo-user] why you've chosen your desktop environment? (no war !)
Hi. I have been using the gnome for some time(in other distro's) and I
had no complaint. However after switching to gentoo I installed i3 and
it is very great.
I really love it, but I was considering to install a DE too.
Before jumping to gnome I wanted to evaluate my options.
I have heard that " It is a matter of taste" but think it is not all
of the story.
I have heard that the gentoo community is more inclined toward KDE
too. So KDE must have some advantage that makes people like it's
taste!
So can you please tell me why you have chosen a specific DE and not
the other options ?
thanks.

[behrouz khosravi]

Post by Tsukasa Mcp_Reznor
xfce4 here, very light weight, customizable, boots up instantly for me.
I use nfsv3 and netboot many box's with it as a shared read only root

Is it as customizable as KDE ? I have installed KDE on a Debian
machine and I like it's configurability.

[Сергей]

I use KDE, because it has biggest amount of functions KDE Connect,
KRunner and Amarok have no match in GTK-world. If they had, I would
use Xfce.

[behrouz khosravi]

Post by Сергей
I use KDE, because it has biggest amount of functions KDE Connect,
KRunner and Amarok have no match in GTK-world. If they had, I would
use Xfce.

well it seems that Xfce is now really a big player. I guess that it's
number of users is quite comparable to gnome and KDE.

[Henrique Lengler]

I never liked any DE. And i hate the KDE things like konsole, konqueror,
ktorrent principally when you try to install these in a non KDE system.

[microcai]

在 2014年8月16日 星期六 21:52:04，Сергей 写道：

Post by Сергей
I use KDE, because it has biggest amount of functions KDE Connect,
KRunner and Amarok have no match in GTK-world. If they had, I would
use Xfce.

Yeah, KRunner is what makes me even unable to use Windows.

Also, kdevelop is the best IDE ever created, even Visual Studio has no match
if you don't Visual AssistX installed.

If you really adopted to KDE, no other DE will ever be in you sight.

[Mick]

Post by behrouz khosravi
Hi. I have been using the gnome for some time(in other distro's) and I
had no complaint. However after switching to gentoo I installed i3 and
it is very great.
I really love it, but I was considering to install a DE too.
Before jumping to gnome I wanted to evaluate my options.
I have heard that " It is a matter of taste" but think it is not all
of the story.
I have heard that the gentoo community is more inclined toward KDE
too. So KDE must have some advantage that makes people like it's
taste!
So can you please tell me why you have chosen a specific DE and not
the other options ?
thanks.

I use Enlightenment (e17) almost exclusively these days, having spent many
years running a heavily modified Fluxbox. I prefer e17 because it probably is
even more light footed than fluxbox, but more modern in look and feel, without
the need to manually configure everything. A few gadgets on the desktop,
favourite apps launched by right click menu and my personal choice of
wallpapers and shelf configuration, is all I needed to change from the default
set up.

On a couple of PCs mostly used by other users, I have installed KDE, because
it is better suited to their needs. They want/like/use a lot of plasmoids and
don't mind waiting longer for the desktop to launch. They are also keen on
the many KDE applications. I preferred KDE3 to the current KDE4 with its
semantic desktop and KDEPIM slow-speed-train-crash, but clearly I don't have
an audience with current KDE devs to expect them to listen to my desires. :p

I have used briefly Gnome and the Cinnamon desktop on Linux Mint and Ubuntu's
Unity, but I didn't appreciate any of them. Probably a matter of personal
taste I guess, Gnome and derivatives never sat comfortably with me. Somehow I
found that their settings were a bit obscure or removed from the end user.

XFCE, LXDE and openbox were lightweight and fast, but for the little I tried
them out I found them somewhat depleted of features and functionality.
Perhaps if I persevered I would have grown to like them more.

So, it's e17 for me, but YMMV. :-)

[the]

I've been enjoying LXDE for a long time now. I have installed it along
with XFCE (my machines are low on resources*). I can't explain why, but
I like LXDE better than XFCE. I've also tried KDE - looks great but as
I mentioned I have limited computing power, used GNOME 2 a bit.
Recently I have installed and tested i3 wm and liked it but imho
tiling wms are best when used on 'big' displays. I don't use it because
none of my displays is wider than 1024 px.

* I doubt that I'd settle for a more demanding DE even if I had
a lot of resources because, you know, possession of great amount
of ram for example doesn't justify memory wastage.
The situation gets worse when you need to compile great amounts of
c++ code.

[Philip Webb]

Post by behrouz khosravi
So can you please tell me why you have chosen a specific DE
and not the other options ?

I've used Fluxbox for a long time & am completely satisfied ;
it's very customisable, fast & reliable ; I start it with 'startx' ;
the only problem is that it's not good at automatically starting apps,
but I've defined Alt-F<n> keys to start the regulars & that's very quick.

I use Apwal -- not nearly well enough known -- via R-click
to call up an array of quick-start icons on an empty desktop ;
I create + update the regular menu with Vim & open it via Alt-Space,
which allows me to use it even on a full desktop ;
I have long organised my activities via 10 desktops.

I like KDE apps & have a dozen installed ; updating is fairly quick
& I don't do it for every release, most of which don't affect me.

I used Xfce for a short time, but dropped it when 4.2 was slow to appear ;
Fluxbox proved to be a better alternative.

I never liked Gnome, its apps, its interface or its multitude of deps ;
I've never installed or used it, but I've seen it from the outside ;
I do use Evince as a quick alternative to Okular for PDFs .

The great attraction of Gentoo is that you get to build your own system
& can mix + match as much as you please. HTH.

[Henrique Lengler]

Post by Philip Webb
I do use Evince as a quick alternative to Okular for PDFs .

Have you ever tried mupdf? or xpdf? why install a GNOME app when you
don't use it?

[Philip Webb]

Post by Philip Webb
I do use Evince as a quick alternative to Okular for PDFs .

Have you ever tried mupdf or xpdf ?

Thanks for the reminder ! -- I do indeed have Mupdf installed,
but had forgotten all about it : yes, it's quick & easy for simple browsing.
Evince has extra features, eg a side menu, but mb Mupdf is sufficient.

Xpdf was dropped from Gentoo some time ago & had awkward controls :
IIRC there were security concerns & upstream was dead.

[Wolfgang Mueller]

Post by Philip Webb
Thanks for the reminder ! -- I do indeed have Mupdf installed,
but had forgotten all about it : yes, it's quick & easy for simple browsing.
Evince has extra features, eg a side menu, but mb Mupdf is sufficient.

If you're looking for a more feature-complete solution, check out
llpp[1], which is based on mupdf.
As a long time zathura user that switched to to mupdf because
zathura's newest version now depends on >=x11-libs/gtk+-3.2:3, I found
that mupdf had a few limitations and annoyances.
I'm quite happy with llpp now and wouldn't want to go back.

[1] - http://repo.or.cz/w/llpp.git

[Philip Webb]

Post by Wolfgang Mueller

Post by Philip Webb
Thanks for the reminder ! -- I do indeed have Mupdf installed,
but had forgotten all about it : yes, it's quick & easy for simple browsing.
Evince has extra features, eg a side menu, but mb Mupdf is sufficient.

If you're looking for a more feature-complete solution,
check out llpp, which is based on mupdf.
I found that mupdf had a few limitations and annoyances.
I'm quite happy with llpp now and wouldn't want to go back.

I emerged it after several compile errors due to missing USE flags,
but it looks rather experimental & has a long list of commands,
most of which I'm unlikely to use. Okular is ok for heavier work
& Mupdf is quick'n'simple for glancing around PDFs from the CLI.

[Henrique Lengler]

I don't know why KDE people are creating everything again.
koffice, konqueror, a lot of things, that already exists in the linux
world are being recreated by KDE.

Whats the problem to use things that already exists?
Why don't include software that is famous and liked by people insted of
insist in their "K"things?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

Post by Henrique Lengler
I don't know why KDE people are creating everything again.
koffice, konqueror, a lot of things, that already exists in the linux
world are being recreated by KDE.
Whats the problem to use things that already exists?
Why don't include software that is famous and liked by people insted of
insist in their "K"things?

hm, tell me, what was there when Konqueror was created?

Please do.

Maybe also try to spend some times on 'Konqueror is just a shell around
different kparts', if you like.

And while you are at it, you do know the history of webkit, don't you?

[Henrique Lengler]

Post by Volker Armin Hemmann
hm, tell me, what was there when Konqueror was created?
Please do.
Maybe also try to spend some times on 'Konqueror is just a shell around
different kparts', if you like.
And while you are at it, you do know the history of webkit, don't you?

Oh you a right man.

I spoke without knowing, sorry by this.
Everything happen exactly unlike i said.

[Alan McKinnon]

Post by Volker Armin Hemmann

Post by Henrique Lengler
I don't know why KDE people are creating everything again.
koffice, konqueror, a lot of things, that already exists in the linux
world are being recreated by KDE.
Whats the problem to use things that already exists?
Why don't include software that is famous and liked by people insted of
insist in their "K"things?

hm, tell me, what was there when Konqueror was created?
Please do.
Maybe also try to spend some times on 'Konqueror is just a shell around
different kparts', if you like.
And while you are at it, you do know the history of webkit, don't you?

It was the core of IE6, wasn't it?

/says me with a naughty twinkle in my eye

[Alan McKinnon]

Post by Henrique Lengler
I don't know why KDE people are creating everything again.
koffice, konqueror, a lot of things, that already exists in the linux
world are being recreated by KDE.
Whats the problem to use things that already exists?
Why don't include software that is famous and liked by people insted of
insist in their "K"things?

You can't be serious right?

Go back and find the original post from the founder of KDE as to why KDE
was started at all. It's all about incoherent, mis-matched,
ugly-when-bundled together apps that do not work in sympathy. This is
still true today.

Take kparts and kioslaves. KDE treats as much as possible as some sort
of plugin that all KDE apps can share. This gives the user a fantastic
degree of abstraction because anything that represents data can be a
kpart. NFS mounts, smb shares, ssh, some weird random new thing - all of
them show up in the file manager. Drag and drop works because of this.

Consistent look and feel amongst KDE apps is probably the best reason
for KDE's existence at all. But let's continue with your argument. What
are these things that "already exist"? Nautilus? Why should KDE *not*
implement a file manager? Should we ditch Dolphin in favour of Nautilus?
Or something else perhaps? Should we drop Okular and tell everyone to
just use xpdf instead? OMGF, have you actually *used* that piece of
shit? Can you figure out *how* to use it? I can't - buttons all over the
place in weird places.... xpdf is probably the best example of why KDE
was started.

I think I will stop now and wait for you to list the 100s of apps that
already existed before related KDE apps were released, so we can see
what these adequate replacements are.

[Henrique Lengler]

Post by Alan McKinnon
You can't be serious right?
Go back and find the original post from the founder of KDE as to why KDE
was started at all. It's all about incoherent, mis-matched,
ugly-when-bundled together apps that do not work in sympathy. This is
still true today.
Take kparts and kioslaves. KDE treats as much as possible as some sort
of plugin that all KDE apps can share. This gives the user a fantastic
degree of abstraction because anything that represents data can be a
kpart. NFS mounts, smb shares, ssh, some weird random new thing - all of
them show up in the file manager. Drag and drop works because of this.
Consistent look and feel amongst KDE apps is probably the best reason
for KDE's existence at all. But let's continue with your argument. What
are these things that "already exist"? Nautilus? Why should KDE *not*
implement a file manager? Should we ditch Dolphin in favour of Nautilus?
Or something else perhaps? Should we drop Okular and tell everyone to
just use xpdf instead? OMGF, have you actually *used* that piece of
shit? Can you figure out *how* to use it? I can't - buttons all over the
place in weird places.... xpdf is probably the best example of why KDE
was started.
I think I will stop now and wait for you to list the 100s of apps that
already existed before related KDE apps were released, so we can see
what these adequate replacements are.

Hi,

I already said sorry for my stupid argumentation.

--
Henrique Lengler

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

Post by Alan McKinnon

Post by Henrique Lengler
I don't know why KDE people are creating everything again.
koffice, konqueror, a lot of things, that already exists in the linux
world are being recreated by KDE.
Whats the problem to use things that already exists?
Why don't include software that is famous and liked by people insted of
insist in their "K"things?

You can't be serious right?
Go back and find the original post from the founder of KDE as to why KDE
was started at all. It's all about incoherent, mis-matched,
ugly-when-bundled together apps that do not work in sympathy. This is
still true today.
Take kparts and kioslaves. KDE treats as much as possible as some sort
of plugin that all KDE apps can share. This gives the user a fantastic
degree of abstraction because anything that represents data can be a
kpart. NFS mounts, smb shares, ssh, some weird random new thing - all of
them show up in the file manager. Drag and drop works because of this.
Consistent look and feel amongst KDE apps is probably the best reason
for KDE's existence at all. But let's continue with your argument. What
are these things that "already exist"? Nautilus? Why should KDE *not*
implement a file manager? Should we ditch Dolphin in favour of Nautilus?
Or something else perhaps? Should we drop Okular and tell everyone to
just use xpdf instead? OMGF, have you actually *used* that piece of
shit? Can you figure out *how* to use it? I can't - buttons all over the
place in weird places.... xpdf is probably the best example of why KDE
was started.
I think I will stop now and wait for you to list the 100s of apps that
already existed before related KDE apps were released, so we can see
what these adequate replacements are.

you know.. konqueror came before nautilus....

[Alan McKinnon]

Post by Volker Armin Hemmann

Post by Alan McKinnon

Post by Henrique Lengler
I don't know why KDE people are creating everything again.
koffice, konqueror, a lot of things, that already exists in the linux
world are being recreated by KDE.
Whats the problem to use things that already exists?
Why don't include software that is famous and liked by people insted of
insist in their "K"things?

You can't be serious right?
Go back and find the original post from the founder of KDE as to why KDE
was started at all. It's all about incoherent, mis-matched,
ugly-when-bundled together apps that do not work in sympathy. This is
still true today.
Take kparts and kioslaves. KDE treats as much as possible as some sort
of plugin that all KDE apps can share. This gives the user a fantastic
degree of abstraction because anything that represents data can be a
kpart. NFS mounts, smb shares, ssh, some weird random new thing - all of
them show up in the file manager. Drag and drop works because of this.
Consistent look and feel amongst KDE apps is probably the best reason
for KDE's existence at all. But let's continue with your argument. What
are these things that "already exist"? Nautilus? Why should KDE *not*
implement a file manager? Should we ditch Dolphin in favour of Nautilus?
Or something else perhaps? Should we drop Okular and tell everyone to
just use xpdf instead? OMGF, have you actually *used* that piece of
shit? Can you figure out *how* to use it? I can't - buttons all over the
place in weird places.... xpdf is probably the best example of why KDE
was started.
I think I will stop now and wait for you to list the 100s of apps that
already existed before related KDE apps were released, so we can see
what these adequate replacements are.

you know.. konqueror came before nautilus....

Yes, I know that :-)


Most of KDE existed before most of Gnome...
...and a large reason why the gnome project started at all was concerns
about the original Qt license terms. It was a licensing complaint, not a
technical complaint

Henrique's statement/complaint about KDE re-inventing the wheel holds
very little water. In fact, if we switch it around and complain about
the existence of g* apps when perfectly adequate k* apps already
existed, we'd be closer to the actual truth.

The reality is that people and devs are going to scratch their itch and
code whatever they feel like. We live in the real world where people do
whatever they want; the corporate fantasy where you only work on the
approved projects/apps that some overlord says you can work on just
doesn't exist at all. And this is why we in the FLOSS work have the
magical wonderland of vast amounts of choice

[Peter Humphrey]

Post by Alan McKinnon
Take kparts and kioslaves. KDE treats as much as possible as some sort
of plugin that all KDE apps can share. This gives the user a fantastic
degree of abstraction because anything that represents data can be a
kpart. NFS mounts, smb shares, ssh, some weird random new thing - all of
them show up in the file manager. Drag and drop works because of this.

...and I've just noticed these two:

[N] kde-misc/akonadi-google (~20131213(4)): Google services integration in Akonadi
[N] kde-misc/krunner-googletranslate (~0.1(4)): Krunner plug-in for Google translate service

They could turn out to be a magic wand, or conversely give you the colly-wobbles.
Has anyone here tried either of them?

[Mick]

Post by Peter Humphrey

Post by Alan McKinnon
Take kparts and kioslaves. KDE treats as much as possible as some sort
of plugin that all KDE apps can share. This gives the user a fantastic
degree of abstraction because anything that represents data can be a
kpart. NFS mounts, smb shares, ssh, some weird random new thing - all of
them show up in the file manager. Drag and drop works because of this.

[N] kde-misc/akonadi-google (~20131213(4)): Google services integration in
Akonadi [N] kde-misc/krunner-googletranslate (~0.1(4)): Krunner plug-in
for Google translate service
They could turn out to be a magic wand, or conversely give you the
colly-wobbles. Has anyone here tried either of them?

A user asked for their Google Calendar to be synchronised with
Korganizer/Kontact and ISTR I enabled USE="google" in kde-base/kdepim-runtime,
which I think pulled in kde-misc/akonadi-google.

A few months ago Google were using DAV for this purpose, but they decided to
change their API. As a result older =< 4.4.11.1-r2 KDEPIM versions broke and
one had to move to the current versions of KDEPIM in order to use Google
Calendar integration.

[Rich Freeman]

Post by Mick

Post by Peter Humphrey

Post by Alan McKinnon
Take kparts and kioslaves. KDE treats as much as possible as some sort
of plugin that all KDE apps can share. This gives the user a fantastic
degree of abstraction because anything that represents data can be a
kpart. NFS mounts, smb shares, ssh, some weird random new thing - all of
them show up in the file manager. Drag and drop works because of this.

[N] kde-misc/akonadi-google (~20131213(4)): Google services integration in
Akonadi [N] kde-misc/krunner-googletranslate (~0.1(4)): Krunner plug-in
for Google translate service
They could turn out to be a magic wand, or conversely give you the
colly-wobbles. Has anyone here tried either of them?

A user asked for their Google Calendar to be synchronised with
Korganizer/Kontact and ISTR I enabled USE="google" in kde-base/kdepim-runtime,
which I think pulled in kde-misc/akonadi-google.
A few months ago Google were using DAV for this purpose, but they decided to
change their API. As a result older =< 4.4.11.1-r2 KDEPIM versions broke and
one had to move to the current versions of KDEPIM in order to use Google
Calendar integration.

My problem with KDE and Google is that it seems like it doesn't work
with application-specific passwords - or at least it didn't use to
work with them. As a result I have to use two-factor login every time
I log into KDE, which is painful enough that I usually just close the
window and have stale data as a result.

Perhaps this has been fixed.

Rich

[Mick]

Post by Rich Freeman

Post by Mick
A few months ago Google were using DAV for this purpose, but they decided
to change their API. As a result older =< 4.4.11.1-r2 KDEPIM versions
broke and one had to move to the current versions of KDEPIM in order to
use Google Calendar integration.

My problem with KDE and Google is that it seems like it doesn't work
with application-specific passwords - or at least it didn't use to
work with them. As a result I have to use two-factor login every time
I log into KDE, which is painful enough that I usually just close the
window and have stale data as a result.
Perhaps this has been fixed.

I understand that Google offers two factor authentication
(https://www.google.com/landing/2step/#tab=how-it-works) for its services, but
if you have not signed up for it you only need a single google account passwd
to login. KDEWallet/Akonadi saves this when you create the google calendar
resource and doesn't ask for it again. Of course, KDEWallet will ask for the
master passwd, but depending on how you have configured it this would only
happen once per login session.

[Rich Freeman]

Post by Mick
I understand that Google offers two factor authentication
(https://www.google.com/landing/2step/#tab=how-it-works) for its services, but
if you have not signed up for it you only need a single google account passwd
to login. KDEWallet/Akonadi saves this when you create the google calendar
resource and doesn't ask for it again. Of course, KDEWallet will ask for the
master passwd, but depending on how you have configured it this would only
happen once per login session.

I have signed up for it, and therefore KDE needs to either:
1. Prompt for a 2-factor code on every login and either use the
cached google password or prompt for it as well.
2. Use a google application-specific password. This does not require
a 2-factor code and operates fairly simliarly to how things work
without 2-factor.

I just tried re-connecting KDE with Google. It prompts you to login
via a webpage and authorize the application. This login screen does
not accept an application-specific password. I doubt it will persist
beyond a single login, but we'll see...

Rich

[Peter Humphrey]

Post by Mick
A user asked for their Google Calendar to be synchronised with
Korganizer/Kontact and ISTR I enabled USE="google" in
kde-base/kdepim-runtime, which I think pulled in kde-misc/akonadi-google.

Ah, so the "Google resources" mentioned are just calendar and contacts. I'll
give it a go and see how I like it. Thanks.

[Grant Edwards]

Post by Henrique Lengler
Whats the problem to use things that already exists?
Why don't include software that is famous and liked by people insted
of insist in their "K"things?

NIH syndrome?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

Post by Grant Edwards

Post by Henrique Lengler
Whats the problem to use things that already exists?
Why don't include software that is famous and liked by people insted
of insist in their "K"things?

NIH syndrome?

that almost describes gnome people....

but what was there before KDE started? xterm... Netscape Navigator....
and not much else.

Ok, they could have done what gnome did.

Take some gtk app, add a dependency on gconf and gnome-vfs and call it a
'gnome app'.

There is a reason why Koffice is an office, while 'gnome office' is a
bunch of apps that don't know each other.

But back to NIH.

KDE developed dcop - and dcop was awesome. You could script your entire
KDE desktop with a bunch of simple dcop commands.

But that was not good enough for gnome. They, and the freedesktop.org
they infested were adamant: there must be a new desktop bus - it would
be called dbus and waiting for gnome and the demands of gnome-devs held
back KDE development....

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

Post by behrouz khosravi
Hi. I have been using the gnome for some time(in other distro's) and I
had no complaint. However after switching to gentoo I installed i3 and
it is very great.
I really love it, but I was considering to install a DE too.
Before jumping to gnome I wanted to evaluate my options.
I have heard that " It is a matter of taste" but think it is not all
of the story.
I have heard that the gentoo community is more inclined toward KDE
too. So KDE must have some advantage that makes people like it's
taste!
So can you please tell me why you have chosen a specific DE and not
the other options ?
thanks.

well, back in the KDE 1.1, 2.1,2.2 and Gnome up to 1.4.2 days both were
nice and I used both. Switching betwen the two.

Then came Gnome 2.0

And I never went back to Gnome. Seriously, Gnome 1.4.2 was the best
gnome ever.

[Poison BL.]

On Sat, Aug 16, 2014 at 12:13 PM, behrouz khosravi

Post by behrouz khosravi
Hi. I have been using the gnome for some time(in other distro's) and I
had no complaint. However after switching to gentoo I installed i3 and
it is very great.
I really love it, but I was considering to install a DE too.
Before jumping to gnome I wanted to evaluate my options.
I have heard that " It is a matter of taste" but think it is not all
of the story.
I have heard that the gentoo community is more inclined toward KDE
too. So KDE must have some advantage that makes people like it's
taste!
So can you please tell me why you have chosen a specific DE and not
the other options ?
thanks.

I've bounced between quite a few, both straight WMs and full featured
DEs over the years. I liked Gnome pre-3, mostly due to the fact that
it typically 'just worked' and the bulkiest programs I ran being
primarily GTK based. While I liked Gnome Shell when it was in early
development, there were quite a few decisions made (*notably the
distinct aversion to allowing meaningful customization) on that end on
the way to Gnome 3 that I don't find it very appealing as it stands. I
ran and enjoyed KDE about a decade ago, but hadn't really touched it
since until recently, and it's just too heavy to suit my needs (most
of my systems are lightweight laptops/netbooks anymore). In the end,
once I ran across Blackbox, then Fluxbox, my interest in 'full
featured' DEs was pretty much killed. My favorite WM when I'm running
a truly stripped down system is actually ratpoison, while I tend to
run LXDE (and toying with LXQT now) on most of my systems for the sake
of giving a more 'normal' usage paradigm (primarily if I need other
people to be able to use the system). LXDE gives just enough trinkets
for things like battery status, multiple desktop management, coherent
configuration interfaces for themes and such, and a proper menu while
otherwise staying out of the way. I've never really used xfce or e17
much, but both seem to be pretty well loved by their users. I still
bounce between LXDE, Ratpoison, and Fluxbox fairly often (and as proof
of how much I liked Blackbox and Fluxbox, I run an offshoot of those
on Windows as a shell replacement).

I have friends that vary between liking and tolerating Gnome 3, KDE,
etc. and I can honestly say the only meaningful factor in deciding
what they run has always boiled down to taste. Sit down with each for
a week or three (as your main system, you won't get a real feel for
them if you're not trying to get real work done through them), get
them working as close to your preferences as you can, then judge which
a) took the least work to get there and b) most closely match what you
actually want from them. As an added bonus, poke around for a third
thing to score based on... which gives you the best set of features
you *weren't* looking for but *will* use.

[Peter Humphrey]

Post by Poison BL.
I have friends that vary between liking and tolerating Gnome 3, KDE,
etc. and I can honestly say the only meaningful factor in deciding
what they run has always boiled down to taste. Sit down with each for
a week or three (as your main system, you won't get a real feel for
them if you're not trying to get real work done through them), get
them working as close to your preferences as you can, then judge which
a) took the least work to get there and b) most closely match what you
actually want from them. As an added bonus, poke around for a third
thing to score based on... which gives you the best set of features
you *weren't* looking for but *will* use.

Sound advice.

Personally I won't touch any of the gnome variants because of the way they
hide everything they can from the user. Reminds me of Windows with its we-
know-better-than-you attitude. And the last time I looked they wouldn't let me
have a clear desktop, insisting on littering it with icons I never use.

As Joshua says, though, it's all a matter of taste.

[Rich Freeman]

On Sat, Aug 16, 2014 at 12:13 PM, behrouz khosravi

Post by behrouz khosravi
So can you please tell me why you have chosen a specific DE and not
the other options ?

So, this is more why I'm using KDE and not so much why I'm not using
something else.

Things I like about KDE:
1. Handles USB drive insertions/etc.
2. ioslaves like fish, smb, and so on.
3. Love the window manager
4. Love the configurability, especially with the unified
notification/shortcut configuration design
5. krunner (more or less - it still feels quirky but I like it)
6. That dolphin mode that gives you a shell that follows the pwd.
That is just nifty.

Things I don't care about:
1. All the bundled apps. I don't use konqueror, koffice, and kdepim
for the most part. I might use kdepim if I could get it to work with
Google calendar/contacts without needing two-factor on every login.

Things I dislike:
1. I disable nepomuk and its offspring.

Things I think might be improveable:
1. The way it handles window grouping. I dislike a bazillion tabs,
but I don't like the way it does grouping all that much either. Maybe
I need to better grok activities/etc.

I have run xfce at times. In particular I used to run it when
accessing my desktop via NX since it was lightweight. I also used it
exclusively during the early days of kde4, in part because the system
I was running it on was underpowered.

I'm open to other options. I am not at all wedded to the big kde
apps, so if there is something else that offers more of the utility
side I'm interested. However, everything about kde just seems so
flexible, it is probably hard to beat for utility.

Rich

[Alan McKinnon]

Post by Poison BL.
On Sat, Aug 16, 2014 at 12:13 PM, behrouz khosravi

Post by behrouz khosravi
So can you please tell me why you have chosen a specific DE and not
the other options ?

So, this is more why I'm using KDE and not so much why I'm not using
something else.
1. Handles USB drive insertions/etc.
2. ioslaves like fish, smb, and so on.
3. Love the window manager
4. Love the configurability, especially with the unified
notification/shortcut configuration design
5. krunner (more or less - it still feels quirky but I like it)
6. That dolphin mode that gives you a shell that follows the pwd.
That is just nifty.

#6 - it does? How do I activate that? Might be useful, I didn't even
know there was such a fature

Post by Poison BL.
1. All the bundled apps. I don't use konqueror, koffice, and kdepim
for the most part. I might use kdepim if I could get it to work with
Google calendar/contacts without needing two-factor on every login.

You can use sets to just get what you really use.

The way I do it is I installed just the few -meta packages I want. True,
I get more cruft than using sets, but with less work. I consider that an
acceptable trade-off for me.

Post by Poison BL.
1. I disable nepomuk and its offspring.

nepomuk (and akanodi) and a bit of a personal embarrassment for me. In
the beginning I advocated they were a good idea; and I still believe the
idea is good for the average desktop in this brave new world. But the
implementation - that often outweighs the idea. Nepomuk not so much
(that one is pretty efficient) but definitely akonadi (that one sucks eggs)

Post by Poison BL.
1. The way it handles window grouping. I dislike a bazillion tabs,
but I don't like the way it does grouping all that much either. Maybe
I need to better grok activities/etc.

Heh heh:-) I have that problem too. I forced myself to close tabs
ruthlessly and rely on history. I now try and keep open only tabs I am
using, not also tabs I might use again.

Activities looks like a good idea, but I can't get them to work and feel
right. Perhaps I should define what my activities actually mean to me
better, this is far from simple.

Post by Poison BL.
I have run xfce at times. In particular I used to run it when
accessing my desktop via NX since it was lightweight. I also used it
exclusively during the early days of kde4, in part because the system
I was running it on was underpowered.
I'm open to other options. I am not at all wedded to the big kde
apps, so if there is something else that offers more of the utility
side I'm interested. However, everything about kde just seems so
flexible, it is probably hard to beat for utility.

For pure engineering excellence it's hard to beat e19 and efl. However,
raster and his team still have no qualms with ripping chunks of good out
and replacing them on a whim, so perhaps not the most stable environment
out there :-)

[Philip Webb]

why I'm using KDE and not so much why I'm not using something else.
...
6. Dolphin mode that gives you a shell that follows the pwd.

Have you tried Krusader ? -- it's been my heavy-load FM for a long time.

[Mick]

Post by Alan McKinnon

Post by Rich Freeman
6. That dolphin mode that gives you a shell that follows the pwd.
That is just nifty.

#6 - it does? How do I activate that? Might be useful, I didn't even
know there was such a fature

I use Konqueror (with the dolphin plugin) and F4 opens konsole in a separate
window, or Settings/Show Terminal Emulator shows a terminal in the bottom 5th
of Konqueror. My Dolphin doesn't offer the same, probably because I have only
installed selected apps and a few meta packages, not the whole enchilada.

Post by Alan McKinnon

Post by Rich Freeman
1. I disable nepomuk and its offspring.

nepomuk (and akanodi) and a bit of a personal embarrassment for me. In
the beginning I advocated they were a good idea; and I still believe the
idea is good for the average desktop in this brave new world. But the
implementation - that often outweighs the idea. Nepomuk not so much
(that one is pretty efficient) but definitely akonadi (that one sucks eggs)

They are a good idea if you want to be able to index and search the whole of
your PC for anything metatagged with "foo" and don't value the cost of
electricity. The chances of me wanting to do this on my personal laptop are
exceedingly rare, although once dementia sets in it could prove useful. :p

For me this plus the shift from KDEPIM 3 to 4 was criminal destruction of
value. I live in hope that one day KDE will take a hard long look at itself
and go back to KDE 3 architecture; or that nepomuk, akonadi, redland, mysql
and what-ever-else they have added can be switched off selectively without
breaking the ability to search your address book and send an email; or that
all this additional functionality will be so wonderfully streamlined that I
will never ever know it is there. Given it's been 4 or 5 years now since this
disaster happened I am not holding my breath. :-(

Post by Alan McKinnon

Post by Rich Freeman
1. The way it handles window grouping. I dislike a bazillion tabs,
but I don't like the way it does grouping all that much either. Maybe
I need to better grok activities/etc.

Heh heh:-) I have that problem too. I forced myself to close tabs
ruthlessly and rely on history. I now try and keep open only tabs I am
using, not also tabs I might use again.
Activities looks like a good idea, but I can't get them to work and feel
right. Perhaps I should define what my activities actually mean to me
better, this is far from simple.

I was meant to look into activities, so that I can explain it to some KDE
users who also don't know what this is. I vaguely recall understanding the
concept in the past, but never tried it out. Can you please explain in simple
terms what it is and how it is meant to be used?

Post by Alan McKinnon
For pure engineering excellence it's hard to beat e19 and efl. However,
raster and his team still have no qualms with ripping chunks of good out
and replacing them on a whim, so perhaps not the most stable environment
out there :-)

If you stay with testing versions already in portage, things are not as bad.
I'm on enlightenment-0.17/0.18.8 and efl-1.9.5 and it's been quite stable.
Last time I tried to emerge efl-1.10.1 it failed, so I am waiting for
maintainers to catch up with the latest before I try again.

BTW, since enlightenment trunk moved to git, I am not sure my enlightenment
overlay syncs properly, because it doesn't bring up any message to inform me
which packages have changed. Should I change something in layman to increase
verbosity of git sync's?

[Rich Freeman]

Post by Mick

Post by Alan McKinnon

Post by Rich Freeman
6. That dolphin mode that gives you a shell that follows the pwd.
That is just nifty.

#6 - it does? How do I activate that? Might be useful, I didn't even
know there was such a fature

I use Konqueror (with the dolphin plugin) and F4 opens konsole in a separate
window, or Settings/Show Terminal Emulator shows a terminal in the bottom 5th
of Konqueror. My Dolphin doesn't offer the same, probably because I have only
installed selected apps and a few meta packages, not the whole enchilada.

F4 is the default shortcut in dolphin. It is under
control-panels-terminal. It runs as a panel/pane as the menu
suggests.

Post by Mick

Post by Alan McKinnon

Post by Rich Freeman
1. The way it handles window grouping. I dislike a bazillion tabs,
but I don't like the way it does grouping all that much either. Maybe
I need to better grok activities/etc.

Heh heh:-) I have that problem too. I forced myself to close tabs
ruthlessly and rely on history. I now try and keep open only tabs I am
using, not also tabs I might use again.
Activities looks like a good idea, but I can't get them to work and feel
right. Perhaps I should define what my activities actually mean to me
better, this is far from simple.

I was meant to look into activities, so that I can explain it to some KDE
users who also don't know what this is. I vaguely recall understanding the
concept in the past, but never tried it out. Can you please explain in simple
terms what it is and how it is meant to be used?

Well, the concept is that maybe you work from home using the same PC,
so you have a work activity and a home activity. It is a bit like
virtual desktops on steroids as far as I can tell.

My problem is that I don't ever exclusively do just one thing at a
time. I never really utilized virtual desktops much either for this
reason. Maybe I'd benefit from forcing myself to do it more, but...

--
Rich

[Alan McKinnon]

Post by Rich Freeman

Post by Mick

Post by Rich Freeman
6. That dolphin mode that gives you a shell that follows the pwd.

Post by Alan McKinnon

Post by Rich Freeman
That is just nifty.

#6 - it does? How do I activate that? Might be useful, I didn't even
know there was such a fature

I use Konqueror (with the dolphin plugin) and F4 opens konsole in a separate
window, or Settings/Show Terminal Emulator shows a terminal in the bottom 5th
of Konqueror. My Dolphin doesn't offer the same, probably because I have only
installed selected apps and a few meta packages, not the whole enchilada.

F4 is the default shortcut in dolphin. It is under
control-panels-terminal. It runs as a panel/pane as the menu
suggests.

View -> Panels -> Terminal

That'll teach me for not actually *looking* into what the menus provide :-)

[Сергей]

Guys, I'm looking for GTK-player, which looks like Amarok
(Loading Image...) and supports downloading and browsing
Lyrics.

And also for some analog of KRunner (launcher) which supports this
player (searching it's collection, playing music).
Thank you.

[Nikita Tropin]

May be DeadBeeF will suit your needs? I'm using it almost as is but it
can be well configured to look similarly to your screenshot. But you
will need to configure it yourself to look like screenshot. It has
lyrics plugin and can be used with both GTK2 and GTK3. About analog of
KRunner I don't know even what is this... Look DeadBeeF screens here
(offsite): http://deadbeef.sourceforge.net/screenshots/0.6/screenshots.html.
HTH

Post by Сергей
Guys, I'm looking for GTK-player, which looks like Amarok
(http://i.imgur.com/Yjf80W7.png) and supports downloading and browsing
Lyrics.
And also for some analog of KRunner (launcher) which supports this
player (searching it's collection, playing music).
Thank you.

[Alan McKinnon]

Post by Mick
For me this plus the shift from KDEPIM 3 to 4 was criminal destruction of
value. I live in hope that one day KDE will take a hard long look at itself
and go back to KDE 3 architecture; or that nepomuk, akonadi, redland, mysql
and what-ever-else they have added can be switched off selectively without
breaking the ability to search your address book and send an email; or that
all this additional functionality will be so wonderfully streamlined that I
will never ever know it is there. Given it's been 4 or 5 years now since this
disaster happened I am not holding my breath. :-(

In all honesty, I believe the semantic desktop idea was an experiment
worth pursuing. Some things you just can't tell if they will work out in
advance. You have to try.

Correction: You have to be *brave*, then try.

And KDE did that. I believe the entire KDE4 branch was incredibly brave
- someone had a vision and had the balls to try, to rip out the
problematic and hard-to-maintain bits and actually release something
new. You could successfully argue that akonadi is a failed experiment in
that it doesn't seem to make the individual user's life any easier.

But akonadi wasn't just an exercise in stuffing everything into mysql
because they could - akonadi aimed at putting a standard wrapper around
PIM data. It's really a classic middle-ware idea which storage backends
in the rear, possibly many clients in front and akonadi in the middle.
The details of how to do the middle seem vastly more complex than anyone
thought, and this is actually a good thing. A valuable lesson has been
learned - devs now know a great deal more about what not to do and why.

Same with nepomuk - it started as an EU-sponsored concept of a semantic
desktop and KDE was brave enough to put themselves out there as a major
DE willing to give it a shot. Valuable lessons were learned here as
well, so whereas nepomuk may or may not survive, the lessons will always
remain for those willing to look (yeah, I know about folk doomed to
repeat, but you get the idea)

Incidentally, much of KDE's fancy back end stuff *can* be disabled; it
just isn't especially recommended and Gentoo devs don't support it too much.

[thegeezer]

Howdy,
on Enlightenment here, love the customisability mostly and it's
slickness - i.e. can load tiling module that switches behaviour (have
never used it myself though, can't say how it compares to awm or i3)
krunner equivalent is "start everything module" and resembles gnome-do
i prefer to use pcmanfm/thunar than the e file manager and nice as
terminology is i'm still using terminator

the big question really is why are you looking for a DE - what is
offered in it that you don't already have?
while i understand from the lengthy update you want all K apps or all
GTK to minimise the update - i myself mix and match where i have need

from my own experience a DE gives you
1. easy hotplug devices i.e. usb disks (or you can emerge dbus,polkit
and udisks and add policy rules manually)
2. "session" management, i.e. you can switch users without logging out
3. bundled apps / libraries
4. "killer features" such as the K activities
5. can anyone add to this list ?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

Post by thegeezer
Howdy,
on Enlightenment here, love the customisability mostly and it's
slickness - i.e. can load tiling module that switches behaviour (have
never used it myself though, can't say how it compares to awm or i3)
krunner equivalent is "start everything module" and resembles gnome-do
i prefer to use pcmanfm/thunar than the e file manager and nice as
terminology is i'm still using terminator
the big question really is why are you looking for a DE - what is
offered in it that you don't already have?
while i understand from the lengthy update you want all K apps or all
GTK to minimise the update - i myself mix and match where i have need
from my own experience a DE gives you
1. easy hotplug devices i.e. usb disks (or you can emerge dbus,polkit
and udisks and add policy rules manually)
2. "session" management, i.e. you can switch users without logging out
3. bundled apps / libraries
4. "killer features" such as the K activities
5. can anyone add to this list ?

apps that actually work with each other.

[thegeezer]

Post by Volker Armin Hemmann

Post by thegeezer
from my own experience a DE gives you
1. easy hotplug devices i.e. usb disks (or you can emerge dbus,polkit
and udisks and add policy rules manually)
2. "session" management, i.e. you can switch users without logging out
3. bundled apps / libraries
4. "killer features" such as the K activities
5. can anyone add to this list ?

apps that actually work with each other.

honestly i've never had issues cross app -- copy/paste of text or files
from dolphin to konqueror have never been an issue.
do you have an example of what would not work ?

[thegeezer]

Post by thegeezer

Post by Volker Armin Hemmann
apps that actually work with each other.

honestly i've never had issues cross app -- copy/paste of text or files
from dolphin to konqueror have never been an issue.

*ahem* of course i meant a wider range of apps than two kde file managers !

Post by thegeezer
do you have an example of what would not work ?

[wraeth]

Post by behrouz khosravi
So can you please tell me why you have chosen a specific DE and not
the other options ?
thanks.

I think the key argument for a DE is integration - all the k* apps built
to use k* libraries and backends, allowing them to share data and
resources easily; and all the gnome apps using gnome libraries, etc.

The main differences I see between KDE and GNOME (aside from the GTK/Qt
differences) are that KDE feels like a much more modular approach (while
still allowing integration with backend services), whereas GNOME tends
towards a one-piece uniform (sure you can theme it (with an external
addon) but it's still gnome-shell) "user-friendly" (hide the buttons you
can break it with) environment; and to be honest I like features of
both.

I think this is why it comes down to a matter of taste, because in the
end it's a question of what you find suits your needs. I like the
modularity and, I guess, the traditional feel of KDE; but kdepim loosing
a large portion of my work email kind of made me balk at using it for a
while, and my requirement for MS Exchange integration (not by choice)
meant either a (non-free though nicely functional) plugin for
Thunderbird ([0] for those interested) or switching to GNOME/Evolution
(which, admittedly, has it's own issues, but hasn't eaten my mail yet).

Besides, I'm very indecisive - give it six months I'll be back on KDE or
enlightenment ;)

Also, I think your subject line, while a valiant effort, is the IT
equivalent of "don't eat the cookies while I'm gone" :P

Hope this doesn't muddy things up too much!

[wraeth]

Post by wraeth
(which, admittedly, has it's own issues, but hasn't eaten my mail yet).

Addendum:
Possibly in a fit of irony, sending my last mail decided to stall
evolution's back-end (the mail sent but the compose window was locked at
"sending" and the connection threads were stuck).

Also, fwiw, gnome-online-accounts has given me countless headaches (just
last night it refused to connect to any mail servers because I
apparently had no keyring with any passwords)...

It's very much a balance between (expected) functionality,
whether-it-works-or-crashes, and how many new words I can string
together in a single sentence.

But like I said, it hasn't eaten my mail, so I got that going for me :)

[wraeth]

Post by wraeth
meant either a (non-free though nicely functional) plugin for
Thunderbird ([0] for those interested)

I also just realized I failed to include the link I mentioned... tonight
is not my night...

[0] https://exquilla.zendesk.com/home

[behrouz khosravi]

Post by wraeth
Also, I think your subject line, while a valiant effort, is the IT
equivalent of "don't eat the cookies while I'm gone" :P

Yea, I think there will no escape from that!

[Stephane Guilbaud]

You can try the Desktop GNUStep avec WindowMaker.

Post by behrouz khosravi

Post by wraeth
Also, I think your subject line, while a valiant effort, is the IT
equivalent of "don't eat the cookies while I'm gone" :P

Yea, I think there will no escape from that!

[Grant Edwards]

Post by behrouz khosravi
So can you please tell me why you have chosen a specific DE and not
the other options ?

I've been running XFCE for a long time.

Before that, I didn't have a "Desktop Environment" at all, just the
fvwm window manager which I started using back before Linux kernel
version 1.00 came out [before Linux and fvwm were around, I mostly
used the "twm" window manager]. At some point many years ago, there
was some problem with fvwm that I couldn't work-around (I don't even
remember what it was). I tried Gnome and KDE, but they were just _way_
too big and slow, and they both seemed to think that the desktop was
the be-all-and-end-all of computation and should always being the
center of your attention and the user-up of all resources.

I run a computer in order to run various apps. The desktop is just
there to manage windows and facilitate running those apps. It should
otherwise stay out of the way, out of sight, and out of memory.

XFCE does a pretty good job of that. XFCE isn't too big. XFCE
doesn't think it should always be the star of the show and the center
of everybody's attention. XFCE is stable: it doesn't get completely
re-designed, re-skinned, and broken every few years because people
finally figured how to actually use the old version and some new batch
of developers are bored and want to spray their scent all over
everything

Here's what my XFCE desktop looks like:

Loading Image...