Ask Slashdot: Assembling a Linux Desktop Environment From Parts?

paxcoder writes "Gnome Shell ... is different. Very much so. The fallback was inadequate. I suspect that many people, like me, turned to the alternatives. My choice was LXDE, which worked ok, until (lx-)panel broke in the unstable branch of the distro that I use. Tired of using the terminal to run stuff, I replaced the standard panel with the one from Xfce. That made me realize that we really don't need a packaged desktop environment, there are pieces ready for assembly. If you customize your graphical environment, what elements do you use? Which window manager, file manager, panel(etc.) would you recommend? Do you have a panel with a hardware usage monitors, how do you switch between workspaces? Anything cool we might not know about?"

Comments

KDE.

[Anonymous Coward]

'Nuff said.

Please, no WAAA KDE IS BLOATED AND BROKEN AND INCOMPLETE AND THIS AND THAT AND THE OTHER arguments because they've been proven wrong time and again.

It's sad that I have to post AC to defend KDE, currently one of the best desktops (okay, the best desktop) for GNU/Linux.

Re:KDE.

[Hatta]

Using a custom desktop is not about being lightweight. It's about customizing your workflow.

Re:KDE.

[certain death]

I think you have nailed it. If your machine can't handle what you "like", then you need to do something about it, or suffer a loss of productivity due to the system not matching how you work.

Re:KDE.

[Hatta]

If only desktop environments would stick to the desktop and leave any non-gui related features to be implemented at other levels. Then we could use whatever virtual file system we want on any desktop, or without any desktop at all.

Desktop environments run directly counter to the "do one thing, and do it well" philosphy that has served UNIX for so many years. Is it any surprise that they're a clusterfuck?

Re:Haw.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, how dare he try to use software that he likes! What a fucking asshole. Everyone knows that you just take whatever piece of shit Microsoft shoves down your throat and then you say "Thank you sir, may I have another?"

Re:Haw.

[The MAZZTer]

Back up a few steps. He's asking for suggestions on apps and configurations... how is that an "everybody else is wrong" mentality? You, on the other hand, are immediately leaping to the conclusion that HE is wrong.

It also sounds like he is experimenting just for his own personal use, not for creating a distro. His own personal configuration would hardly affect public perception of Linux.

Re:Haw.

[Tsingi]

So we have an aspie here who would admittedly and uncompromisingly rather use an unstable mess of cobbed-together parts(including the distro itself), because that's the way baby likes it and everybody else is wrong.

That mentality is everything that's wrong with fostering acceptance of the Linux desktop.

It's Linux, you can have it the way you want it. When he gets up tomorrow morning he will have a desktop that he likes. And you'll still be a flaming asshole.

My choices for 'Linux Desktop from Scratch'

[Qbertino]

1) WindowMaker - Very fast, very clean, very neat. Like the WM Dockapps a lot, look very neat. Let's not forget, its anchestor 'NextStep' was designed under the ruling 'Iron Fist of Design and Usability' (TM) Steve Jobs. Even in the well-aged FOSS rippoff it shows.

2) Fluxbox - The hip and hype Linux Pro WM of the last decade. Had it's hype-highpoint around about 2005 and has since joined the grand hall of eternal Linux WMs. Very nice. The fist simple-style WM I saw with anti-aliased Fonts. Think 'modern WindowMaker' with some neat toolbar stuff, tabbed windows that can be stacked by easy drag and drop, nice shortcut defaults, easy to configure and very fast.

3) Enlightenment. If you're going to take your time configging and setup up your homebuilt Desktop setup, you should definitely take a good look at E. Tons of very neat stuff, very powerfull and very fast. E17 has been in development for a decade, the codebase is rock solid and is the avantgarde of desktop stuff to this very day. Fun fact: Quite a few things in Mac OS X are inspired by E - E is the darling child of any professional desktop developer.

4) 'Big' desktop environments: Since you want to build your setup 'from scratch' I see no point in getting a comparatively bloated preconfectioned package like KDE or Gnome. Since you'll be spending time checking out config files and such and will build the system to your specific needs, might aswell stick to systems that were built to be configured with textfiles, like the above mentioned. However, if you want the full package, I strongly suggest KDE. Gnome, in my opinion, only makes sense/is bearable when it comes with the work done for you, such as in the default Ubuntu distribution. ... Ubuntu is the only system where I bother using Gnome, simply because it's good enough, preconfigured and the nautilus file manager finally stopped sucking like a vacuum around about Ubuntu 8 or so.

But since that's not what you asked for, I suggest you look into the first three WM, Fluxbox and E and chose the one you like the best.
And good luck going back into manual xorg.configging. One of the things I really don't miss about Linux desktops - especially since I'm using Ubuntu and Mac OS X. :-)

My 2 cents.