raymac46 Posted May 19, 2022 Share Posted May 19, 2022 https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/17/linux_desktop_feature/ This article may be just clickbait, but it seems a bit naive at best when you can make Linux look and feel any way you like. Folks complain about too many distros and DEs, then at the same time other folks say the DEs all look the same. Can't please everyone, so you got to please yourself. Personally I am OK with the WIMP way of doing stuff and LXQt or Xfce works for me. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedon James Posted May 19, 2022 Share Posted May 19, 2022 I discovered linux during the Gnome 2.x days. That layout just made SO MUCH sense, and was IMMMEDIATELY intuitive; so much so, I couldn't imagine how the windows layout ever became so popular. Gnome 2.x was perfect, IMO, with the TOP bar, as we (english speakers, at least) read top to bottom, left to right, and Gnome accommodated that ingrained habit. And then the "activities" and "places" indicators were perfect ways to "jump" immediately where you wanted/needed to go, without clicking through layers of a Windows Menu, or layers of Windows Explorer. And that bottom bar/panel wasn't cluttered with a bunch of extraneous stuff.....just open & running "activities" that were easily located; and that workspace indicator was GENIUS, imo! The only improvement to Gnome, aesthetically and ergonomically (IMO) was to move that bottom panel to the left side (again, reading left to right) when flat panel monitors with 16:9 ratios started to overtake older 4:3 monitors. Moving the launcher/panel to the left took advantage of the "extra" screen now available and created some extra pixels of viewing area that reduced up/down scrolling. The very first Ubuntu Unity on netbooks (UNR) was perfect, IMO, as it had ALL of these elements in one interface. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
striker Posted May 19, 2022 Share Posted May 19, 2022 About the article: Some people always have something to complain about and usually nagging does not make any positive contribution to an alleged problem, which problem is often not even seen or experienced as a problem by others. I think there are more important things in life than nagging about this. Maybe the author was thinking about linux desktop of the year or something alike, I don't know. I always say to each his/her own, what works for you works and that's absolutely ok. In my opinion it has more to do with the fact if you're feeling happy with the system you use as is or not, no matter how much you tweaked and tuned it or just a barebones system out of the box. If you're happy with it than you've got something you're not doing away so easy. Personally I'm still very happy with my Mint and the Mac, I also know members here are happy with the systems they use most of the time. Let's get on with life and make the best of it in the most positive way we can think of. 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted May 19, 2022 Author Share Posted May 19, 2022 @HJ I also got started with Ubuntu and GNOME 2 but I don't recall feeling that it was an improvement over the Windows interface. It was what it was; took about 10 minutes to figure out and since I considered it the "price" to use Linux I was happy. I had much greater challenges getting wifi to work. KDE at the time was closer to Windows but I never used it that much as it was "death by menu" back then. I have to say though that I still like the taskbar or dock at the bottom of the screen. Cinnamon or LXQt - even Xfce - seem more "intuitive" to me. I have to tweak GNOME 3 to have some sort of dock at the bottom. Aside from that I would consider myself more of a GTK person than Qt - just sayin'... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted May 19, 2022 Share Posted May 19, 2022 1 hour ago, raymac46 said: I also got started with Ubuntu and GNOME 2 Me, too! As a matter of fact, you can compare my Ubuntu/Gnome desktop with my current Slackware/Xfce desktop and you'll see that not much has changed in how things look on my systems. 2006 Ubuntu 6.06 "Dapper Drake" w/ Gnome 2 Slackware 14.2 w/ Xfce4 . 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedon James Posted May 21, 2022 Share Posted May 21, 2022 On 5/19/2022 at 8:51 AM, raymac46 said: @HJ I also got started with Ubuntu and GNOME 2 but I don't recall feeling that it was an improvement over the Windows interface. It was what it was; took about 10 minutes to figure out and since I considered it the "price" to use Linux I was happy. I had much greater challenges getting wifi to work. KDE at the time was closer to Windows but I never used it that much as it was "death by menu" back then. I have to say though that I still like the taskbar or dock at the bottom of the screen. Cinnamon or LXQt - even Xfce - seem more "intuitive" to me. I have to tweak GNOME 3 to have some sort of dock at the bottom. Aside from that I would consider myself more of a GTK person than Qt - just sayin'... I was a Gnomie the moment I saw it and played with it. KDE was definitely closer to the Windows paradigm. I didn't have any issues with that; it's just that Gnome really stood out. To use a Windows analogy, I was fine with my old & familiar machine, until I used my buddies new machine, which was so much faster & responsive that I now coveted my own new machine. Everything was fine....until I learned that it wasn't. And the moment I learned that, I had a burr under my saddle! LOL! I immediately gravitated to Gnome and the Gnome ecosystem. KDE was definitely too "complicated"....they had options for their options, LOL! But Gnome lost me when they started deprecating features in the name of "progress." Now I'm in the LXQT DE camp. Took me awhile to find QT programs to replace my Gnome favorites, but now that I've done that, I'm pretty happy with LXQT. I like a homogeneous OS, cause I'm a little OCD that way, but I'll use the occassional GTK/Gnome software when QT/KDE just doesn't cut it for me. For instance, I have Scanlite scanner software, which is great for scanning photos into archive; but I also NEED to scan to PDF, and nothing is even close to gscan2pdf (Gnome). So I have both, but guess what gets used overwhelmingly more often?! Just like the old OS vs Proprietary argument....I much PREFER the Open Source offering, but in those rare cases where Proprietary does a better job, I'll go with that! I'm not a software snob.....whatever works best! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted May 21, 2022 Share Posted May 21, 2022 Well I started out with KDE but as time went on, I got more and more minimal. I did do the whole compiz thing with wobbly windows and such at one point. I've used gnome, xfce, openbox, fluxbox, blackbox, enlightenment, XMonad and finally on i3wm. Pretty much in that order but it has been many years so could be missing a couple in there. For the last 10-15 years, I have been only using tiling window managers. i3 for the last ten. Good thing we have choice on Linux. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted May 21, 2022 Share Posted May 21, 2022 When you get older, simple is much better. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crp Posted May 23, 2022 Share Posted May 23, 2022 The KDE that was current in 2012 was my favorite. I tried Gnome a few times (it was the default on most distros i tried) and never got around to liking it. Also there were KDE version of apps that I used that were better than Gnome. I am not a big fan of Plasma but it doesn't annoy me. Cinnamon annoys me. As for the 'top bar' in old Gnome 2, first off - is their bar still on top by default? Secondly as to why msWindows had it on the bottom - I think that was due to SUN. the SUN OS GUI had the menu button on the top and MSFT wanted to be different to avoid legal hassles. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted May 24, 2022 Share Posted May 24, 2022 11 hours ago, crp said: As for the 'top bar' in old Gnome 2, first off - is their bar still on top by default? Secondly as to why msWindows had it on the bottom - I think that was due to SUN. the SUN OS GUI had the menu button on the top and MSFT wanted to be different to avoid legal hassles. I've seen some window's users at work put it on the side vertically but don't think I have seen someone put the window's taskbar at the top. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted May 25, 2022 Author Share Posted May 25, 2022 It is a good thing we all get as much choice as we do with Linux. I agree that tiling WMs are minimalistic but they just aren't for me. I am a poor keyboarder and don't want to tap in a bunch of keybindings. I can use the terminal if I have to but I'd really rather just click and drag. More graphical WMs like Flux and Openbox have their own learning curves and I often forget how to configure them. I use XFWM4 as a WM in LXQt and that is great except I never have really liked the Qt set of apps as much as GTK. With Arch I go with Xfce or LXQt if I really need a lightweight desktop. Probably if I started out with KDE I'd be happy with Plasma, but I did not. Right now I am using GNOME 3 on Debian and after I clicked on a browser icon it doesn't really matter where I started. For me the real choice comes between rolling release bleeding edge and old school stable. That is more a distro type thing than a DE/WM choice and you know what? I still can't really decide which is the best choice for me. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted May 25, 2022 Share Posted May 25, 2022 3 hours ago, raymac46 said: Probably if I started out with KDE I'd be happy with Plasma And then again, maybe not. I ran KDE in numerous distributions for the first few years of my Linux Adventure, but when they went from v3.15 to that ghastly bloated piece of ca-ca with pecan or acorn or whatever the heck it was up in the corner of the screen, my KDE days ended at that point. Went with Xfce and never looked back. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted May 25, 2022 Share Posted May 25, 2022 Just now, V.T. Eric Layton said: And then again, maybe not. I ran KDE in numerous distributions for the first few years of my Linux Adventure, but when they went from v3.15 to that ghastly bloated piece of ca-ca with pecan or acorn or whatever the heck it was up in the corner of the screen, my KDE days ended at that point. Went with Xfce and never looked back. Yup, that is also when I left KDE and didn't look back. I left after the 3.x series Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crp Posted May 26, 2022 Share Posted May 26, 2022 3 hours ago, securitybreach said: Yup, that is also when I left KDE and didn't look back. I left after the 3.x series somehow i missed the "acorn/pecan in the corner" version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted May 26, 2022 Share Posted May 26, 2022 Just now, crp said: somehow i missed the "acorn/pecan in the corner" version. Look at the top right on this screenshot for the thing he is talking about https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2008/01/kde-40-review/ It was like the dock that control the applets but you couldnt get rid of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted May 26, 2022 Share Posted May 26, 2022 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunrat Posted May 26, 2022 Share Posted May 26, 2022 I always have used KDE. Plasma 4 was bearable but now looks rather pale compared with the awesomeness of Plasma 5. They are currently working on v5.25 although Bullseye is still 5.20. No KDE has reached this advanced stage of development before. New stuff in KDE - https://pointieststick.com/ Those who jumped off the train at v4 should take another look. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted May 26, 2022 Share Posted May 26, 2022 1 hour ago, sunrat said: Those who jumped off the train at v4 should take another look. Well I have long since moved on tiling environments but may look at it in a VM or something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted May 26, 2022 Author Share Posted May 26, 2022 I've always liked Mageia and it has a nice Plasma DE but I just cannot get used to the RPM way of updating. I would not go out of my way to try to shoehorn a Plasma DE into something like Debian, although it certainly can be made to work. The distro and how it updates is more important to me , so I can get by with any DE that is the default. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted May 26, 2022 Share Posted May 26, 2022 14 hours ago, securitybreach said: Look at the top right on this screenshot for the thing he is talking about Hey, Josh... what the heck was that thing actually called? I know it was some kind of nut. ___ By the way, while I detest the KDE DE, I use and love many KDE apps on my Slackware. I always have the full KDE app library on my system. It's easy to install with Slack because it's all on the installation disk; just a matter of checking the boxes during install. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted May 26, 2022 Share Posted May 26, 2022 21 minutes ago, V.T. Eric Layton said: Hey, Josh... what the heck was that thing actually called? I know it was some kind of nut. Cashew?? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crp Posted May 26, 2022 Share Posted May 26, 2022 22 hours ago, securitybreach said: Look at the top right on this screenshot for the thing he is talking about https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2008/01/kde-40-review/ It was like the dock that control the applets but you couldnt get rid of it. Would have sworn I went through Plasma but that does not look familiar at all. I know that there is currently a Plasma running on the CentOS8.5 at work, will try to remember to check what version it is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crp Posted May 26, 2022 Share Posted May 26, 2022 2 hours ago, securitybreach said: Cashew?? looks like that board professional artists use when painting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted May 27, 2022 Share Posted May 27, 2022 Just now, crp said: Would have sworn I went through Plasma but that does not look familiar at all. I know that there is currently a Plasma running on the CentOS8.5 at work, will try to remember to check what version it is. This was back in 2008 with Plasma 4.1 - https://kde.org/announcements/4/4.1.0/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted May 27, 2022 Author Share Posted May 27, 2022 https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2019/10/kde-kills-desktop-toolbox-icon 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedon James Posted May 27, 2022 Share Posted May 27, 2022 16 hours ago, securitybreach said: Cashew?? yes, the Cashew. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted May 27, 2022 Share Posted May 27, 2022 14 hours ago, crp said: looks like that board professional artists use when painting. It's called a "palette". 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted May 29, 2022 Share Posted May 29, 2022 https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/17/linux_desktop_feature/ The author of the article is a tad biased towards Windows and has gaps in his linux knowledge. He makes great play as to how you can use Windows easily without a mouse, big deal you can do that with Window Maker. He makes great play as to how wonderful Windows is for blind folk. What !!!! yet he never even mentions Knoppix/Adriane. Quote ADRIANE is an easy-to-use, talking desktop system with optional support for braille, which can be used entirely without vision oriented output devices. Especially access to standard internet services like email, surfing the web, scanning and reading of printed documents and using mobile phone extension services like SMS (over the users own mobile phone) are supported. TARGET AUDIENCE Especially blind people, who have no or very few computer skills, and/or have had bad encounters with graphic-focused computer interfaces, may experience an easy entry to the digital world. But also people with normal vision, who prefer a less complicated step-by-step menu, instead of an icon/animation-overloaded and over-complex graphical desktop, may profit from ADRIANE. Darn it I am too grumpy and tired after me holiday to do this justice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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