[olug] On topicish

Cameron Montgomery dli.geek at gmail.com
Fri May 30 19:14:50 CDT 2014


I run Arch on a couple of my Raspberry Pis (Pies?) and I'm pretty pleased.
Though, I try to keep those systems as lean as possible, so I haven't used
Arch as a desktop system.


On Fri, May 30, 2014 at 11:26 AM, Obi-Wan <obiwan at jedi.com> wrote:

> I've been running Ubuntu on my desktop for years.  Just upgraded from
> 13.10 to 14.04 last night.  Gnome2 was my favorite, paired with compiz.
>  When Unity came out, I vomited, then switched to KDE on my desktop and
> Fedora16+Cinnamon on my old laptop.  I'm forced to use XFCE on Debian
> Wheezy at work.
>
> I find XFCE to be very crude.  It feels like somebody's college project
> that got abandoned when the semester ended.
>
> I find this old version of Cinnamon to be very feature-poor. Maybe a new
> version on a newer OS would be better.  I'm planning to try Mint when the
> latest version goes general in a few weeks. I don't do much with my laptop,
> so Cinnamon is adequate there.
>
> I find KDE (which I've used a couple times over the decades, with similar
> results) to be very feature-full, but also very disorganized, and with a
> pathetic selection of panel widgets.
>
> I'd heard good things about MATE, so I've been running it on my desktop
> for a couple weeks along with compiz.  I find it to be buggy as all get
> out.  Compiz and MATE both segfault regularly, and some of the features
> that I loved in Gnome2+compiz (like having an edge resistance when you
> change workspaces by rolling your mouse off the screen) don't exist in
> MATE+compiz.  I never imagined how annoying that would be to lose!  I'm
> done with MATE. It's just not ready for prime time.
>
> I may try a newer version of Cinnamon on my desktop, but if it hasn't
> improved significantly since the version in Fedora 16, that won't last long.
>
> I'm planning to try Enlightenment as soon as its repos start providing it
> for 14.04.  I'm in no mood to build it from source.
>
> What else should I try?  My one hard requirement is that it MUST allow me
> to switch workspaces by rolling my mouse off the edge of the screen in the
> direction of the workspace I'm aiming for.  I bounce around a lot when I'm
> working, and aiming for a little panel widget or moving both hands to the
> keyboard is a real momentum killer.
>
>
> On 05/29/2014 10:35 PM, Mikey wrote:
>
>> I've been using the MATE desktop on my Ubuntu system for the last 2 months
>> and definitely prefer this desktop to the Unity that comes with Ubuntu.
>> However, there have been some minor hiccups with the MATE service
>> temporarily stopping periodically, audio driver doesn't work unless I do a
>> system test, and then it works beautifully. Other than that, I have
>> enjoyed
>> using the MATE desktop as my prefered Linux GUI.
>>
>> Just my $.02 cents worth......
>>
>>
>> On Thu, May 29, 2014 at 12:48 PM, Justin Reiners <justin at hotlinesinc.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>  Looking into it, I might like MATE, as I miss the old gnome 2 look of
>>> Ubuntu. Ill install it in a VM and run it for a while.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, May 29, 2014 at 12:22 PM, Justin Reiners <justin at hotlinesinc.com
>>> >
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>  I have not tried the MATE version, may have to though. I wish there were
>>>> more enlightenment based distros to play with, so far it is my favorite,
>>>> and very lightweight.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, May 29, 2014 at 12:19 PM, Obi-Wan <obiwan at jedi.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>  Is Mint / MATE any more stable than the Cinnamon version?  I was just
>>>>> about to replace Fedora on my laptop with Mint / MATE.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On 05/29/2014 12:17 PM, Justin Reiners wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>  Linux Mint Cinnamon is very unstable, I have locked it up/crashed
>>>>>> Cinnamon
>>>>>> many many times just by turning up the volume. I wish it was more
>>>>>> stable,
>>>>>> it is one of my favorite distros.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Thu, May 29, 2014 at 12:05 PM, Rob Townley <rob.townley at gmail.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>   LinuxMint cinnamon stable? Recently while configuring a bunch of
>>>>>> different
>>>>>> ethernet interfaces on a laptop i had to kill the networking service
>>>>>> which
>>>>>> locked up the javascript based Cinnamon GUI.   Luckily, ctrl-alt-F2
>>>>>> still
>>>>>> worked because had to lock up the GUI numerous times.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> LinuxMint websites do not use any HTTPS even though StartSSL has free
>>>>>> SSL
>>>>>> versions.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Cannot recommend LinuxMint.
>>>>>> On May 28, 2014 5:20 PM, "Justin Reiners" <justin at hotlinesinc.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>   Debian isn't bad at all. Repos are quite dated. Most of the time
>>>>>> more
>>>>>>   so
>>>>>> than centos. But debian is a mighty stable distro. Centos for servers
>>>>>> and
>>>>>> use Ubuntu variants for desktop use for more bleeding edge. Just sick
>>>>>> of
>>>>>> unity. I miss 10.04... Still have an old server on that distro. Never
>>>>>> rebooted other than kernel updates.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Too many of the Debian/Ubuntu offshoots are too unstable for a daily
>>>>>> driver. I guess it is all in what you use it for.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Sadly Ubuntu/mint is pretty stable. More so mint than Ubuntu for daily
>>>>>> PC usage IMHO.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>
> --
> *Ben "Obi-Wan" Hollingsworth* obiwan at jedi.com <mailto:obiwan at jedi.com>
> www.Jedi.com <http://www.jedi.com>
> The stuff of earth competes for the allegiance I owe only to the
> Giver of all good things, so if I stand, let me stand on the
> promise that You will pull me through. /-- Rich Mullins/
>
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