Alternatives for xfce4 desktop?

[bask185]

I have set up an HTPC with mint and the xfce4 desktop. I essentially only use desktop icons 99% of the time. I am not content with xfce4 for 2 reasons

The htpc has a most annoying bug. When I turn the TV off and on, it doesn't get an hdmi signal. I 'fixed' this with a shellscripts which forces xrandr to..."work". From what I have came across on the internet the bug is related to the xfce4 desktop.

The other reason I am not very happy with xfce4 is that it does not look that particular pritty. Now I have the toolbar hidden on default and I only see the desktop icons, background and a few screenlets. But I'd really like the unity toolbar or launcher. The original reason I chose for Mint over Ubuntu is that the default ubuntu desktop had the unremovable gray bar on the top of the display which was not removable.

What I did like a lot was the fancy toolbar of Ubuntu. That apple style toolbar, the one thing apple ever did good .

So I want a different desktop than xfce4 because of the bug, that's an absolute must. What I wish is a similar unity toolbar of ubuntu. So I am open for suggestions

[AZgl1800]

If you want Pretty, and a Windows look alike.

install Cinnamon.

[Hoser Rob]

You mean the Unity app launcher toolbar on the left side of the screen? Try putting an autohide vertical panel there and just put the app launchers you want there. I'v e been doing it like that for years and I like it a lot better than the Unity way.

BTW using a different desktop environment is unlikely to fix your video problem. Linux is a lot more modular than Windows, and as far as Linux is concerned, the DE is just another bit of app software. Handling video is done at a lower level.

Please post some useful system info, copy/paste this to the terminal and copy/paste this to the terminal and copy/paste the text output here:

Code: Select all

inxi -Fxz

[trytip]

so which do you want, make XFCE pretty or install a HTPC? KODI has a HTPC session https://launchpad.net/~team-xbmc/+archive/ubuntu/ppa

[LinWinux]

I had an almost identical problem that I thought should be blamed on XFCE as well. We were so used to having XFCE running on all of our machines and even the system with the TV setup, that it didn't dawn on me to check the actual TV settings for months. Once I checked the TV settings, I found the real problem ... at least that's what it was for our setup. The TV had two different settings of which one was not set correctly. The Time-Out or sleep function of the TV had to be disabled completely ... which wasn't a problem since XFCE has its own screensaver settings and such anyway. But on our TV there was also a "disable blue screen" setting. Apparently when there's a lack of power to the TV, it automatically goes into some kind of a sleep-like blue screen for whatever reason? Once we disabled the bluescreen, everything was fine.
Check your TV settings, you might find your answer there.

Greetings from Overseas ...

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