Poll: Desktop environments

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Which desktop environments do you use?

Cinnamon
1476
30%
Fluxbox, OpenBox, Blackbox, *box
147
3%
Gnome Fallback
149
3%
Gnome Shell
464
9%
KDE
543
11%
LXDE
316
6%
MATE
963
19%
Other non-listed DE (Enlightenment, Trinity, RazorQT, ROX) or not using or planning to use any of the DEs listed in this poll.
101
2%
Unity
182
4%
Xfce
642
13%
 
Total votes: 4983

AlbertP
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Re: Poll: Desktop environments

Post by AlbertP »

@ rickm1945: You can (in grub) add b43.blacklist=yes boot parameter, then boot Mint and install the driver you need for your wifi.
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DMGrier

Re: Poll: Desktop environments

Post by DMGrier »

Running Maya with Cinnamon, was running Ubuntu 12.04 for about two months and even though I like Unity I felt like there was something missing. I kept seeing things about cinnamon on the internet and figure I would give it a try and I am in love.

I like mate but time to let gnome 2 die in my opinion. Plus I highly doubt KDE is the most popular, really like KDE but I do know they are not the most popular.
AAAAH!ERMAGAWD!HELP!

Re: Poll: Desktop environments

Post by AAAAH!ERMAGAWD!HELP! »

It's a pitty MATE isn't the top ranking one. But it easily could be; it can look better and performs better.
Arran

Re: Poll: Desktop environments

Post by Arran »

LMDEFan1 wrote:For now, I'm off to KDE land when Linux Mint 13 KDE is released. After all, if you're looking for a highly configurable modern looking DE, that takes advantage of today's graphics capable hardware, then KDE is definitely the way to go. AND, for those with older, less capable machines, who like to get as much life out of them as possible, just tweak your configuration. Just google "making kde faster" and you'll get lots of guidance.
Unfortunately your wish will not become reality. Clem seems to be an ardent opponent to KDE and he has probably deleted this word out of his brain. As a working System I am still on Mint12 KDE with a few additional source to get some of the most important updates as soon as they become stable from their developpers, not when the snail-sources here are offering them. I am also trying to impose KDE over LMDE and once successful, I will remove (purge) everything mate- and cinnamonish. As you rightly write, KDE is the most used DT on Planet Linux and it is a pity one of the most-used Distro is not offering this desktop.
BostonPeng

Re: Poll: Desktop environments

Post by BostonPeng »

Arran wrote:I am also trying to impose KDE over LMDE and once successful, I will remove (purge) everything mate- and cinnamonish.
Having gone down that rabbit hole I'm afraid you won't be able to purge every non-KDE package from LMDE. Since LMDE is built upon MATE/Cinnamon you'll find that trying to remove some packages will trigger removing a lot of mission critical apps as well. What I ended up doing is to open up Synaptic and went through packages one at a time, marking one for removal and making sure it won't trigger a massive package dump. Rinse and repeat. There is much you can kill, but you won't be able to end up with a pure KDE install of LMDE.
Arran wrote:As you rightly write, KDE is the most used DT on Planet Linux and it is a pity one of the most-used Distro is not offering this desktop.
+1. Million. I'm curious to know what clem has against KDE. It seems more folks look to use KDE with every release, for whatever reason, and it truly is a shame that with yet another distro we've become the blue-headed stepchild, the weird cousin the rest of the family seems to wish they could forget about. The one problem with that is we're seeing how great Mint could be with KDE and we're becoming rather vocal. Yet again.

@clem:
Care to shed some light on your dislike of KDE? I look forward to being proven wrong about being the weird cousin. I'm just sayin'.
Fandangio

Re: Poll: Desktop environments

Post by Fandangio »

With regard to the last two posts I really thought that Mints partnership with Blue Systems http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=1913 would lead to a more timely KDE release.

How very wrong I was.
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xenopeek
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Re: Poll: Desktop environments

Post by xenopeek »

Please don't spread FUD guys :( KDE is an important desktop for Linux Mint. As Clem has shared on the blog, Linux Mint 13 KDE (and Xfce) is currently in development. The team can't do everything at the same time, so please grant a little patience.

Though I can understand your disappointment about there not being a LMDE KDE release.

Linux Mint main edition, like Ubuntu, generally only gets security updates and critical bugfixes. Meaning you don't get the latest releases of applications with new features, but you do have a stable and fully integration tested system. While you may want the latest releases of applications for the new features those bring, average users benefit more from having a stable system. If you want the latest versions regardless of that, you can usually find those through PPAs or you can switch to a rolling release like LMDE (where you generally get these versions earlier).
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Fandangio

Re: Poll: Desktop environments

Post by Fandangio »

Mine was not intended as such, apologies if it was misconstrued.
BostonPeng

Re: Poll: Desktop environments

Post by BostonPeng »

You and me both, Fandangio. I'm hoping clem reports that it's still happening, just slower that we hoped. With Mint 13 KDE hopefully being built now it may simply mean things are just taking longer to pull things together. Netrunner has some nice KDE packages, I believe built on a Debian base rather than on Kubuntu, which should make building an official LMDE KDE release a bit easier. But I may be reading things incorrectly.

@ xenopeek:
I didn't mean to post FUD either, simply stating that it seems KDE keeps getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop.
Skara Brae

Re: Poll: Desktop environments

Post by Skara Brae »

New Linux Mint user here. Being rather "conservative" that I am (and not precisely knowing the difference between the two), I went for Mate.
AAAAH!ERMAGAWD!HELP!

Re: Poll: Desktop environments

Post by AAAAH!ERMAGAWD!HELP! »

Skara Brae wrote:New Linux Mint user here. Being rather "conservative" that I am (and not precisely knowing the difference between the two), I went for Mate.
I love mate!!!
davidwillis
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Re: Poll: Desktop environments

Post by davidwillis »

I really want to like cinnamon. I think it has great potential, and in a year or so, it will probably be the best. But right now I think KDE is the by far the most complete, and ready for Desktop use. I am not sure why Mint does not make it there main desktop until cinnamon is ready to surpass it. The only thing I don't like about kde is the menu. I really love the new menu in cinnamon, if that could be added to KDE, then I would be happy. Even LXDE, or xfce could be made to be a very nice Desktop with compiz, and emerald themes (which is incompatible with cinnamon).

Anyway, that is my opinion right now.
bjza

Re: Poll: Desktop environments

Post by bjza »

Renewed LMDE user here. When school let out, I decided to give Gnome Shell a fair try. Unity had me furiously uninstalling within the hour, so I did not expect to like it at all. A few days ago I sabotaged X and fglrx while switching to testing, and in the process of repairing that mess I had to fall back to the classic Gnome environment. I was surprised to find I'd grown accustomed to the shell already. Once I'd set up personal keyboard shortcuts, I fell right into the habit of using them and the activities overview. There are still a lot of things I wish it could do, but it's working for me. I do wish some extensions would migrate into the shell proper (like the tweak tool, removing accessibility), since their existing outside the shell could lead to incompatibility on update.
Skara Brae

Re: Poll: Desktop environments

Post by Skara Brae »

AAAAH!ERMAGAWD!HELP! wrote:
Skara Brae wrote:New Linux Mint user here. Being rather "conservative" that I am (and not precisely knowing the difference between the two), I went for Mate.
I love mate!!!
I think I'll be getting there soon :)

I have used Ubuntu w/ Gnome 2 from October 2007 until now, June 2012 (never had any big problems with it; that is how GNU/Linux should be), so I can only compare Linux Mint (Mate) with Ubuntu. I will not bring up my not-so-successful expeditions in SuSE and Mandrake in the '90/'00s. And the Mate start menu clearly works faster/smoother than Gnome 2 on this old but faithful computer of mine.

A pity that I "lost" Ubuntu, but then again, Ubuntu 10.04 will stop being supported in only 10 months, so that doesn't matter (but it's still a pity). I don't like Unity/Gnome 3, so upgrading Ubuntu will/would be a no-go for me (really not). "Mate" works very well (so far). I don't see a reason to get Cinnamon.

Oh, and Linux Mint makes me smile :D The LM Devs have done a wonderful job! They can feel good about themselves :)
Sonsum

Re: Poll: Desktop environments

Post by Sonsum »

Gnome 3 with extensions is heaven for me. I tried to get used to Cinnamon on a fresh LMDE, but I just couldn't get over some of the bugs.

And regarding all this discussion of KDE, I just don't see the appeal of KDE. Knoppix was my first Linux experience, but Ubuntu was the first OS to put in support for my USB wireless card. After that, I've been solid Ubuntu/Debian. Being so used to the way Gnome looks has locked me into using a Gnome-fork of some kind. I feel that Ubuntu's Unity will driver more people to Gnome 3/Gnome-Fallback, but not to a non-Gnome fork. After all, people are complaining about the change to Unity. A Gnome-fork will be the closest thing to that pre-Unity state.
BostonPeng

Re: Poll: Desktop environments

Post by BostonPeng »

Sonsum wrote:And regarding all this discussion of KDE, I just don't see the appeal of KDE. Knoppix was my first Linux experience, but Ubuntu was the first OS to put in support for my USB wireless card. After that, I've been solid Ubuntu/Debian. Being so used to the way Gnome looks has locked me into using a Gnome-fork of some kind. I feel that Ubuntu's Unity will driver more people to Gnome 3/Gnome-Fallback, but not to a non-Gnome fork. After all, people are complaining about the change to Unity. A Gnome-fork will be the closest thing to that pre-Unity state.
If you haven't looked at KDE lately you may want to give it a spin on a LiveUSB (or something). I know there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth when KDE 4 came out but it's really nice now. If you like tweaking your system KDE's a fantastic DE for it, and I find it's so easy to do anything from launching apps to shutting my laptop down I've found myself frustrated the last two times I had opportunity to try LMDE. Plus you have a lot less of upstream decisions being shoved down users' throats on KDE, but Mint devs are actually good enough to undo some of them when they can.
Rob190

Re: Poll: Desktop environments

Post by Rob190 »

Just a request for one of these desktops to support desktop sharing reliably. I've actually gone back to Ubuntu for now but I really liked the Cinnamon desktop. Very clean and fast and desktop sharing was great when it worked. Unfortunately it was just so unreliable. Had endless crashes and hangs just moving files around. If there was a way to reliably restart it from an SSH shell, I could probably have lived with that.

Mate: Desktop sharing not working at all in LM13
KDE: Desktop sharing slow and some strange problems getting lots of repeated characters when typing into dialog boxes.
Gnome: Installation failed (broken package) and removing it corrupted the system so badly I had to do a fresh install (and decided to move back to Ubuntu).
SmallTock

Re: Poll: Desktop environments

Post by SmallTock »

Cinnamon, LXDE, XFCE, MATE
d_knuckle

Re: Poll: Desktop environments

Post by d_knuckle »

New to Mint, using LXDE--- was long time ubuntu user (gnome and kde) and was trying out the unity desktop when I ran into trouble with flash not working after a security update--while looking for a fix on the web I came across "Mint, the new ubuntu" and decided rather than trying to solve the flash issue I would give mint a try.Chose mint 12 lxde because I don't have DVD (cd only) and could not find my pen drive (seems the daughter had it for something) so I got the latest ISO that fit on cd and installed it.So far I am impressed.It kind of reminds me of the way I felt when I left windows for freespire -- it is new and it works and it is not M$ which is cool but now I wonder if I might want to go cinnamin...or maybe mate....so many choices,so little time...
telenux
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Re: Poll: Desktop environments

Post by telenux »

Gnome3 is garbage and for ****s. KDE4 was a mess but it has a new challenger for biggest mess out of all the DEs. XFCE isn't bad but is becoming bloated. LXDE is for low-resource computers.

Cinnamon and MATE look ok. The devs for that will probably mess those up eventually, too, though. Everyone wants their DE to be versatile so they can go on mobile devices or something. That's what Ubuntu seems to be doing with Unity and why it's almost universally hated. Is there a pattern (there)?
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