Linux Mint Forums

So I have used mint as a mythtv media system, and greatly admire the enterprising approach to desktop environments!

I also use puppy linux, which to my understanding just takes and modifies JWM (or an equivalent WM) and adds the other functions through third-party applications (such as the screenshot etc.).

What's the advantage of a DE such as gnome rather than a customized WM with added programs like puppy does it?

I'm a puppy user also, and I think both mint and puppy/puplets was great OS.

everyone is different, so it's a matter of personal preferences to choose a DE.

if it comes to GNOME vs. JWM, I think it's about a habit, as a former MS windows user, I realize that gnome was offering the (kind of) same feeling of MS windows desktop. JWM was light, but Gnome was offering more functionality on it's heaviness. Same goes to KDE and XFCE, heavier the DE, usually its offering more function. back again, its a matter of personal preferences.

I can said that with puppy user i have reason a lot about it in a way that is useful for many people out there.

You might also want to try out SliTaz. It's amazing fast yet it uses LXDE so you can make it look and feel beautiful at the same time; copy over the Mint LXDE themes and put them in SliTaz and you'll feel right at home! Puppy uses a quite a bit more resources than SliTaz; with SliTaz, the idle RAM usage is at 30MB and 80MB with Firefox open.

To me it is about configurability. The more you like to tweak your desktop and add plugins/applets/widgets the heavier the desktop you need. I borked two Puppy installs trying to tweak the desktop and change settings. Did the same once with LXDE, those lighter desktops don't offer the ability to configure them on the level of Gnome 2 or KDE. For me the right mix is Xfce. I can tweak it without breaking it and it has all the applets I need, plus it is still relatively light on resources.
KBD47