new to all of this..questions!

[iferdjani]

Hi everyone!

I'm kind of new to all of this (as in Linux). Got Ubuntu yesterday, found out there are many more OSes in existence, found Linuxmint LXDE 8, installed it (as part of a quadruple mac/windows/ubuntu boot) and i am LOVING IT. It's so fast and everything. I'm just wondering how to do a number of things:

is there anyway to start the menu, or navigate on the desktop, by using the keyboard only? or do i need the mouse (not that it's a problem, just a technicality really).
i'm not sure how to do things like install my printer (locally or remotely on a network) ...yeah total noob here. but i hope that won't stop me from trying to make some kind of contribution to your project, i'm loving this OS!
finally, not really related to this project, but what the heck is the difference between LXDE, fluxbox and all those things? i mean i know that LXDE is simpler faster lightweight, but i'm not sure about all the others lol.

so yeah hope you can answer me! and i'll be posting here if i encounter any bug or weird problem of course. hope i can help you guys in some way!

(btw native language is french so..if you need help translating..)

[ScoutV2]

is there anyway to start the menu, or navigate on the desktop, by using the keyboard only?

I'm not aware of any way to navigate the desktop with your keyboard but you can navigate the Mint Menu easily enough. Press the control and the Window's key on your keyboard simultaneously to access the Mint Menu. You can then navigate the Mint Menu using your arrow keys.

[gunha]

finally, not really related to this project, but what the heck is the difference between LXDE, fluxbox and all those things? i mean i know that LXDE is simpler faster lightweight, but i'm not sure about all the others lol.

Yay I'm not the only newb!

Um, but hopefully I can explain this correctly . . .

The way that Linux works is pretty different than windows (… or mac I guess) because there are literally hundreds of distributions of it.

But, that's only possible because the thing that actually makes Linux (the kernel as it's called) is the same in all those distributions (except when one decides to use an older kernel or ...etc it's still Linux).

Therefore, the things that make each distribution individual are all the applications (programs) included with that kernel. That's why the programs which allow you to see things (graphic user interfaces or GUI, they're also called Desktop Environments) can be entirely different between different distributions (or versions of that distribution as in Linux mint).

There are a lot of GUIs (←how do you make that plural??) for Linux. For example, there is Gnome, KDE, openbox, fluxbox, and more, like LXDE.

The differences between all these interfaces is obviously why some people will choose one over another. For example, Gnome and KDE are probably the 'prettiest' of all these, however, others are designed to run on systems which can't give as many system resources (ram, etc) to making the graphic interface pretty. Like LXDE.

So, to summarize, Gnome (or KDE) will give you a pretty desktop that will take more resources than something like LXDE which will take less resources... etc.

And we can see this (stolen from a recent Linux mint blog post):

RAM usage at idle:
Fluxbox: 131MB
LXDE: 141MB
Xfce: 154MB

Maximum RAM usage during the installation:
Fluxbox: 235MB
LXDE: 246MB
Xfce: 262MB

Boot time from Grub to the login manager:
Fluxbox: 31.16 seconds
LXDE: 26.79 seconds
Xfce: 26.46 seconds

Boot time from the login manager to the desktop:
Fluxbox: 3.32 seconds
LXDE: 3.77 seconds
Xfce: 9.63 seconds

… so yeah, we can see that LXDE is only second to Fluxbox in terms of least resources used... but thats because fluxbox is scary (no really, try the Community Edition)

Anyway,
Welcome to the community

[Kendall]

Basically at the core of every desktop environment is a window manager (KDE uses KWin, Gnome uses Metacity, LXDE uses Openbox, etc) but a "Desktop Environment" in proper terms has a list of other tools/processes running in order to provide a very cohesive user experience. These usually include a panel, a settings daemon, and a desktop daemon controlled by the file manager (and often a lot more).

The difference between this and something like Fluxbox is that Fluxbox is literally just the window manager. It was designed to be perfectly functional by itself, but it's quite different than using a more traditional desktop environment.

[iferdjani]

oh okay! i get it now. well looks like i'll be sticking with LXDE RC1 for now! i'm still not sure what's unstable about it, it's running fine for me. i'm going to try xfce just to test it out but i have a good feeling about lxde lol, not sure why.

btw as a random comment, remote desktop viewer? AWESOME

so where can i find a list of things that this rc dosnt have and needs to have/get fixed in order for it to be released as a stable edition? i really wanna support it! i mean it's just so great!

btw i had a small bug. when i right clicked on the network icon, i selected disable wireless. then when i wanted to enable it, it would not work, the enable wireless option was blacked out and was not clickable. i tried manually switching on and off my wireless card (toshiba laptop btw) but still it did not work. i had to reboot the laptop. so yeah nothing major but just saying it happened lol!