Razor-qt, A Fast Qt Desktop Enviroment

[ASmith]

Razor-qt, A Fast Qt Desktop Environment built in modular fashion based on users needs.

http://www.osnews.com/story/25448/Razor-qt_A_Fast_Qt_Desktop_Environment

Razor-qt is a small, lightweight Qt desktop environment with a unique approach to the desktop environment. It doesn't try to be a entire desktop environment like Gnome or KDE which helps make it fast and taylor made to your needs or machine for those who value Speed, Simplicity and a Intuitive Interface which is said to also function fine on older,slower Linux based machines.

Razor-qt 0.4 is out!
http://razor-qt.org/

Compiled packages are available for: Ubuntu, SUSE, Fedora, Arch Linux, Agilla Linux, Gentoo and Linux users can also build Razor-qt from the provided source instead of using a precompiled binary.

New components

razor-runner program, a tool for launching applications.
razor-config* tools.
qtxdg a standalone library for XDG standards in Qt available for 3rd party applications.
razor own menu (XDG standard).

While still a new project, Razor-qt already contains the key DE components:

Panel
Desktop
Application launcher
Settings center
Sessions

Razor-qt is a member of QtDesktop project
http://www.qtdesktop.org/

[wayne128]

What about support on Debian or LMDE?

[ASmith]

Razor-qt DE team builds,releases and produced binary packages:
https://launchpad.net/~razor-qt/+archive/ppa/+build/3012835

Additional Resources:

Free Qt Applications - Qt-Apps.org
http://qt-apps.org/
http://qt-apps.org/index.php?xsortmode=high

3rd party applications to complete Qt based a "fully featured" desktop:
https://github.com/Razor-qt/razor-qt/wiki/3rd-party-applications

Qt Desktop Forums,Newsgroups,Developers:

Razor-Qt: A New Qt-Based Desktop Environment: Pinguy OS Forum Support and Development Forum
http://forum.pinguyos.com/Thread-Razor-Qt-A-New-Qt-Based-Desktop-Environment

WEB UPD8, Daily Ubuntu/Linux News and Applications: Razor-Qt: A New Lightweight Desktop Environment Based on Qt
http://www.webupd8.org/2011/12/razor-qt-new-lightweight-desktop.html

Planet Qt - Highlighting Qt development and applications
http://www.planetqt.org/

Project QtDesktop Blog:
http://qtdesktop.blogspot.com/

qtdesktop Group:
http://groups.google.com/group/qtdesktop-devel

[sunewbie]

first distro to provide razor-qt

http://www.extix.se/

http://distrowatch.com/

http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=extix

[harvi]

razor review on distrowatch http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20120109&mode=67#qa

[ASmith]

Razor-qt is a excellent lightweight desktop environment with qt's open platform base of mass support and distro's.

Future Mint Distro's should include 1-2 lightweight desktop environment's (Razor-qt, LXDE) with all releases given that KDE and Gnome 3.x and Cinnamon are all rather heavy resourced desktop environments which some older and newer computers,devices and/or video cards cannot fully use or refuse to work with. HOWEVER, with a lightweight desktop environment the future Mint user could use to figure out if that release can be tweaked and adjusted to work vs a recovery/fall-back on a bloated/heavy duty desktop environment (Gnome 3.x, KDE) which remains bloated and/or likely not fully operationally due to a older computer,devices and/or video cards.

IF Razor-qt or LXDE were already included on all future Mint distro's, the user could simply pull up their terminal mode (alt-cntrl-T) and enter sudo reboot to reboot the system and before entering their password to login, choose the lightweight desktop to help them sort out what they can in a usable fashion.

To recap; on installing Razor-qt (note this example is for the Mint 12 (oneiric). Mint 11 (natty) etc. would change the version to reflect what version of Ubuntu Kernal they are using.

Razor-qt DE
In your application menu, pull up the Software Sources application and add this to your 'Software Sources', 'Other Software':

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/razor-qt/ppa/ubuntu oneiric main

After adding and making sure that addition's box is checked, close out software sources.

Pull up your terminal (press alt-cntrl-T) and enter the following:

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 11687D67

Typical successful keyserver output should be similar to this:
Executing: gpg --ignore-time-conflict --no-options --no-default-keyring --secret-keyring /tmp/tmp.wxuNsXYZfE --trustdb-name /etc/apt/trustdb.gpg --keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg --primary-keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 11687D67
gpg: requesting key 11687D67 from hkp server keyserver.ubuntu.com
gpg: key 11687D67: public key "Launchpad PPA for Razor-qt DE" imported
gpg: Total number processed: 1
gpg: imported: 1 (RSA: 1)

Next update your package lists to include the packages from Launchpad PPA for Razor-qt by typing this into your terminal:
sudo apt-get update

Next type this in to get and install the razorqt-desktop:

sudo apt-get install razorqt-desktop
sudo apt-get install razorqt

This lightweight desktop environment uses far fewer files and resources than Gnome,Cinnamon,KDE,TDE,XFRC.

To test/check your new Razor-qt DE, close all your windows after successfully installing except your terminal, then in your terminal type in:

sudo reboot

After entering your login username and before entering your password, select ^O the Razor-qt DE desktop to load in, then enter your password and adjust your new lightweight Razor-qt desktop to suit your preferences. Much of this desktop environment is intuitive and since it is a qt open platform, the same can be placed on multiple OS (win,mac,unix,solaris,linux's,etc.)

[sunewbie]

you do not need to reboot. You just need to log-out and log-in

btw, if you have noticed, maintaining multiple flavours is getting difficult for the little Mint dev team.

So there is no XFCE Xubuntu based, there is no fluxbox edition, KDE came up after a year, that too with bugs like software manager not working, so you have to use muon as a software manager.

LMDE is not getting frequent updates like many expected in the rolling distros. Clem switched to 'Update Pack', which IMHO, is a good decision, but updates are happening a bit slow (for some guys). I am not complaining about slow update, when stability is concern.

Initially, the flagship 'main Gnome based edition is released, then follows others editions. So all editions are not released in same day.

I do not think that Dev team can manage yet another flavour.

I think, they should reduce flavours or only release LTS version of other flavours. Clem has already said that KDE and even Fluxbox editions will be debian based. LMDe is easier to maintain.

The catch is to see the size of Update Packs 250 Mb to 350 Mb, or maybe even the size of distro (600 Mb).

I have also raised a thread to know the opinion and views of Minters about XFCE Edition

[fletcher]

I just found out about razor-qt, on a blog post. I love LXDE, and razor-qt looks a little bit similar. So I want to give it a try. Great to find more info on it in the forum. Thanks.

I like the modular DEs, glad to see a new one. And even though I have a new computer, I like the quickness of the small DEs, too.