Comments on: Get To Know Linux: Desktop Environment vs. Window Manager

By: ActionParsnip

ActionParsnip — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 22:24:03 +0000

LXDE + Openbox is a winner here. Compiz causes too many issues on even basic stuff to make it worth using.

By: paul

paul — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 23:35:12 +0000

@supert0nes: another -5 to you. Please read Jack’s article again. He NEVER said any one of the UI components was the best. He only highlighted his favorites. Re the comments about DE’s, he said if you like a certain OS than you might find a certain DE to be familiar or to your liking.

Please try reading more carefully in the future before you get so pontifical.

I remember running in to guys like you in the forums when I first started working with Linux. But despite your condescending, self-important manners I persisted and I’m glad I did.

BTW, kudos to you, Jack. A very timely article. I just talked with a teenager today that has tried Linux and would like to learn more so he doesn’t have to pay the MS tax anymore. I’ll recommend this article to him. Keep up the good work.

By: cameron

cameron — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 13:38:05 +0000

Small problem here. Your article was meant to clear up the difference between wm and de, yet, while listing your favourite window managers, you lumped a desktop environment in there. XFCE is a desktop environment. Please stop perpetuating the confusion. Aside from that one rather large oversight, the article does a great job of explaining the difference.

By: mmmelaney

mmmelaney — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 00:55:02 +0000

Yep! Getting rid of Compiz worked (Search for “compiz” in your package installer.)

I also tried XFCE by itself and it was very fast. But I didn’t like the lack of convenience in the menus and panels so I put Gnome back on without the extra applications I don’t need.

By: mmmelaney

mmmelaney — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 09:39:55 +0000

Quote: “Gnome is far superior than the Windows desktop and do not get me started with a Gnome vs Aero comparison.”

Not so much. I am running Windows 7 on two 1.5Ghz, 1Gb machines (aka slow.) They both run great, better than XP, even with Aero activated.

I installed a dual boot of Linux Mint on one of them and, OMG, things slowed down to the pace of Grandma — just like Vista… and Windows 3.1. I guess this is attributed to Gnome and Compiz-fusion? I am working it out now, and my next step is to try XFCE with and without Gnome I guess. That’s what led me here.

Thanks for the clarification on these concepts.

By: Roman ShaRP

Roman ShaRP — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 23:40:37 +0000

I started with XFCE in Xubuntu, but reading a book based on Gnome I found that I miss things in XFCE that can be easily done in Gnome. So I moved to Gnome.

One my LJ friend likes E17, but after I read how much he had to mess with it to get it working – I prefer to have just clean Gnome. :)

By: Genisis

Genisis — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 16:36:38 +0000

@supert0nes: -5 to you. Why must readers such as your self, continually find something to complain about? Jack is merely trying to educate some of us on a subject that is a little confusing for some. He is only hitting on some of the most popular topics and desktop environments. If he were to blog on EVERY point and topic possible on this subject it would just end up being something else that a lot of users wouldn’t understand. Ever heard of “information overload”?
IMO, Jack is doing a wonderful job and I look forward to his posts. +10 to Jack! GNOME FTW!

By: supert0nes

supert0nes — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 11:54:10 +0000

-1 for inaccuracies

Why you would skip kwin and metacity is beyond me. Your article does nothing to explain window managers independence from their desktop environments. For instance, you can run kwin in gnome and metacity in kde. Your so called advice as to which DE to run is your opinion and helps lead to misinformation The best advice would have been to try both and see which DE works best.

If you really want to know the difference between gnome and kde start with learning a bit about gtk(gnome) and qt(kde)

KDE 4.2 FTW!

By: iampriteshdesai

iampriteshdesai — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 09:15:37 +0000

Compiz rules, I’d reccomend Gnome+ Compiz, if you use Ubuntu you’d get this combo.
KDE 4 is a mess.

By: Marc

Marc — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 02:13:48 +0000

Gnome is far superior than the Windows desktop and do not get me started with a Gnome vs Aero comparison. Aero is the most bogged down and slowest interface ever designed… period…hell Windows 3.1 had a faster interface…

Compiz-fusion is also very impressive and requires less juice than Aero for the same eye candy if not better. The only thing I would really like in Gnome is a right click contextual menu to edit the menu to add/remove links but this is very minor. Btw, I don’t like linux in general but I know how to recognize things done right :) And the Gnome desktop is most definitely one of them.

By: Dotan Cohen

Dotan Cohen — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 19:52:03 +0000

Thank you! _This_ is why I love Ghacks! When I saw this post in my RSS feed I thought to myself “same old, same old” but it turns out that you manage to explain things at a level which has never been explained before for simple users. These “Desktop Environment” blog posts are usually KDE vs. Gnome vs. XFCE and never touch upon the meanings of the terms, rather, they seem to use conflicting terms interchangeably. But you’ve cleared up the whole mess and explained the different terms, and shown where the lines blur. Thank you Jack!