Let's talk about desktop environments.

[exploder]

I really like the latest version of Cinnamon. I used to think that the classic desktop was fading away and that it was best to move on to the new environments. Cinnamon at this point in time has really changed my mind though. Cinnamon seems to give the classic desktop new life because it combines the traditional layout with new exciting features. The hot corner makes me use the virtual desktops and enjoy using the feature. Nemo gives me back all of the right click features that I find so handy at times. Changing themes in Cinnamon is easy and painless and I can have everything set up to my own personal preference in minutes. Clem and the community have made Cinnamon have a very elegant look, much nicer than Gnome 2x versions of Mint. With so many people unhappy with the Windows 8 interface I think Mint 14 is going to appeal to many new users as a genuine alternative to Windows.

Unity is gaining ground with new users too. My dad actually wiped Windows 7 from his main computer in favor of Ubuntu 12.04! My dad liked how Unity in no way resembled Windows and he was willing to learn how to use it because he found the user interface so appealing. My dad has always been a hard core Windows user and has always found some excuse why he would rather stay with Windows. My dad was introduced to Unity when he had to look up directions to take me to an eye specialist in Indianapolis. My dad instantly liked the global menus and the launcher. My dad took the time to explore how Unity was set up and he really believes that it is the future for desktop environments. When someone like this chooses Linux over Windows it really says a lot about the appeal of the newer desktop environments to me.

I have been watching the development of elementary OS Luna and now that I understand exactly what they are trying to accomplish I can really appreciate the work they are doing. elementary OS Luna is aiming for a seamless flowing environment where everything looks and works the same way. I have read many articles about how all operating systems have inconsistencies and the developers of elementary OS are trying to build a system that is consistent. The developers are building their own packages to accomplish their goal, this is very admirable and ambitious. The developers are taking the time to make things more unified, doing things their own way and building their own applications to accomplish all of this. The mucic player for example, looked amazing and even had a nice equalizer, I was impressed. Building their technology on an LTS release makes thing even better because not only does it give the system long term support, it gives the developers a good length of time to work on things for their next release.

I tried the Mate release of Mint 14 recently. For those that still want the stability and features the Gnome 2x series had to offer it is an ideal solution. Mate seemed very solid to me and I honestly could not find a single thing wrong with it. Mate preformed perfectly for me in every way. If the menu looked more modern I would have ran it on my main computer without a thought. I think Mate has appeal to long time Linux users though that are interested in stability more than desktop effects and bling. Mate would be very well suited in a business environment and the developers are fixing many longstanding bugs that had been present in the Gnome 2x series. Mate is probably the most stable desktop environment around and the developers deserve a lot of credit for the work they are doing.

Gnome Shell seems to have it's followers these days too. The only thing I personally do not understand about Gnome Shell is the direction the developrs are trying to go with it. I like the fact that Gnome Shell uses add-ons and that you can pick and choose what you want. Gnome Shell has been stable for me when I have experimented with it and the user interface was not difficult to use or understand. I had Fedora 17 installed on my sons computer for a couple of months and neither of us had any problems with it but my son wanted more desktop effects so we eventually switched it to another distro to make him happy. Gnome Shell seemed to me to be more modular, so that must be where it's strengths lie.

KDE seems to be getting more like Unity these days. KDE is nice is you like to customize your desktop a lot. KDE has always managed to have some bugs though that have given me error messages of one kind or another. There always seems to be a solution for whatever problem I have had though. Linus Travalds was quoted as saying that KDE looked cartoonish and I guess that is as good a description as any for why I have never stayed with KDE for any great length of time. I like that the developers are trying to give KDE a lighter memory footprint with each new release but it all takes time. To me, KDE looks like a Windows clone and I guess I just try and stay away from that. I will say though that for people that want desktop shortcuts it is much easier to have them using KDE. Themes are easy to change in KDE too, you can customize just about anything you could think of in KDE much easier than any other desktop environment and that certainly has an appeal to many people.

I like many of the lighter desktop environments like Fluxbox, Openbox, LXDE, Entightenment, etc but these environment have more appeal to us computer geeks. These environments tend to appeal to the minimalist that wants speed or wants to bring new life to older hardware. You can really do a lot with an older computer with a light desktop environment and you can make a modern computer amazingly fast with these environments. These light environments have some great features too! I always loved the transparency I could have in Fluxbox and Openbox. e17 packs a lot of bling for being so light and with a little work you can make it look amazing. There has been quite a bit of development going on with the light environments lately and that's great.

I have tried to use Xfce many times but have never stayed with it because it did not seem much lighter than Gnome. The menu was a pain to configure too. Xfce is easy enough to theme any way you like though and it has always seemed stable. Xfce appeals to people that want the classic desktop look and feel and some feel that it is lighter than many of the newer desktop environments. Having nice, desirable desktop effects also seems to a strong point in using Xfce.

These are just my opinions and experiences with these environment. I am sure there are people here that could give me some tips about configuring some of these environments better. Mint 14 Cinnamon is my choice for my main computer that I use everyday. For me Cinnamon has just the right blend of the new and the familiar. I like Unity quite a bit too because it is so different and offer some new ideas. It is really great that we so much choice and that we have so many desktop environments that are actively being developed.

[mmix]

i like xfce minimalism, although there is more space to reduce it's extreme.

[abnvolk]

I think that KDE has a lot of potential.
Unlike GNOME, KDE has 3 workspaces, each for a different kind of device - Desktop for PC, Netbook for netbooks, Active for tablets. It doesn't try to make desktops look like touch devices like GNOME. KDE Desktop still remains very traditional, yet with many exciting features and a beautiful look. For touchscreen devices, Plasma Active does a good job. And the Netbook interface is very useful on my 12.1' laptop - everything goes fullscreen.
KDE is very customizable, it has almost everything you would imagine. For example, KDE even has a global menu, an HUD-like search feature, a Dash and an Icon-only Task Manager (which can be set to function as a dock or a Unity Launcher)! Qt themes are color-changeable. KWin is like a second Compiz, with wobbly windows and such. The calendar has Gregorian, Julian, Coptic, Japanese, Thai... systems, and even has a Common Era option for atheists
However, having used GNOME for a long time, I was lost in the System Settings. Sometimes I wish KDE were simpler, or at least has a "simple mode". I would definitely use KDE if it were lighter, less buggy and had more GTK-compatible themes...

[exploder]

I installed Fedora 17 Gnome on my laptop a couple of days ago. I have had so many problems with my ATI graphics on anything Ubuntu based, artifacts, screen flicker, etc. I followed the directions on the Fedora forum for installing the driver and my graphics are perfect now, even Plymouth displays perfectly!

I went with Gnome Shell bacause Fedora officially supports it and I just did not want KDE on the small screen of the laptop. Gnome Shell has some pretty nice sized icons and it really makes using the laptop much nicer for me. I think I am starting to understand where Gnome Shell is heading. After adding a few extensions, Gnome Shell is pretty darn usable. Resource usage is pretty similar to the Mint 14 x64 Cinnamon install on my desktop and Fedora developers did an excellent job with bug fixes in this release.

I like the launcher Gnome Shell uses, it's just as handy as the one in Unity and I like how it is hidden and does not have that camealion effect that Unity has. I kind of like the simplified menu in Gnome Shell too, it does the job and does not have extra stuff installed that I do not want. For being something I was not too sure about to begin with I am really starting to like Gnome Shell.

[bimsebasse]

I really like the latest version of Cinnamon. I used to think that the classic desktop....

Pretty much agree with you on all accounts, exploder.

My favourite DE is elementary's pantheon + gtk3 combo, but I found out I can't really use it because you can't do anything with it. If you're a relentless customizer, then it doesn't matter how perfect you think elementary is, it will bore you It will be the OS I recommend to newcomers, though.

Cinnamon keeps up the rapid development and already now, not even a week after the release of Mint 14, Expo has seen significant improvement (thanks autarkper!). I spend less and less time in Gnome Shell as Cinnamon is slowly overtaking it in all areas (except online accounts integration where Cinnamon is far behind). Cinnamon's strength is its flexibility - you can set it up to be very similar to gnome-panel in Gnome 2 and you can set it up to be very similar to gnome-shell in Gnome 3. It is both keyboard friendly and mousy-pointy-clicky friendly, whereas Gnome Shell is borderline mousy-pointy-clicky hostile.

In Unity I like the refinement and integration, but the basic interface setup not so much. The top panel and the launcher still look and feel like a forced marriage, and the dash is trying to be too much in one place, it's a confusing monstrosity taking up a lot of resources.

[exploder]

I spent some time changing the default theme in Gnome Shell today. It is hard to get constancy... I finally ended up with the look I was trying for though thanks to the Gnome Tweak Tools. I had to use kind of a mixture of things to have everything right but I am not very experienced with this sort of thing either. Different themes made application icons smaller and have dots instead of the full names, some menus were dark while others stayed light... A mixture of different theme elements got me the look and consistency I wanted. I was going for a darker look that was easy on the eyes.

[Adelante]

I agree, exploder. I've only just started with Ubuntu-Gnome Remix beta, but since I never had much to do with Gnome, anyway, it's all new and fresh to me. I've only been using it since earlier today, but everything is going very well. In fact, not a single problem. Maybe if I had more of a Gnome past, I might feel differently, but I'm pleased by Gnome Shell as a desktop. It took me a little while to accept the dock would be inside the case there, but I'm already used to it. I like the clear space now.

For being something I was not too sure about to begin with I am really starting to like Gnome Shell.

[exploder]

I have found some nice Gnome extensions! The alternate status menu, recent items extension, remove user name extension and user themes extension. I have a couple of Nautilus add-ons and things are looking pretty good now. The theme and photographic wallpaper really has Gnome Shell looking nice now too. I used the Zukitwo GTK+ theme, Zukitwo Dark window theme, Fedora's default shell theme and the Faenza-Darkest icons. I have buttons back in my title-bars too. The wallpaper I am using is "Drops In Blue" by Orbmiser. Gnome Shell is really coming together nicely on my laptop!

Edit: Here is the desktop clean.

http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/1466/gnomeshell.png

Here is what the theme and icons look like.

http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/8123/g ... llbusy.png

[Z-Xylon]

On Gnome, Elegance Colors has to be one of the greatest themes. It comes with it's own configuration tools, so you can choose what color to make everything, the font size etc. Originally, it was a chamelionic theme, so it can also match the colors of the wallpaper or the gtk theme. It takes slightly longer to get it installed and running but it's worth it.

One thing I don't like about Gnome is the inability to use other Window Managers. Gnome and KWin would look amazing together in my opinion, but I don't think Gnome allows it.
It would be cool to have the Unity Dash as well in Gnome, because for me it's the best menu around.

KDE is awesome. I configured it too look nothing like Windows and to draw GTK apps better. I had to give it up in the end though, because it was so buggy that it kept freezing up every 5 minutes.

P.S. What's the deal with Tiling Window Managers?

[exploder]

Z-Xylon, I took a look at that theme, it is pretty cool. I spent a lot of time trying to get a theme to look right in Gnome Shell.... The mixture of gtk2 and gtk3 apps is what seems to make things such a pain. I ended up with Fedora 17 on my laptop by chance because of hardware problems with the Ubuntu base. KDE is usually kind of buggy for me so I went with Gnome figuring that because it was Fedora's default desktop it would be pretty good. The Fedora developers did a great job with what they had to work with and my laptop seems to be problem free. Also, I saw so much discussion on the Ubuntu forum about the Gnome re-mix it got me interested in looking at Gnome Shell again. I was amazed at the number of extensions that were out there and I did see the problem with extensions and newer versions of Gnome. Fedora 17 is using Gnome 3.4 and all of the extensions I wanted worked fine, even the ones that were beta.

I saw the other day that a distribution released an edition with Razor QT, it looked interesting. As I understand it Razor QT is supposed to be really light and it reminds me a lot of KDE 3x. I noticed that Trinity is still alive and well, it's cool that a KDE 3x fork is still around and people are still enjoying it.

I am seeing quite a few custom shells for Gnome 3, Cinnamon and elementary OS's variant are looking good. I know that some distributions are putting out Gnome 3 builds with the extensions they feel will give their users a better experience, this is all good. It used to be that most distros followed the same basic path, now they are doing things their own way and there is a lot of difference from one distro to another. Elementary OS and Mint seem to go the extra mile because they are giving new users things like themes so they do not have to fight with them to get things to look right. Including things like the Gnome Tweak Tool out of the box really helps too.

One downside I see is that it is more challenging to have multiple desktop environments because of the differences in the various forks. You can still have most of the light environments without much trouble but the full featured environments are tricky to get to work with each other.

[cwsnyder]

The problem with many of the GNOME looking desktops is they use the same GTK configuration files, which they all inherited from GNOME 2.x This includes MATE, Cinnamon, GNOME 3.x, Xfce to a certain extent, and Unity desktop. KDE 4.x, RazorQT, and Trinity would have the same problems as they all share the QT libraries.

You are less likely to have problems if you switch between desktops which don't share libraries, but you will have all of the configuration files and dependencies for all of your environments loaded at once. You could have one GTK desktop, one QT desktop, one OpenBox desktop, etc. without affecting each other, selecting with your session chooser at boot.

[exploder]

I think the reason I am liking Gnome Shell so much right now is because I spent so much time customizing it. I am spoiled by the themes Clem provides in Mint. It only took a matter of minutes to have my desktop computer just the way I wanted with the themes Clem includes. I can see alright since my last eye operation but I have a lot of scar tissue on my retina as a result and I wear a pretty strong prescription because of my implant having to be removed.

Darker themes with white letters are easier for me to sit back and see. I could not run Mint 12 or 13 on my laptop because I just was not happy with the ATI drivers and the laptop's hardware. Fedora works great, it just took a little reading to install the ATI drivers. Fedora's default fonts are a little bigger than Mint's and with a couple of tweaks they look pretty sharp on the laptop's small screen. I adjust the minimum font size in Firefox for any distribution I use, most of us with bi-focals do this so that makes reading on web sites pretty nice.

I could get along with Fedora's default theme but darker themes reduce eye strain, at least for me. Changing the theme was a challenge for me because I never mess with that stuff but after a little experimenting I have things looking mostly how I want them. Well, now the laptop is easy for me to use comfortably but I had to try and get back the user friendly things Mint has by default. Extensions made Gnome Shell a lot better! I liked that I could choose the extensions I wanted. I have some of the Nautilus add-ons but not all of the ones Mint has just yet.

I got my laptop last Christmas and it has sat and collected dust. Now with the laptop set up the way it is, I have been using it and it's not torture for me. I can sit back and use the laptop just as easy as I can with my desktops 25" wide screen display. I am real glad I gave Fedora a try on the laptop and that I gave Gnome Shell a fair chance. I think the appeal of Gnome Shell is that you can make it your own.

[bimsebasse]

I could get along with Fedora's default theme but darker themes reduce eye strain, at least for me. Changing the theme was a challenge for me because I never mess with that stuff but after a little experimenting I have things looking mostly how I want them. Well, now the laptop is easy for me to use comfortably but I had to try and get back the user friendly things Mint has by default. Extensions made Gnome Shell a lot better! I liked that I could choose the extensions I wanted. I have some of the Nautilus add-ons but not all of the ones Mint has just yet.

I can recommend choosing "Force dark theme" (or something to that effect, can't remember the wording) in gnome-tweak-tool using fedora's default gtk theme (Adwaita) - in my opinion the prettiest and most refined dark theme, and you don't have to download anything.

[exploder]

@ bimsebasse

Thanks for the advice on the theme but the Gnome Tweak Tools version that is in the Fedora repos did not have that option. The dark theme Orbmiser is using here is what I really want.

viewtopic.php?f=20&p=651571#p651571

I have never really tried to theme Gnome Shell before and I keep running into problems with various apps using the same theme.... The other problem is some themes cut off the application names and show dots and I want to keep the full names.

Edit: Thank you for the kind words.

Edit 2: I found the setting for forcing dark themes, it was in the Ubuntu Gnome 12.10 edition.

[bwat47]

remoulder,

I do agree with you and Miguel de Icaza any chance there ever was for Linux to be a mainstream desktop is long lost. I will go beyond what he says about 'technical fields' and say that in my field, isolation and characterization of proteins, it's non-existent. Everything is Windows based, either with a PC hooked directly to the equipment, or with data collected on a server and accessed via a client on a PC. Modeling is done on supercomputers, and those use UNIX, but the vast majority of people are using Windows boxes.

I don't agree with de Icaza that supporting one unified Linux OS would help that much. I personally see Linux as mostly an enthusiast undertaking (I know some people do use it for business, b/c they hate Windows and OS X so much, and it is used a lot on servers and embedded in things, I mean as a general desktop system), and it seems the appeal is variety. Look at the impact of GNOME locking things down on its popularity--it seems to be less, not more, popular.

Dr. Hu,

I would think that gamers would at least keep desktops popular enough that we can continue to buy hardware for a long time?

I think it still has a chance to become mainstream. As ubiquitous as windows is now? No. but I think it can at least achieve similar share to what OSX has achieved on the desktop. OSX doesn't have a huge share on the desktop, but is still "mainstream".

[bimsebasse]

It's only a matter of time before the Linux desktop share is on par with Apple globally, not because of Ubuntu or Mint, but Chrome OS or a version of Android for the desktop. Google conquered the browser market and the mobile OS market, they will become a player on the desktop market as well.

[Z-Xylon]

Ubuntu's HUD looks good to me. I love the idea of no more WIMP (Windows Icons Menu Pointer) and also the idea of Heads Up Displays. It just needs to have more basic features before it can do anything good so until then, I'll just use the amazing Gnome-Pie.

[exploder]

After trying lots of different distributions and desktop environments on my DV6 laptop I finally settled on Ubuntu 12.04 with Unity. Compize seemed to work best with the ATI graphics and Unity uses Compiz by default. Fedora with Gnome Shell was nice after customizing it but it just did not have the speed I was after and I just could not get it looking as good as my main computer with Mint 14 Cinnamon.

I could finally get Mint 14 to work on the laptop but there were glitches with the ATI driver and compositing. I really wanted compositing to work because it looks better when I demonstrate Linux to someone that has not used it before. MyUnity gave the Ubuntu 12.04 the look I was after and with all of the bug fixes that have come out for it, it seems very solid and reliable. I was able to install Cinnamon on Fedora 17 but it was not near as attractive as it is in Mint, the refinements Clem has made really make a big difference.

My goal was to find the best solutions for my desktop and laptop so I could leave them alone and use them. Mint 14 Cinnamon is perfect on my desktop and it really looks great, functionality and ease of use is the best I have found too. Ubuntu 12.04 is the best solution I have found for the laptop because the glitches with the graphics are solved using it. The MyUnity tool got things refined to where I think it looks nice and consistent. Going with an LTS release on the laptop is a good idea anyway because I do not want to keep installing my operating system.

I looked at the Ubuntu Gnome Re-Mix to see how Gnome 3.6 was. I liked some of the improvements I saw but I saw some problems too. Installing the proprietary drivers was a problem and in my opinion it needed some of the Gnome elements upgraded to the current versions by default. I did like that everything was consistent and looked right. The Gnome Tweak Tool was good too. I looked at the Fedora 18 alpha with Gnome 3.6 as well. I did not like the default look of Fedora 18 at all, it looked like an amateur made the theme. Gnome Shell did seem to run well but the default theme really took a lot away from the system. The default theme does make a difference.

Out of all of the desktop environments I have tried, Cinnamon and Unity are the most polished and have the most usability out of the box. I do think Gnome Shell is coming along but someone needs to build a distribution that makes it look more elegant by default. OpenSuse made Gnome Shell 3.4 look pretty decent but it could still use some refinements. I watched a video of someone trying to run Windows 8, Linux desktop environments are already much easier to use. If things keep going the way they are with Linux we will see Linux as a mainstream choice in the very near future.

[exploder]

After looking at nearly every full featured desktop environment I finally looked at KDE again. I looked at the Mint 14 KDE x64 release candidate, I was very pleasantly surprised! I have always thought of KDE as a resource hog but after updating the RC to KDE 4.9.4 I found that the memory footprint was about the same as Ubuntu 12.10 with Unity. This is not bad at all for having so much ability to customize and configure the system though.

Compositing is excellent in KDE! I love that the hot corner is only active when multiple applications are running! The hot corner in everything else I have tried was kind of annoying but the KDE developers made this feature work in a more sensible way. I like the way I can fine tune compositing to my own taste very easily. The default application selection in the release candidate is ideal for me, not too much and not too little. I had forgotten how nice kaffiene was, it has been so long since I have used it and I must say that I really like it. I have every right click option in Dolphin I could ever want and it really makes doing certain tasks quick and pleasant.

Plymouth works perfectly on my laptop with ATI graphics and my desktop with NVidea graphics and it is a nice little detail considering most everything Ubuntu based has problems with plymouth displaying properly. Another nice detail was that the maintainer chose to use the original KDE 4 folder icons! This is a very small detail but I really do not care for KDE's newer default folder icons, I just don't like the looks of them as much. Gtk apps seem to blend right in beautifully, you can hardly notice the difference from the native apps. Changing themes is easy and effortless too, no piecing things together to get everything to look right, I like this convenience a lot!

I have upgraded both systems to KDE 4.9.4 without a single problem and memory used has improved on both systems. I like how all the system settings are in one place too, no hunting for settings to get things configured. I have been running this release for a few days now and I have not seen a single error message or run into any problems doing my day to day tasks. KDE 4.9.4 seems to be very solid and reliable. I must say also that I like the modern look of KDE and I like the consistency of the system. I am really finding a lot to like about Linux Mint 14 KDE and if you have not looked at KDE for a while it is really worth taking the time to have a look at it. KDE has improved quite a bit since the last time I tried it and the defaults in the Mint KDE edition really make it especially nice.

I spent a lot of time exploring all my choices for desktop environments and I used all of them for a pretty decent length of time, it was a good experience. KDE 4.9.4 seems to be the perfect choice for me, it has everything I want and it is very customizable. I am really satisfied with the Mint 14 KDE edition, it does every single thing I want, it's customizable, reliable and administering it is so painless with all of the right click options in Dolphin. I never imagined liking KDE so much but this release has really sold me on the benefits of using it.

Edit: The Mint 14 KDE RC has really changed my mind about KDE. I never would have imagined myself liking KDE this much. I think the attention to detail made a big differance in how I viewed KDE. All of the small details just seem to make things so much nicer.

[Adelante]

I'm enjoying the LM 14 Xfce RC right now. I've spent a good amount of time recently exploring the Gnome3 Shell distros and respins out there, though I'm pretty settled on LM 14 Cinnamon. I found a few I quite liked, such as AriOS and the Ubuntu Gnome3 Shell Remix. I'm looking to see what Deepin Linux is coming out with next, apparently not Ubuntu-based and not Gnome3 Shell, but something original in a DE, they say. That should be interesting, because they do good work. Speaking of good work, I'm still running Elementary Luna Beta1 and liking the way it comes along.

The LM 14 KDE RC really is very nice, I just seem to always fall back into the Xfce version, so I guess I'd say it's my favorite. I do like KDE a whole lot as a change of scenery. I don't think KDE has been a resource hog in a while, at least a year now that I've paid attention. LMDE KDE unofficial also runs much lighter than I expected. There's a new LMDE Xfce unofficial in the works, so I'm looking forward to that, too. I also have Sabayon 10 KDE, which is a beautiful system and easy for learning Gentoo little by little.