Gentoo Archives: gentoo-desktop-research

From: foser <foser@g.o>
To: gentoo-desktop-research@g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] Gentoo-desktop howto fix-up
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 12:44:48
Message-Id: 1069418686.3976.20.camel@fana.students.cs.uu.nl
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] Gentoo-desktop howto fix-up by Joel Konkle-Parker
1 On Thu, 2003-11-20 at 21:54, Joel Konkle-Parker wrote:
2 > I think it would be useful to cover these and others, and I think it's
3 > possible to do it in a nonsubjective (or barely subjective) way. Take
4 > the following for example:
5 >
6 > "If you are looking for a complete desktop solution that comes close to
7 > approximating what you would get out of the box from Windows, try GNOME
8 > or KDE. They both have fairly mature component applications, and either
9 > will work well for a full-featured desktop environment. Note that these
10 > are large application sets, and will take a long time to merge.
11
12 But GNOME won't take half as much time as KDE on the same machine and on
13 a recent system it's done in a few hours most. Anyway, stage 1-ers will
14 have a great deal of compiling behind them, so the DE is relatively
15 insignificant (well.. except for KDE maybe).
16
17 > GNOME
18 > and KDE also don't share a common toolset, so applications written for
19 > KDE will look and act differently than those written for GNOME. XFCE is
20 > a relative newcomer to the full-featured desktop world, and focuses on
21 > speed. It is more lightweight than the others, although it shares many
22 > of the most useful features (note: I don't know XFCE, I've never used it.)
23
24 Last time i checked XFCE it wasn't really well balanced and smooth
25 running out of the box.
26
27 > On the other hand, if you are looking for a more unix-y environment that
28 > will stay out of your way and give you the ultimate customizability and
29 > speed, you might consider something like WindowMaker or BlackBox....
30 > (yada yada, here's the differences, here's their reputations, here's
31 > what they're good for, yada yada)"
32
33 What's a unix-y environment ? I'm a newcomer to linux here. I got a lot
34 of choice, what do i have to choose ?
35
36 What i mean to say here is, these are qualitative indications done by
37 one individual and already the amount of different DEs is confusing. Not
38 to mention added WMs (do i get a full desktop with blackbox too?).
39
40 A little descriptive story like this would be ok, but it should focus on
41 the major DEs : KDE & GNOME and maybe XFCE, not certain about the latter
42 'from scratch' quality. To my knowledge (but it lacks in this) the first
43 two at least are part of a stage3 iso, so the compilation time issue
44 doesn't even have to be mentioned (people with a stage3 iso do not need
45 to compile anything, others have compiled most of the system all the way
46 and don't expect anything else from that point on).
47
48 - foser
49
50
51 --
52 gentoo-desktop-research@g.o mailing list