# Your Preferred Desktop Environment



## ToplessOrange (Jun 3, 2013)

You can simply vote, but I'd like to know reasons behind your most preferred DE. I'd also like to have comparisons so I know what DEs you've tried and perhaps even a scaled rating for a couple of different aspects.

You can show pictures as well, if you'd like, even talk about DEs that you DON'T like.

I can talk about mine as a precedent, but know that my format is not a necessity and is entirely optional.

*Favored DE: *Cinnamon.
*Comparisons: *Most notably, I've used KDE, Unity, GNOME, GNOME Classic, Luna, Aqua, Aero, and Metro. Cinnamon is a really nice balance between most of these. It follows the Four F's: Feasible; Flexible; Full; Fast. It's not as fast as a lightweight DE like XFCE or something, obviously, but it's fuller. Not as full and flexible as KDE, but definitely more feasible. Waaay more flexible than Unity. Unity doesn't put much on the table in terms of flexibility.
*Strongest Aspect: *Balance. It's the Jack of all F's, essentially. Not outstanding in many, but it has that nice balance to it.
*Photos: *I use Variety, so
my

wallpaper

changes

every

five

minutes.


I have two workspaces that use the same wallpaper. I have a VirtualBox that uses Metro. Oh, that reminds me.

*DEs I REALLY dislike: *Aqua, Metro, Luna, and Aero happen to be the most common. Perhaps there's a hipster in me somewhere or maybe I genuinely don't like them. None of these are very flexible, their speed is average, they're not very full, and the only thing they have going for them is feasibility. Barely. Aero would sometimes make me choose between 2 or 3 different links that took me to the same place. Like when I clicked on their battery bar, there was "Power Options" and something else, and both took me to the same page. So many buttons that took me places where I couldn't do anything. It was ridiculous.

So, how about you guys?


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## Playful Proxy (Feb 6, 2012)

I prefer Gnome. KDE was far too cluttered, even if I liked the customization it had, I just like gnome's feel better. Cinnamon was buggy as hell back when I used it (I think it was 13 back then). OpenBox and Fluxbox weren't bad, but having to add a new entry on every install got old-fast.


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## ToplessOrange (Jun 3, 2013)

Signify said:


> I prefer Gnome. KDE was far too cluttered, even if I liked the customization it had, I just like gnome's feel better. Cinnamon was buggy as hell back when I used it (I think it was 13 back then). OpenBox and Fluxbox weren't bad, but having to add a new entry on every install got old-fast.


I've yet to actually try the *Boxes, but I definitely know what you mean with KDE. KDE was my best buddy for a pretty long time. It was my first DE on Fedora. Fedora was always whining about SOMETHING, and I had to constantly be fixing things, so I decided to switch to Kubuntu. Then, two weeks ago, I completely uninstalled KDE and installed Unity, GNOME, GNOME Classic, and Cinnamon. I still have them all right now, except for KDE, and I occasionally switch back and forth.

So, KDE was my DE for about 6 months, and then I finally snapped. It felt too heavy, if you know what I mean. Sorta like high maintenance. *I am part of the microwave generation, and a 20-second boot time is bullshit to me.*


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## JoanCrawford (Sep 27, 2012)

TheOminousMuffin said:


> You can simply vote, but I'd like to know reasons behind your most preferred DE. I'd also like to have comparisons so I know what DEs you've tried and perhaps even a scaled rating for a couple of different aspects.
> 
> You can show pictures as well, if you'd like, even talk about DEs that you DON'T like.
> 
> ...


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## ToplessOrange (Jun 3, 2013)

JoanCrawford said:


>


I'm not entirely certain which part to explain. Your post was rather broad and vague. Can you be more specific with what your problem appears to be?


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## JoanCrawford (Sep 27, 2012)

TheOminousMuffin said:


> I'm not entirely certain which part to explain. Your post was rather broad and vague. Can you be more specific with what your problem appears to be?


Well basically: What exactly is a "desktop environment"...!? My brain could not comprehend the complexity of the topic and I just saw a jumble of words that I was too stupid to understand. XD You can envision the gif of the wide eyed lady as me when I opened up the topic and saw your post. ;-P


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## ToplessOrange (Jun 3, 2013)

JoanCrawford said:


> Well basically: What exactly is a "desktop environment"...!? My brain could not comprehend the complexity of the topic and I just saw a jumble of words that I was too stupid to understand. XD You can envision the gif of the wide eyed lady as me when I opened up the topic and saw your post. ;-P


You really Britta'd computer literacy, didn't you? 

Essentially, a Desktop Environment is the GUI (the aesthetics and what everything looks like) of your computer. For instance, Windows XP uses Luna, which has the Menu button on the bottom left in green by default, the taskbar being on the bottom. Ubuntu 12.04 uses Unity, which has the Menu button on the top right with application icons being on the left by default.

Microsoft's line of DEs (Luna, Metro, Aero) along with Apple's (Aqua) are the most common because they sorta have an oligopoly with anything OS related.

I hope that helps.


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## I destroy life (Apr 7, 2013)

I've got windows 7. Didn't change anything. That's my desktop. I put shit everywhere. When I want a program I just type the word in the search bar. It finds it, that's it. It's fast enough for my need. I don't need anything else.


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## Wonszu (Sep 25, 2013)

TheOminousMuffin said:


> You really Britta'd computer literacy, didn't you?
> 
> Essentially, a Desktop Environment is the GUI (the aesthetics and what everything looks like) of your computer. For instance, Windows XP uses Luna, which has the Menu button on the bottom left in green by default, the taskbar being on the bottom. Ubuntu 12.04 uses Unity, which has the Menu button on the top right with application icons being on the left by default.
> 
> ...


Thank you for explaining. I was in the same situation like *@JoanCrawford*. I had no idea what are we talking about. In this case I don't have many preferences since I worked only on Windows 95, 98, XP and 7 and on Macintosh which I have no idea what kind of system it uses... But if I had to choose I prefer Luna from XP. I guess it's not the greatest one but it's familiar for me and I move swiftly around it. 

I try to have as little on my desktop as possible. I had vectors as my wallpaper for some time but when winter comes I need something green and sunny.


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## Death Persuades (Feb 17, 2012)

I voted for KDE, Gnome Classis, Aqua, LXDE and other. The other being IceWM, which I use on netbooks/old computers on top of a core install.

I'd have to say my favorite is LXDE. It's lightweight, yet practical and good looking. I have an affection for Gnome classic because it was the first DE I ever used outside of windows, so it's more like a nostalgia thing for me. KDE because beauty. Aqua because fancy. iceWM because SUPER lightweight... but it's ugly lol


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## JoanCrawford (Sep 27, 2012)

TheOminousMuffin said:


> You really Britta'd computer literacy, didn't you?
> 
> Essentially, a Desktop Environment is the GUI (the aesthetics and what everything looks like) of your computer. For instance, Windows XP uses Luna, which has the Menu button on the bottom left in green by default, the taskbar being on the bottom. Ubuntu 12.04 uses Unity, which has the Menu button on the top right with application icons being on the left by default.
> 
> ...


Oh okay... well I have Windows 7 and my little computer icon things are in disarray!
EDIT:
I was able to get a screenshot:


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## ToplessOrange (Jun 3, 2013)

JoanCrawford said:


> Oh okay... well I have Windows 7 and my little computer icon things are in disarray!
> EDIT:
> I was able to get a screenshot:


Windows 7 utilizes Aero. However, the lack of a Menu Button located on the bottom left leads me to believe that this is actually Windows 8, which utilizes Metro.

**ah*ialsocouldnthelpbutnoticethe*em** **cou*lackoffirefoxonyourcomputer*gh**


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## JoanCrawford (Sep 27, 2012)

TheOminousMuffin said:


> Windows 7 utilizes Aero. However, the lack of a Menu Button located on the bottom left leads me to believe that this is actually Windows 8, which utilizes Metro.
> 
> **ah*ialsocouldnthelpbutnoticethe*em** **cou*lackoffirefoxonyourcomputer*gh**


Oh oops! You'll have to parden me, I'm usually not this air headed. Yes, you would be very correct, that IS Windows 8!! It just seems exactly like Win7 to me (minus the weird, unneeded menu in the beginning) so I always get it mixed up. Dyslexia? Maybe just a tad...! ;-)

Oh and make no mistake, Firefox is there but he is in hiding mode because his owner has been to lazy to make him a desktop icon...! :-}


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## PowerShell (Feb 3, 2013)

Mainly Windows but if I play around with Linux Gnome or KDE because that's usually what's available if i do a quick install. For work, all our Linux servers are pretty much just shell-based. I had to just log into a Solaris box and run a few commands to gather information and I guess that was a bit different than regular Linux commands.


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## blit (Dec 17, 2010)

XMonad. I also spend a lot of time in the terminal using tmux and vim.


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## ToplessOrange (Jun 3, 2013)

I just activated the "Quotes" thing on Variety and set it to find funny quotes.

It's definitely made my day brighter.


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## Uralian Hamster (May 13, 2011)

I like the Gnome variants, my old laptop ran linux mint with MATE and it was pretty clean. I use windows 8 now, using the classic shell because windows 8 is just too...app-ish?


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## PowerShell (Feb 3, 2013)

bollocks said:


> I like the Gnome variants, my old laptop ran linux mint with MATE and it was pretty clean. I use windows 8 now, using the classic shell because windows 8 is just too...app-ish?


The app style of design and also a more seamless design that allows a seamless computing experience regardless for hardware or OS is the future.


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## Philosophaser Song Boy (Jan 16, 2011)

E17!

I need to learn how to Arch though, for real!


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## sehvral (Apr 19, 2013)

Right now I'm digging Openbox. Started with KDE around 2000 on Suse (and Gentoo starting in 2003), moved to Gnome during the fuckup that was 4.0, moved to XFCE when Gnome 3 screwed everything up, moved to Openbox about a year ago after getting annoyed with some of the XFCE apps. Lightweight, minimal clutter, and has a menu editor that actually works (looking at you, XFCE :dry.


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