Desktop Environments

[The Doctor]

Linux Desktops and Linux Personalities: What's Your Perfect Match?

How do you summarize a desktop? Match desktops with personalities? With priorities? With work habits? At the risk of making sweeping generalizations and collapsing into caricatures, here are a few suggestions of how to answer these questions today:

* Cinnamon
* GNOME
* KDE
* LXDE
* Mate
* Trinity Desktop Environment
* Unity
* Xfce

See also:
Desktop environment

[The Doctor]

Will Microsoft's decision to implement Metro into Win 8 affect Linux? 

Has Microsoft opened the door to the Linux desktop?

Microsoft has alienated its hardware partners and will soon be rolling out a version of Windows that many people already dislike. Will the Linux desktop finally get its shot for the big-time?

Vista did more to help promote Linux than anything else in the history of Linux.

But...

Windows 8's downfall still doesn't give Linux a chance

As much as I’d like to see Linux rise from the depths of obscurity to give Microsoft and its Windows platform a serious run for its money, it’s just not going to happen — at least not any time soon.

User's will still be able to access the traditional desktop GUI in Windows 8.  However, if rumors are correct, the desktop GUI in Win 9 will no longer exist and user's will be forced to use the Metro interface only.

Windows desktop destined for long slide to oblivion, says Gartner

Microsoft's biggest technology shift in two decades means traditional Windows will account for just 10% of users' time by 2020.

So users seeking a desktop GUI will either have to use an earlier version of Windows, buy an expensive Apple computer, or switch to Linux.

[The Doctor]

Nine Reasons to Choose GNOME 2 Clones

I'm not a fan of the GNOME 2 release series. It was my main desktop for years until I replaced it with KDE 4, which was far more innovative. A few months ago, I wrote pointing out some shortcomingsof GNOME 2, questioning the demand for what seemed to me like a desktop that had long outlived its usefulness.

However, I've changed my mind after several days of alternating between Linux Mint's Mate, a GNOME 2 fork and Cinnamon, a group of extensions that converts GNOME 3 to a GNOME 2 appearance.

1. Familiarity
2. A Customizable Panel
3. A Classic Menu
4. Windows Open At Medium Size
5. Control of Virtual Workspaces
6. Launchers on the Desktop
7. No Catastrophic Failures
8. Lower Memory Requirements
9. Fewer Assumptions About Users

A Possible Tenth Reason

Reading comments on various forums, I am almost tempted to add a tenth reason for using GNOME 2 clones. The design of GNOME 3 and the GNOME project's general ignoring of user complaints has apparently caused considerable anger -- far more than even KDE 4.0's release did. Unity has received similar complaints. To many GNOME users, these modern desktops continue to feel like a betrayal by developers.

[The Doctor]

Which Linux Desktop Will Dominate in the Future?

Sometimes, being right is no fun. Three years ago, I suggested that the Linux desktop was headed for a future dominated by KDE, and that GNOME would be at a disadvantage. Looking back, I conclude that I was right, if only approximately.

What I did not foresee was that GNOME 3 would not only lag behind KDE for code maturity and innovation, but fail catastrophically with users, resulting in alternative interfaces, ranging from Ubuntu's Unity to Linux Mint's re-creations of GNOME 2 in Cinnamon and Mate.

[The Doctor]

Ubuntu Desktop Environment Usage Statistics

Ubuntu's popularity contest or Popcon project is an attempt to map the usage of Ubuntu packages.

It reports the system architecture you use, the version of popularity-contest you use and the list of packages installed on your system. For each package, popularity-contest looks at the most recently used files, and reports the filename, its last access time and last change time.

This data is sent to a server server weekly and everyday the server anonymizes the results and publishes the survey on Popcon website.

[The Doctor]

Install Razor-Qt Desktop In Ubuntu Based Distros
by Saurav Modak

Razor-Qt is a lightweight desktop similar to KDE that uses the Qt GUI toolkit for windows and other graphical elements. The plus point of Razor-Qt is that its lightweight as XFCE/LXDE as well as attractive and eye candy as KDE.

We had covered earlier how to install Razor-Qt in Fedora and other RPM based distros. Its also possible to install Razor-Qt in Ubuntu, Linux Mint and other distros based on Ubuntu. For that you will need to add external package archive in form of PPA. Open terminal and run the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:razor-qt
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install razorqt

[The Doctor]

How would you fix the Linux desktop?

So, let's get to it. Pretend you have unlimited resources (human or otherwise) and could implement a solution for the Linux desktop. Let's try to be constructive, here: "buy Microsoft and blow up the evacuated Redmond campus" isn't really helping Linux. But "buy Dell and turn them into a Linux version of Apple" could be.

This is your chance to put your ideas out there. Big, small, out-there, or realistic: what's the missing piece in solving the problem of the Linux desktop?

[The Doctor]

New functionality for nimble Linux desktop, Razor-qt

Version 0.5.0 of the Razor-qt desktop environment is now available and brings with it changes to the configuration of themes, new plugins and a new notification daemon. The relatively young, lean desktop is based on the Qt framework, but in contrast to KDE, is able to run on low-spec hardware. While development of Razor-qt is still at an early stage, the desktop already includes all the key components: a desktop with a panel, application launcher, a settings centre and session management.

[The Doctor]

Choosing a Desktop: Mate vs Xfce

Few desktop environments have benefited from the recent diversity of interfaces more than Mate and Xfce.

[The Doctor]

Seeking Enlightenment

Enlightenment is one of the oldest open source desktop projects in existence. With E17, the developers are gearing up to their latest release, an occasion that has been a long time in the making. The word is that the team will make some announcements at the EFL Developer Day taking place as part of Linuxcon Europe on 5 November. With a release likely being close at hand, The H spoke to project leader Carsten "Rasterman" Haitzler about how the desktop environment has been progressing and what the goals are for the project.

[The Doctor]

How-to: Picking a desktop environment in Linux

We've taken you through a tour of Window Managers in Linux, and now it's time to show you the Window Manager's bigger brother: the desktop environment, or DE for short. With a sea of choices out there, we can see where Linux newbies might feel a bit overwhelmed. Catch us after the break and we'll show you some of our favorites, along with a few honorable mentions.