Your Linux Desktop preferences?

Way a long time ago I was using Knoppix and other live Linuxes, but, seemed like about 9 years ago I dedicated a couple partitions to Ubuntu. Ubuntu worked okay on my PCs, but wasn't crash-resistant enough to take seriously. I'm sure pilot error had a lot to do with it. But one thing I did do, was try a lot of apps, wrote down the ones I liked (since my favorite apps weren't there by default) and decided to start fresh. Then I run into Mint. The same apps! Cinnamon GUI! Whoah!

Fast forward till lately, in addition to a USB stick of Arch and Debian for Pogo, I've also got two other USB sticks that are totally freaking me out they help so much (I installed to USB using the breathtakingly easy Universal-USB-Installer) One is Damn Small Linux and other is Mint.

Tonight I plugged in a brand new Gigabit ethernet into a laptop's Expresscard slot and the company's own Win 7 x86 and x64 drivers didn't work, yet Mint worked. Turned out the manufacturer had the wrong drivers up. I wouldn't have known if if it weren't for Mint working. And yes, your advice about gigabit switches, zoom very nice speed increase.

So I've decided to dedicate desktop partition(s) to Mint, and lucky me there's different versions to choose from. I'm eyeing the Mate one because it's based on Debian and that would compliment the Debian learnin' going on elsewhere (here).

All in all, for the first time in 18 years i feel like a lucky consumer again. I don't remember a version of Windows that was actually fun. Mint is fun. Maybe i'm referring to the Cinnamon interface and don't know what i'm talking about, no problem LOL

Debian Mint anyone? Or what's your Swiss Army Penguin of choice?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/04/2015 12:34AM by JoeyPogoPlugE02.

On my desktop box, I'm currently running Linux Mint 17 QianaUbuntu 14.04.2 LTS. Not perfect, but pretty good.

JoeyPogoPlugE02 Wrote:
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> I'm eyeing the Mate one because
> it's based on Debian and that would compliment the
> Debian learnin' going on elsewhere (here).
>

All versions of MInt are based on Debian.

I run the XFCE version of Salix on all my machines. Salix is a distribution based on Slackware. See http://www.salixos.org/

laprjns Wrote:
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> >
>
> All versions of MInt are based on Debian.
>
> I run the XFCE version of Salix on all my
> machines. Salix is a distribution based on
> Slackware. See http://www.salixos.org/

Thanks for that. in fact I'm happy to learn of a new Handbrake thanks to that link.

A bit off topic, but this past winter my neighbor and his wife purchased a new laptop running Windows 8. They gave me a long timeline and a decent budget. A month later, it's great, but what I saw in there changed my mind on Windows. I'll probably stick with Win 7 at home for media creation like Photoshop, Reaper and Vegas, but for the consumer side of it, it's only a question of which linux. Same with Mac, I've stopped Hackintoshin' at Snow Leopard and that's it. Those companies got crazy, me thinks.

But what a great time in history to have a computer that does what was promised all those ages ago? i was programming BASIC on Mac in school 1981 (yes I got a low grade) and we always talked about "programming" and never "using it" LOL

But yeah thanks for jogging my remembrance, that Debian is upstream of Ubuntu. And i'll have to investigate this XFCE I keep hearing about.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/04/2015 03:27PM by JoeyPogoPlugE02.

restamp Wrote:
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> On my desktop box, I'm currently running Linux
> Mint 17 QianaUbuntu 14.04.2 LTS. Not perfect, but
> pretty good.

I've recently installed Mint 17.1 Cinamon on my laptop (VMware Fusion). Love it. It feels very solid, fast, and asthetically the best looking Linux desktop GUI, IMO.

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner (buy bodhi a beer)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/25/2015 06:06PM by bodhi.

Unity for all the fire it draws from geeks is surprisingly popular with end users (the "Firefox, VLC & Office" crowd):
Time and again I've been told they wouldn't need Windows anymore after just a few days (when Ubuntu had been installed supposedly just for testing their new hardware without "burning" a Windows registration), which hasn't happened to me much with any other Linux desktop environment.
Taking the title bar to the top of screen even when windowed is a behaviour everyone wants to (and can) change though.

Of course, sleep modes and proprietary GPU support (in particular involving HDMI audio) have been notoriously unreliable even on LTS Ubuntus except for a lucky few kernels one then needs to stick to in the Grub config.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/26/2015 01:34AM by TEN.

Seeing the impressive choice in Desktop Environments at http://www.salixos.org/download.html, is anyone aware of a site that would let new users try out the "look&feel" of a few of these (or others) side by side?

My preference in the Linux arena are all based on Debian/Ubuntu derivatives.

I run the following
Everyday Use : Linux Mint 17.1. Aesthetically very pleasing and very easy to adapt the ubuntu/debian "howto's" around the place if i come across a problem or want to play with something

Spare : reskinned Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

HTPC : Lubuntu 14.01 with XBMC

Currently looking to change the spare PC to Deepin OS.

A worthy consideration: https://flexion.org/posts/2014-03-memory-consumption-of-linux-desktop-environments.html

Quote
Martin Wimpress
I choose MATE Desktop. It is a fully integrated desktop environment, that is responsive, feature full, has reasonable memory requirements and scales from single core armv6h CPU with 512MB RAM to multi core x86_64 CPU with 32GB RAM (for me at least).

> Unity for all the fire it draws from geeks is
> surprisingly popular with end users (the "Firefox,
> VLC & Office" crowd):

I don't like using Unity at all (guess I'm one of those geeks :). I prefer to keep all my VMs separated from the host OS and each other, and use only shared folders. But yes, end users like the idea very much.

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner (buy bodhi a beer)

bodhi Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> > Unity for all the fire it draws from geeks is
> > surprisingly popular with end users (the
> "Firefox, VLC & Office" crowd):
>
> I don't like using Unity at all (guess I'm one of
> those geeks :). I prefer to keep all my VMs
> separated from the host OS and each other, and use
> only shared folders. But yes, end users like the
> idea very much.

All I'm saying is "they're on to something" at Canonical (not that I'd consider it "best since bread came sliced", in particular using 300+ megs to even just bring up the DE, but the "consumer reaction" is fairly unique for a Linux).

BTW what makes you prefer Cinnamon over MATE?
More modern base & densely packed default GUI elements?

TEN Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> All I'm saying is "they're on to something" at
> Canonical (not that I'd consider it "best since
> bread came sliced", in particular using 300+ megs
> to even just bring up the DE, but the "consumer
> reaction" is fairly unique for a Linux).

Yes. Agree about Canonical. I think they've been successful bringing Linux to normal users, which is great, in spite of all the lousy decisions they had, e.g. searching.

>
> BTW what makes you prefer Cinnamon over MATE?
> More modern base & densely packed default GUI
> elements?

I don't really see there are much difference technically, so I chose it precisely for those reasons. Something that my relatives and friends, i.e. non-tech people with iPads/iPhones/Galaxy/S4, would feel right at home with!

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner (buy bodhi a beer)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/26/2015 04:58AM by bodhi.

Oh I see now... should have read the fine print... some Mint version use Debian for the package base and others use Ubuntu.
I'm going with Debian lately, not only it's conveniently the same learning curve as 2/3 of my Pogoplug madness, but now that I think of it, Ubuntu's packages managing and many things left a bad taste in my mouth. I even entertain the notion, Ubuntu's evil genius is in the way it fuses sensory deprivation with ugliness. Reasonably fun apps though, can get you through in a pinch.

The other Linuxes mentioned in this thread, wow must try all. Maybe it's time i get a VMWare thing setup, run Arch like its a goCart with a rocket engine lol

=========
-= Cloud 9 =-

@ I considered Unity to be a backward step in usability when it came to the PC. but when you understand it was a proving ground for the ubuntu boys to test features before bringing it to the phone /tablet / etc. then it kinda makes sense.... a cludgy get in your way sense...

TEN Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> A worthy consideration:
> https://flexion.org/posts/2014-03-memory-consumpti
> on-of-linux-desktop-environments.html
>

Quote
Martin Wimpress
I choose MATE Desktop. It
> is a fully integrated desktop environment, that is
> responsive, feature full, has reasonable memory
> requirements and scales from single core armv6h
> CPU with 512MB RAM to multi core x86_64 CPU with
> 32GB RAM (for me at least).

Super cool link - answers many questions I never got straight. So far, on a lightweight dualcore HP laptop with 4 GB RAM, I've tried LMDE Cinnamon and MATE from usb stick, both x64. To each his own, but so far Cinnamon never crashed in 3 days of running all day, and MATE had its first crash within 10 minutes, changing something in the start menu. It reminded me of exactly what i didn't like about Ubuntu. When you need to get something done, it'll crash. This is my experience; your mileage may vary considerably. Could be because of something running by default that doesn't need to be on. I checked the Services and there's three things I don't use that are running, but still.

My quick review:
All in all, Linux Mint Debian Edition Cinnamon vs MATE (x64), I prefer Cinnamon due to its stability. MATE seems to be a Ubuntu makeover, not that it's a bad thing, but that little crash reminded me, years ago I found myself problem drinking, and it stopped altogether when I uninstalled Ubuntu for the last time. Coincidence? YOU decide lol All I miss are wobble windows, and don't know of a non-Compiz alternative. That is SO self-evident. Why can't all windows wobble and be rubber jello? Makes sense.

=========
-= Cloud 9 =-

What a long, strange trip it's been... on the main, semi-older desktop computer here, I tried everything mentioned here from USB installs, then installed them to a hard drive and kicked the tires... then bought a used quad core processor (and owe a kind friend 4 bucks lol), 3G RAM on board...

And the winner is... Debian! Blows my major mind how good this runs. By comparison it's like Ubuntu and Mint are VMs within Debian the difference is so earth-shattering. What I ended up doing was get Debian Live (newest) with XFCE. Everything good, then did the minimalist KDE plasma you can do higher than just a dolphin install. Added everything from Leggo's thread, added Stellarium and SuperTuxCartRacing and Iron browser, themed it nice, and then WHAM! I already have Stellarium and TuxCart on Mints and Windows, and Debian it runs cool yet wide-open.

At last check the "KDE" login runs at 168 processes and XFCE at 160. Maybe at some point I can ask you guys about separate logins where XFCE has no KDE services running at all, but the idea of logging-in XFCE for the lean (as stated before), fire breathing dragon mode, then login to KDE for guests to have pleasant eye candy.

All in all a deeply satisfying result thus far, way beyond any other newb-centric Linux release. There's only one real thing i miss from Mint, that's the Software Manager where it shows featured apps with reviews. But I remembered what i could and searched for the apt-get code.

For consumers and newbs, the day they make Mint LMDE versions of KDE and XFCE (they did the wrong 2) is the day Mint can hope to really blase and not just sit there and look good.

Now for the bad news LOL (ouch). I installed to hard drive that claims to have failure imminent - could be a sad SATA cable but I might try to see if you can copy to another SATA.

Thanks everyone for the great suggestions - I found the one that blows me away.

-=Attached: I/we have a winner! To be fair I never tried the Chromixium also never got Salix to run, but there's some others that would have been listed if I weren't disgusted and deleted them as well. My ego wants an Arch/KDE desktop someday lol

=========
-= Cloud 9 =-



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/20/2015 11:06PM by JoeyPogoPlugE02.

TEN Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Seeing the impressive choice in Desktop
> Environments at
> http://www.salixos.org/download.html, is anyone
> aware of a site that would let new users try out
> the "look&feel" of a few of these (or
> others) side by side?

A VM is the way to go. I've got it down to a routine with torrent downloads, then load it up in VMware, set it up and let it reboot, then when it boots back up, tell VMware it's done and nice list there to click and go.

I came back here to thank whoever mentioned Salix and that was you TEN - 32-bit Openbox version is one of the cutest little OSes I ever seen. nice borders and touches like Abi Word, Leafpad, a Show Desktop icon that has dual functions depending on left or middle mouse buttons... super cool little sports car this is.

In all these releases I've checked, there's one trivial gripe I do have - why not one cool game? Something fun. That doesn't have to be a monster size at all. But not cards, cards are for jail!

Yeah this is a completely fun tangent. Just when you think one is "best", something like Salix throws a curve ball. Openbox makes every byte of RAM look great too. Salix is under final consideration for my favorite ThinClient.

-update- as an enthusiastic newb, couldn't resist a shout to other newbs who wondered why Linux Mint Debian Edition MATE seems a little "out there". In my situation its about 10 apps where I prefer others or none, and the strange start menu. In a VM I loaded-p (LMDE x64) MATE and installed XFCE, and after a logout it's old familiar again. Now on to Plasma (KDE) minimal and see how that goes.
-update- KDE in my case didn't' take to installing over/with MATE. OpenGL missing and whatnot. Too bad. I just don't understand the hype over Mate.

The Software Manager from Mint and Debian-edition Mint is newb-heaven.

Next step, to go through all the VMs and rate the apps I like best. But in the planned future, my choices are Debian for desktop, whether LMDE and re-skin it, or regular Debian - that's a great OS and I can't begin to thank everyone here for the focus on that fantastic OS alone. Well worth the initial curve.

=========
-= Cloud 9 =-



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 06/30/2015 10:04AM by JoeyPogoPlugE02.