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LXQt – The next generation of the Lightweight Desktop Environment

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Re: LXQt – The next generation of the Lightweight Desktop Environment

#111

Post by scrollaway »

anon4 wrote: post #109
byuu wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I want an environment for my cell phone or tablet, I'll use an environment designed for a cell phone or tablet; like Metro, Gnome, Unity and Android. If I want an environment for my desktop, I'll use an environment designed for a desktop; like Windows 95 - 7, Gnome2, KDE3, Xfce and LXDE. My desktop has a keyboard and a mouse, not a touchscreen. In fact, I really don't want to be touching my $1200 ZR30w monitor any…

I feel KDE4 has managed to keep close enough to a normal desktop environment, even though they've been touched by the braindamage known as "semantic desktop search", which insists on taking up tons of resources to index your half-terabyte home directory that you've already organised for easy access. LXQt seems like it could become what KDE should have been. All they really need is to also merge with the Trinity peopl…

LXQt and KDE may be similar but they're not the same at all. A merge would simply be impossible, both on a technical level and on a social level (nobody would accept it in either community).

Re: LXQt – The next generation of the Lightweight Desktop Environment

#112

Post by [deleted] »

Zancarius wrote: post #34
zobzu wrote: post #32

hmm I use KDE (latest) with indexing disabled, akonadi disabled, 3d desktop effects disabled it seems very similar to LXQt and the project it replaces when it comes to resource usage and useability, except it is more mature and support a few more things. Thats basically what keeps me on KDE. I would think KDE should disable akonadi and stuff by default personally - its super useable without all the heavy weight "crap…

> I would think KDE should disable akonadi and stuff by default personally - its super useable without all the heavy weight "crap". I agree. Unfortunately, they replaced Nepomuk with Baloo in 4.13 (I think ; Baloo seems more aggressive than the former) and have effectively taken the stance that users cannot (easily) disable it [1]. It's somewhat infuriating, because adding your home to the ignore list doesn't appear…

[deleted]

Re: LXQt – The next generation of the Lightweight Desktop Environment

#113

Post by Zirro »

userbinator wrote: post #107
andrewstuart wrote: post #58

How come these things never look refined and polished? Always sort of half nice and Unix-clunk.

Funny you mention this, since I've noticed that even in ReactOS - which is supposed to be a Windows clone - there's something "not quite right" about it when you look at a screenshot like http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SN0tgsoHkV8/UwMdmx3RM1I/AAAAAAAAA3... - I think it's mostly the fonts. I've found that free (as in freedom) fonts just have this... odd look to them.

Fonts do make a big difference. In the case of ReactOS however, the version you are showing seems to be from 2008. This is from a current version:

http://cl.ly/image/0c0U1Q3l3Y1C

Re: LXQt – The next generation of the Lightweight Desktop Environment

#114

Post by DanBC »

sliverstorm wrote: post #95
detrino wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is a huge opportunity for a traditional, lightweight desktop that uses Qt. Both the Gnome and KDE camps have alienated large parts of their userbase during the KDE4/Gnome3 transition. I personally find both to be less usable than their predecessors. That leaves projects like Xfce/Mate to fill the gap. The problem with these environments is that they use GTK2, which is bitrotting. Migrating to GTK3 is ri…

Are we ruling out icewm because it doesn't have a file manager and a "desktop"?

I was going to mention JWM and IceWM bit did not because these are window managers not desktop environments.

But this is partnof their strength - one thing done well, and allowig the user to add everything else they want.

Re: LXQt – The next generation of the Lightweight Desktop Environment

#115

Post by leoedin »

kijin wrote: post #78
ANTSANTS wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's worth noting that there's never been a "weird" WM/DE that attracted a sizeable userbase purely on its own merits. Gnome 3 and Unity were to a great extent forced upon their users. If there were real benefits to means of desktop interaction that differed significantly from the established "Windows 95" and "tiling WM" modes, you'd think there'd be a few enthusiasts on the side exploring this realm and tout…

I agree. A desktop environment is one of those things where familiarity trumps innovations. It's like your living room. You might do innovating things in your living room from time to time, but most people would say that the living room itself should remain familiar, conservative, and all around comfortable. You really don't want to re-learn how to sit down in your own couch. In fact, I would go so far as to say that…

When Windows 7 came out I hated the new menu bar. After using it for a few years I curse Windows XP every time I have to use it.

Sometimes change is good. Just because we do something one particular way (in the world of desktop environments this is often down to a decision made in the early 90s) doesn't mean that it's the most productive method of doing it. Often initially unpopular changes in user interface prove to be more effective.

The problem is that change for changes sake is different to change for UI improvements sake, but the two are often hard to distinguish between. How do we know that a new UI implementation is better or worse than the old one? You don't really until it's being used in the real world. There's not an easy answer, but I don't think that grinding innovation to a halt is the right one. I guess the beauty of the open source world is that there's room for a minimal non-progressive UI as well as a number of innovative ones.

Re: LXQt – The next generation of the Lightweight Desktop Environment

#116

Post by orkoden »

higherpurpose wrote: post #5

Please make the new LXQt prettier and more modern, too. I wish I would use LXDE/Lubuntu on older machines, but it's just so ugly I can't stand it. I think the next best thing for people like me right now is the MATE environment for Linux Mint, but it does use a bit more resources than LXDE, too.

Every time I try LXDE I switch back to XFCE. XFCE is a lot more rounded and integrated. LXDE always feels just like a hodge podge collection of tools, that don't really work together.

Re: LXQt – The next generation of the Lightweight Desktop Environment

#117

Post by JoeAltmaier »

leoedin wrote: post #115
kijin wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. A desktop environment is one of those things where familiarity trumps innovations. It's like your living room. You might do innovating things in your living room from time to time, but most people would say that the living room itself should remain familiar, conservative, and all around comfortable. You really don't want to re-learn how to sit down in your own couch. In fact, I would go so far as to say that…

When Windows 7 came out I hated the new menu bar. After using it for a few years I curse Windows XP every time I have to use it. Sometimes change is good. Just because we do something one particular way (in the world of desktop environments this is often down to a decision made in the early 90s) doesn't mean that it's the most productive method of doing it. Often initially unpopular changes in user interface prove to…

Yeah don't want to get into a big thread about the menu ribbon bar - but the principle reason it is actually worse is, each item in the bar is rendered differently, making it worse for learning by new users. XP-style text menus you could at least search methodically, pulling down each one and opening each submenu until you found something. The ribbon on the other hand, is hard to search at all with different fonts and text positions and icons all scrambled together.

So the menu bar wins now, but principally because its learned (the hard way). Now it would be even harder to switch to anything else.

Re: LXQt – The next generation of the Lightweight Desktop Environment

#118

Post by Gorkys »

buckbova wrote: post #50
WoodenChair wrote: post #35

The lightweight Linux desktop environments have been battling for years now over who's Windows 95 clone is better. It's a nice paradigm because it's familiar to many users and serves its purpose. However, does low resource usage necessarily imply lack of innovation regarding user experience? Or does familiarity in this space just trump other concerns and experimentation should be left to the fat environments like Gno…

Forget Win95, something like AIX's CDE is all I ever really needed. http://sourceforge.net/p/cdesktopenv/wiki/Home/ It's not all about resources. I don't want animations for every action. For me simplicity is elegance.

Wow! You're the first person I've ever heard of who actually liked CDE. Did you ever actually use it?

Re: LXQt – The next generation of the Lightweight Desktop Environment

#119

Post by kijin »

leoedin wrote: post #115
kijin wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. A desktop environment is one of those things where familiarity trumps innovations. It's like your living room. You might do innovating things in your living room from time to time, but most people would say that the living room itself should remain familiar, conservative, and all around comfortable. You really don't want to re-learn how to sit down in your own couch. In fact, I would go so far as to say that…

When Windows 7 came out I hated the new menu bar. After using it for a few years I curse Windows XP every time I have to use it. Sometimes change is good. Just because we do something one particular way (in the world of desktop environments this is often down to a decision made in the early 90s) doesn't mean that it's the most productive method of doing it. Often initially unpopular changes in user interface prove to…

Windows 7 was an incremental change within the WIMP paradigm. That's what differentiates it from the excessively disruptive, change-for-the-sake-of-change "innovations" that seem to be so popular nowadays.

Re: LXQt – The next generation of the Lightweight Desktop Environment

#120

Post by airtonix »

detrino wrote: post #56
fsiefken wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the modern gnome2 already exists as 'gnome3 classic mode' or mate (which will support gtk3). lxde is also nice.

Gnome3 classic mode is mostly just Gnome3 + some extensions. The user interface is only superficially similar to Gnome2. Most things feel crippled compared to what came before it and it loses functionality on every release. Mate is excellent and truly deserving of the title "modern Gnome2". It's my desktop of choice. Under the hood it's using a lot of Gnome3 tech while the user interface is familiar and usable for de…

crippled, interesting.

Perhaps you'd like to explain further?

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