Convince me

[LowDesertPunk]

So I'm probably about to get a laptop and I was thinking of trying out xfce just to see what its like considering I'll need to start afresh with a new linux installation anyway... The laptop will have a quad-core processor / 4gb RAM so it's not lacking in the specs department and from what I've read, xfce is geared more towards low-power setups. This does seem to be the main benefit - I'm just wondering if there's anything else that would warrant me using this desktop environment (anyone with a more powerful maching running it?). I'd probably opt with Xubuntu btw.

Oh yeah; before writing this, I first went over to the xfce forums and tried to make an account so I could ask this question but I couldn't manage to answer this bot-prevention question on the registration:

What is the output of "date -u +%jXfce|sha256sum|sed 's/\W//g'" if you run it in a terminal emulator?

...seriously? I mean it might be easy to the more linux-savvy guys but I'm a newb man.

[ThistleWeb]

I'm confuzled, convince you of what? In the FOSS world, it's not our place to convince people of anything. It's free for you to try any variant you like, and choose what works best for you. My DE of choice is XFCE for that reason, it works for me.

XFCE is a medium weight DE, it has most of what people need from the heavyweights Gnome and KDE with a smaller footprint. The way it's set up in distros like Mint and Ubuntu mean it's not exactly light, they add in lots of Gnome services which increase the size of the footprint. With a 4GB RAM system, it will have no problems with any DE, you're not likely to notice any difference with XFCE over Gnome or KDE. You have the luxury of using ANY environment, so you can try them all. Whatever works for you is the right option for you.

It can be done real lightweight like Crunchbang which idles in around 85mb RAM. This is ideal for older or limited spec computers. 4GB hardly qualifies as that.

As for the CAPTCHA question, you could copy and paste it into the terminal, hit ENTER, then copy and paste the result into the box. It is kinda geeky, and kinda cool way to keep the spammers out. Spammers are a huge problem, so every site has a balance to make between keeping it human friendly and bot unfriendly.

[AdamS]

Not out place to convince, but rather recommend.

There is a distro for all, pick the right fit for the laptop you buy.

Some laptops are powered by the worlds largest monopoly only. So pick well .

Your choices are

linux - free - does not suffer infections or viruses as long as you stay out of root and only install via trusted sources. Does not suffer rot (AKA bit loss)

Windows - costs a great deal of money - suffers infections in the billions regardless of anti virus used. Suffers rot badly (AKA bit loss) .

or buy a mac

based on Darwin Linux, backwards from a typical linux.

Just the cold hard facts, have fun.

[LowDesertPunk]

I'm confuzled, convince you of what? In the FOSS world, it's not our place to convince people of anything. It's free for you to try any variant you like, and choose what works best for you. My DE of choice is XFCE for that reason, it works for me.

XFCE is a medium weight DE, it has most of what people need from the heavyweights Gnome and KDE with a smaller footprint. The way it's set up in distros like Mint and Ubuntu mean it's not exactly light, they add in lots of Gnome services which increase the size of the footprint. With a 4GB RAM system, it will have no problems with any DE, you're not likely to notice any difference with XFCE over Gnome or KDE. You have the luxury of using ANY environment, so you can try them all. Whatever works for you is the right option for you.

It can be done real lightweight like Crunchbang which idles in around 85mb RAM. This is ideal for older or limited spec computers. 4GB hardly qualifies as that.

As for the CAPTCHA question, you could copy and paste it into the terminal, hit ENTER, then copy and paste the result into the box. It is kinda geeky, and kinda cool way to keep the spammers out. Spammers are a huge problem, so every site has a balance to make between keeping it human friendly and bot unfriendly.

Okay, you're being a little pedantic - I don't mean you need to convince me - the very fact I'm deciding between which linux DE to choose shows I've already been convinced by FOSS but I just wanted to find out from XFCE users what features may interest me and make it worth while checking out.

I think I'll go for GNOME - KDE hasn't been my cup of tea. As for the captcha thang, I wasn't getting anything returned from the CLI when I put that command in... strange...

[AdamS]

KDE hasn't been my cup of tea

Tried KDE several times, just cant seem to get into it. Fact is it annoys me to no end lol.

At the moment, gnome classic is the only one that floats my boat 100%.

Gnome 3 - tolerable but not ideal ( for my needs)

Xfce - failed to fit my needs as well.

But , all based on you buddy. Just don't think it is our place to convince , but rather recommend.

[LowDesertPunk]

KDE hasn't been my cup of tea

Tried KDE several times, just cant seem to get into it. Fact is it annoys me to no end lol.

At the moment, gnome classic is the only one that floats my boat 100%.

Gnome 3 - tolerable but not ideal ( for my needs)

Xfce - failed to fit my needs as well.

But , all based on you buddy. Just don't think it is our place to convince , but rather recommend.

Yeah, Gnome's pretty swish but I didn't take to Ubuntu 11.04's ?Unity? - I'm on Kubuntu right now but it's not my cup of tea as I said - I have no idea why I posted here rather than at the Ubuntu forums but hey

[AdamS]

Unity , can drop dead and die like the BAD idea it is.

It annoyed me worse then KDE.

Gave it a fare shake and had dozen clients try it, took them 1 to 2 days to say O HELL NO.

[LowDesertPunk]

Unity , can drop dead and die like the BAD idea it is.

It annoyed me worse then KDE.

Gave it a fare shake and had dozen clients try it, took them 1 to 2 days to say O HELL NO.

I guess they're just playing around with something new to try and open the distro up to a wider audience - I get that. Maybe it'll improve in upcoming versions when the bugs have been fixed and it's made more customisable.

[Habitual]

Code: Select all

date -u +%jXfce|sha256sum|sed 's/\W//g'

0dd1bf4688390c9f80b00a88abf74a7c0b626b6f202b9d231ca6135b2e624adc

[mastablasta]

I think I'll go for GNOME - KDE hasn't been my cup of tea. As for the captcha thang, I wasn't getting anything returned from the CLI when I put that command in... strange...

i wonder what OS you come from. Because KDE is almost exactly like windows (almost). Only better. to make it look a bit more windowsy you would need to right click on the K and select classic menu style. after that it's like having windows on.

You have control center (control panel) where you set up everything. Once everything is set you are good to go and you won't be in touch with the DE very much. just as i don't care how my XP looks like.... i am mostly using the programmes, the OS is there only to run them and help me interact with computer.

on and if you are far away form home like my wife you might want to add a analog watch widget and weather widget for your hometown.