Which desktop enviroment do you prefer?

[Krazed]

Which do you prefer? Don't just vote, post a few reasons why!

[deadly7]

I said XFCE..
Back when I used Linux, it was on my 400mhz craptard PC, so I didn't want the bloat of KDE, didn't want to find and download Gnome, and XFCE had the little mouse. ^^ Anyways, I liked XFCE due to its being lightweight, having multiple desktops (although I wish I could have figured out how to splitscreen them if I needed to), and I liked the fact that you could just drag across the screen to switch desktops. Plus, the "start" menu was a right-click away, I think.

[Krazed]

This is actually a tough choice for me. As of right now, I use gnome because it's very easy to work with and very friendly with just about everything. Coming in a close second is definitely FluxBox, it's speed, customization, and toolbar makes it a powerful and good desktop environment in my eyes.

[rabbit]

I like WM because I'm a iago whore....and it worked really well on my old 255MHz Pentium.

[Explicit]

I like WM because I'm a iago whore....and it worked really well on my old 255MHz Pentium.

[Joe]

I like Gnome. It's clean and easy to use, and it fits well with Gtk (which pwns).

[Ergot]

I love Fluxbox... but I have waaaayyy too much fun with KDE3 and CompizFusion !

[Towelie]

I've generally used KDE in linux... but I don't use it often

[Newby]

fluxbox is a winner! Quick and simple.

[Sidoh]

It definitely depends on what for.  If it's on a workstation, I don't think I'd want to use anything other than KDE or Gnome.  The others are a bit sparse for what I'm looking for in that.  If it's a server and all I need X for is maybe making use of some of the graphical tools available, then XFCE or Fluxbox is probably what I'd go with.  If you're planning to use Ubuntu, it's probably best to stick with whatever it comes with.  If you want to use others, download the distribution of Ubuntu designed for it (eg, KUbuntu for KDE).  Not sure if you're doing that, but it'd probably be for the best.

[Krazed]

It definitely depends on what for.  If it's on a workstation, I don't think I'd want to use anything other than KDE or Gnome.  The others are a bit sparse for what I'm looking for in that.  If it's a server and all I need X for is maybe making use of some of the graphical tools available, then XFCE or Fluxbox is probably what I'd go with.  If you're planning to use Ubuntu, it's probably best to stick with whatever it comes with.  If you want to use others, download the distribution of Ubuntu designed for it (eg, KUbuntu for KDE).  Not sure if you're doing that, but it'd probably be for the best.

I don't like KDE at all, and I'm not really looking to change my own personl DE, just seeing what everyone else likes. Personally it's a tradeoff between gnome and fluxbox every once in a while.

[Falcon]

XFCE or fluxbox cause its lightweight and works well.

[Sidoh]

I don't like KDE at all, and I'm not really looking to change my own personl DE, just seeing what everyone else likes. Personally it's a tradeoff between gnome and fluxbox every once in a while.

I haven't used the more recent versions of KDE enough to say whether I like it or not.  I used it for a while last year when I was messing around with dual booting Slackware, but I eventually ended up using Windows all of the time.  Now I hardly ever use Windows.  Ubuntu is awesome.

To be honest, I'm not the kind of person that likes changing the "look and feel" of my desktop much.  I'll change the background and maybe the color theme, but that's about as far as I go.  I'm comfortable and familiar with Gnome and I don't think any of the other desktop environments have any advantages over Gnome that warrant me switching to them.

[iago]

kde recently released version 4.0. Might be interesting to have a look at that, I haven't tried it yet.

[Warrior]

4.0 is decent, 4.1 will be what it should of been.

[nslay]

I like Window Maker because its incredibly lightweight, easy to use, and it eliminates almost all the baggage brought by the Windows notion of a desktop (not that Windows' interface is bad).
Window Maker is dead simple...it's up there with twm (though more elegant than twm).  No start menu, no task bar, no tray...nothing.  Just right click for menu.  Minimizing iconifies the window...the icon can be placed anywhere.  Window Maker introduces very useful features not present in the classic Windows interface, like shading and hiding.  Shading allows you to pull a window up or down like a window shade.  So, if you have a maximized window with tons of other windows behind it, you can shade it to switch between the two without having to take the time to minimize/maximize. Window Maker also represent a process by an icon.  The process icon is used to hold hidden windows or offers a convenient way to kill a process that may have many windows open.  Hiding a window (a right click to iconify button) places all the windows of a process in the process icon.  The process icon represents each and every instance of the process and its windows (e.g. Say you have 5 xterms open, hiding one of them hides all 5 of them).  A click to the process icon restores all the process' windows as they were.  The process icon can also be used to bring-to-front every single window of the process which is very convenient, especially with terminals and IM windows.  Window Maker also introduces the notion of a dock which is similar to the tray in Windows.  The difference is, the dock can be used to hold application shortcuts or dock applications.  A dock application is usually an application that performs simple tasks like monitoring (e.g. weather, battery, clock, etc...).  There are many other niceties of Window Maker besides what was mentioned, but these are the features that make it so incredibly mindless, effortless and simple to use.
Mixing this interface with a Unix-style mouse makes it even better...hover to focus is really nice since it removes a needless click. 

Some other niceties: 
- Minimize and kill are separate (left and right corner) instead of next to each other...so if you intend to  minimize a window, there's no way you can accidentally kill the window.
- Window Maker offers seamless work spaces (i.e. drag windows to other work spaces, create workspaces on the fly without effort, etc...)
- GUI configurator...usually lightweight window managers rely on config files (e.g. fluxbox)...the GUI configurator offers convenient configuration of Window Maker without config files.
- Window Maker understands GNUstep, KDE, and Gnome semantics.

So its definitely worth a try if you want something new.  It is less effort to use than the classic Windows interface in my experience (again, not to say Windows' interface is bad).

[Explicit]

Even though I posted this in the "Post Your Desktop!" thread, it pretty much covers what nslay touches on in his post.

http://fictionwelive.com/peter/screenshots/05-20-08_desktop-ss.jpg

[wires]

awesome

I love tiling window managers.  I used to use dwm until I found out about awesome, and fell in love with it.

Openbox is another favorite too.

[MaDDoG]

Gnome + Compiz + Emerald = God

[Explicit]

Gnome + Compiz + Emerald = God

Only if you're concerned with making things as pretty as possible.

[Sidoh]

Only if you're concerned with making things as pretty as possible.

Haha, so true.

The only WM I've made serious use of in the past few years is Gnome.  I've tinkered with KDE, but not enough to say I prefer Gnome over it or any other WM.

I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with installing the new Ubuntu just yet, but when I do, it's likely that I'll play around with different WMs.  Maybe I'll find one I like more than Gnome.

[MaDDoG]

Gnome + Compiz + Emerald = God

Only if you're concerned with making things as pretty as possible.

I like pretty things

[Explicit]

Only if you're concerned with making things as pretty as possible.

Haha, so true.

The only WM I've made serious use of in the past few years is Gnome. I've tinkered with KDE, but not enough to say I prefer Gnome over it or any other WM.

I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with installing the new Ubuntu just yet, but when I do, it's likely that I'll play around with different WMs. Maybe I'll find one I like more than Gnome.

GNOME isn't really a WM per se, rather a desktop environment, but I know what you're getting at.

You're most likely going to stick with GNOME since it's fully-functional with just about everything you need right out of the box; no time spent configuring doo-hickeys and whatcha-ma-callits like you would in other WMs. That, and you're probably already very accustomed to the way the environment is laid out, so finding another desktop environment/window manager that you'll like more probably isn't going to happen, at least anytime soon.

I just installed Ubuntu 7.10 on a VM and so far, it's not so bad. It's virtually impossible to break something, and I like that aspect since it makes deployment across systems that much easier, especially if you're on a very, very tight budget.

[Sidoh]

Haha, I know "Window Maker" is the wrong term.  I tend to do crap like that when I'm not really paying attention, but glad you knew what I meant.  Thanks.

Anyway, that's most of the reason I don't feel the need to try others.  Some people say the ones they use are more "lightweight."  What do you get out of that when you're using a modern box?  My machine is a quad core 2.4 GHz with 2 GB of RAM.  It's already overkill for almost everything I do in Linux.  There's no way using some "lightweight" desktop environment is going to make any sort of non-trivial difference in performance.

I'm referring to Ubuntu 8.04, which was recently released as a beta (last month or two?).  I have 7.10 on my machine and both of my laptops.

[Explicit]

Anyway, that's most of the reason I don't feel the need to try others. Some people say the ones they use are more "lightweight." What do you get out of that when you're using a modern box? My machine is a quad core 2.4 GHz with 2 GB of RAM. It's already overkill for almost everything I do in Linux. There's no way using some "lightweight" desktop environment is going to make any sort of non-trivial difference in performance.

Agreed.

I'm referring to Ubuntu 8.04, which was recently released as a beta (last month or two?). I have 7.10 on my machine and both of my laptops.

Ah. I'll make a note to myself to try 8.04 out later.

[nslay]

Haha, I know "Window Maker" is the wrong term.  I tend to do crap like that when I'm not really paying attention, but glad you knew what I meant.  Thanks.

Anyway, that's most of the reason I don't feel the need to try others.  Some people say the ones they use are more "lightweight."  What do you get out of that when you're using a modern box?  My machine is a quad core 2.4 GHz with 2 GB of RAM.  It's already overkill for almost everything I do in Linux.  There's no way using some "lightweight" desktop environment is going to make any sort of non-trivial difference in performance.

I'm referring to Ubuntu 8.04, which was recently released as a beta (last month or two?).  I have 7.10 on my machine and both of my laptops.

You should try others because they offer new/different ideas and perspectives on how window management should be done.  My post on WindowMaker, for example, explains the mechanics of WindowMaker, and while WindowMaker is lightweight, it does not emphasize that as a reason to use it!  I use WindowMaker because it is simple and gets the job done fast and efficiently, not because it looks good or its lightweight.
There are better windowing paradigms than start+taskbar+tray...go and try something new, you might be surprised.

[Sidoh]

Haha, I know "Window Maker" is the wrong term.  I tend to do crap like that when I'm not really paying attention, but glad you knew what I meant.  Thanks.

Anyway, that's most of the reason I don't feel the need to try others.  Some people say the ones they use are more "lightweight."  What do you get out of that when you're using a modern box?  My machine is a quad core 2.4 GHz with 2 GB of RAM.  It's already overkill for almost everything I do in Linux.  There's no way using some "lightweight" desktop environment is going to make any sort of non-trivial difference in performance.

I'm referring to Ubuntu 8.04, which was recently released as a beta (last month or two?).  I have 7.10 on my machine and both of my laptops.

You should try others because they offer new/different ideas and perspectives on how window management should be done.  My post on WindowMaker, for example, explains the mechanics of WindowMaker, and while WindowMaker is lightweight, it does not emphasize that as a reason to use it!  I use WindowMaker because it is simple and gets the job done fast and efficiently, not because it looks good or its lightweight.
There are better windowing paradigms than start+taskbar+tray...go and try something new, you might be surprised.

Your post was a wall of text!  It scared me.

Seriously, though, I'm not really interested in playing around with stuff right now.  Maybe when I'm less preoccupied.

[Joe]

Haha, I know "Window Maker" is the wrong term.  I tend to do crap like that when I'm not really paying attention, but glad you knew what I meant.  Thanks.

Window Maker is also the wrong term! There's a difference between WM and wmaker (window manager and window maker). But I'm definitely sure you know that.

[Explicit]

Haha, I know "Window Maker" is the wrong term. I tend to do crap like that when I'm not really paying attention, but glad you knew what I meant. Thanks.

Window Maker is also the wrong term! There's a difference between WM and wmaker (window manager and window maker). But I'm definitely sure you know that.

Of course he knows that, but I'll say it for him: thanks anyway, Joe.

[Krazed]

Haha, I know "Window Maker" is the wrong term.  I tend to do crap like that when I'm not really paying attention, but glad you knew what I meant.  Thanks.

Anyway, that's most of the reason I don't feel the need to try others.  Some people say the ones they use are more "lightweight."  What do you get out of that when you're using a modern box?  My machine is a quad core 2.4 GHz with 2 GB of RAM.  It's already overkill for almost everything I do in Linux.  There's no way using some "lightweight" desktop environment is going to make any sort of non-trivial difference in performance.

I'm referring to Ubuntu 8.04, which was recently released as a beta (last month or two?).  I have 7.10 on my machine and both of my laptops.

You should try others because they offer new/different ideas and perspectives on how window management should be done.  My post on WindowMaker, for example, explains the mechanics of WindowMaker, and while WindowMaker is lightweight, it does not emphasize that as a reason to use it!  I use WindowMaker because it is simple and gets the job done fast and efficiently, not because it looks good or its lightweight.
There are better windowing paradigms than start+taskbar+tray...go and try something new, you might be surprised.

Like what? I've used Window Maker, awesome, all of those. I fail to see how those are superior to gnome, KDE, or even windows. Your start menu has options for every important application, search features, help, startup, etc. Your taskbar allows you to easily switch between open applications. Your system tray allows you to easily check the time, and work with applications that use it.

This is a world where a faster computer comes out everyday, and becomes more affordable everyday. How does it make sense to use inferior and "lightweight" enviroments?

[iago]

Like what? I've used Window Maker, awesome, all of those. I fail to see how those are superior to gnome, KDE, or even windows. Your start menu has options for every important application, search features, help, startup, etc. Your taskbar allows you to easily switch between open applications. Your system tray allows you to easily check the time, and work with applications that use it.

This is a world where a faster computer comes out everyday, and becomes more affordable everyday. How does it make sense to use inferior and "lightweight" enviroments?

I disagree that it's inferior, that isn't at all what the original poster said. He specifically said that it's NOT about being "lightweight".

I use it because it's far faster than the alternatives, both in terms of how fast it runs and in terms of how long it takes me to do things. I'm terrible at sorting through icons or even words. I absolutely hate visual file managers that don't let me type in the directory myself (although that's tangential). When I'm computing, I want a simple, quick interface that I don't have to touch, generally, but that just manages my windows in a nice, clean way. That's why I use WindowMaker.

[nslay]

This is a world where a faster computer comes out everyday, and becomes more affordable everyday. How does it make sense to use inferior and "lightweight" enviroments?

Nothing to do with the discussion, but here's my translation of this quote...
Translation:
It's okay to improperly design and implement software to get to market faster because computer memory is large, and processors fast.

Aside, all of you misunderstand what is meant by lightweight...Sure, WindowMaker doesn't need tons of memory or processor power to run.  It also doesn't need hundreds upon hundreds of dependencies.  When you use Ubuntu or similar, you don't see all those hundreds of useless libraries and programs that are needed to make the magic of KDE and Gnome work do you?  It's like watching a shiny car being built...except it is built out of beer cans, broken glass, used furniture, and other assorted garbage only to be glossed over with a shiny cool body.  But then, your harddrive is so big...so what if your software is made of useless space-consuming junk?  As long as it looks good right?

[Hitmen]

If it looks good, has no adverse effects on performance, doesn't eat up enough hard drive space to matter, and the user likes it, why do you care if they use it? For some people start menu + task bar + system tray is always going to be the best "windowing paradigm."

WindowMaker is awesome though, <3 iago for suggesting things back when I was running linux

[Sidoh]

This is a world where a faster computer comes out everyday, and becomes more affordable everyday. How does it make sense to use inferior and "lightweight" enviroments?

Nothing to do with the discussion, but here's my translation of this quote...
Translation:
It's okay to improperly design and implement software to get to market faster because computer memory is large, and processors fast.

Aside, all of you misunderstand what is meant by lightweight...Sure, WindowMaker doesn't need tons of memory or processor power to run.  It also doesn't need hundreds upon hundreds of dependencies.  When you use Ubuntu or similar, you don't see all those hundreds of useless libraries and programs that are needed to make the magic of KDE and Gnome work do you?  It's like watching a shiny car being built...except it is built out of beer cans, broken glass, used furniture, and other assorted garbage only to be glossed over with a shiny cool body.  But then, your harddrive is so big...so what if your software is made of useless space-consuming junk?  As long as it looks good right?

I like reading your posts, nslay, but I'm not sure I agree with this one.

If it works and I don't notice any performance hits for using it (I don't), why does it matter?  I'm going to use the one that I find the most functional or that's most convenient for me to use.  Gnome may be bulkier than a number of other desktop environments, but it just doesn't bother me if I don't notice it.  I'm not going to use something for performance reasons if the difference is negligible (I've tried other desktop environments.  there isn't a difference).

[nslay]

If it looks good, has no adverse effects on performance, doesn't eat up enough hard drive space to matter, and the user likes it, why do you care if they use it? For some people start menu + task bar + system tray is always going to be the best "windowing paradigm."

WindowMaker is awesome though, <3 iago for suggesting things back when I was running linux

I don't care what people use.  But I do care about what I install on my own system, and I do care how the software I use is designed.  I again reflect on the atrocity of modern software design:

It's okay to improperly design and implement software, memory is large and processors cheap.

I also would like to note that none of my original post had anything to do with advocating WindowMaker solely because it is lightweight, and had everything to do with advocating WindowMaker because it is easy to use and allows me to work more efficiently.  Aside, nobody here understood what I meant by "lightweight" anyhow.  Aside of the fact that I absolutely despise watching nameless library/program being installed and consuming space as well as potentially opening gaping security holes on my system, FreeBSD ports primarily compiles its software.  It takes about 2 days for a modern system to compile KDE, and for comparison, about 2 hours to compile all 200 packages and dependencies for Xorg.

[Sidoh]

I don't care what people use.  But I do care about what I install on my own system, and I do care how the software I use is designed.  I again reflect on the atrocity of modern software design:

It's okay to improperly design and implement software, memory is large and processors cheap.

Define improperly.  How much of that is subjective?  I know what you're getting at, but I don't think you're being fair.  I agree that Gnome, Xorg, etc could be designed better, but almost all things share that same property.  I realize you're saying WindowMaker avoids this accusation because the poor design it contains is negligible/not there, but, again, I think you need to be more specific.

I also would like to note that none of my original post had anything to do with advocating WindowMaker solely because it is lightweight, and had everything to do with advocating WindowMaker because it is easy to use and allows me to work more efficiently.  Aside, nobody here understood what I meant by "lightweight" anyhow.  Aside of the fact that I absolutely despise watching nameless library/program being installed and consuming space as well as potentially opening gaping security holes on my system, FreeBSD ports primarily compiles its software.  It takes about 2 days for a modern system to compile KDE, and for comparison, about 2 hours to compile all 200 packages and dependencies for Xorg.

"lightweight" isn't exactly a precise word to use in this context.  I think you probably should have been more specific.  If you were and I missed it, sorry.  I'm not prepared to involve myself in a long, drawn out debate in this matter.  I just don't care enough.