What Operating System do You Use?

[Evropi]

And lads, my desktop is 7 years of age and has a single-core processor--a 32-bit 2.66Ghz Intel Celeron 330! I don't think it can support the 1GB of RAM in my machine actually, being so underpowered.

Unless you mean actual electrical power input (which would raise even more questions), I think it should work fine up to ~ 4 GiB without PAE (Physical Address Extension) assuming the actual circuitry on both the CPU and the motherboard supports the extra memory (someone more tech-savvy than me could confirm), other physical limitations on RAM module form factor, speed, capacity and count notwithstanding.

Silly me! I can't remember precisely how the CPU works but I do recall that it is directly related to the RAM in some way... by support I did not mean making its use available but more to the effect that due to its lack of resources, the processor may just be overwhelmed by the RAM capacity.

Just to get it out of the way since people tend to get them mixed up all the time, window manager != desktop environment. KDE*, GNOME, Xfce, LXDE are considered desktop environments that provide a window manager (or allow you to use an alternative), a basic set of desktop applications such as a plain text editor, file browser, terminal emulator, calculator, etc.; and a way to interact with installed applications through a common menu or a similar facility. Window managers only take care of a restricted subset of the functionality provided in a full desktop environment, that is, managing active applications and their windows, virtual desktops, compositing and so on.

Err, that's precisely what I was talking about. I wouldn't think the applications as part of the software compilation (desktop environment) would make a significant impact on how the system and X work, it would be the window manager that would have the potential to mess everything up.

[eliddell]

Evropi, have you considered looking into Trinity (the renamed/rebranded KDE3)? It might be a decent option for what you want (although I may be a bit biased, since I am peripherally involved with the project).

(My OS? Gentoo Linux, with KDE3 as primary environment on this desktop, and XFCE as a just-in-case backup. It's survived six years and a swap-out of all the hardware except the primary hard drive without a reinstall, although I toss a new kernel at it every year or so. I think I've tried every DE currently in existence except Gnome 3 and Unity, and installing/uninstalling/reinstalling them in various combinations never hurt anything or broke my X server, nor would I expect it to.)

[lipk]

That statement alone makes it sound like a major step back in the history of computer user interfaces.

I don't really care how what does it sound, it was major step forward in usability for me.

What people say about KDE and "too many clicks" is a load of crap.

Hmm... I'd like to start Firefox! So: click on Kickoff, then Applications, then Internet, then Browsers and then Firefox. It might be a matter of taste, but I prefer hitting the meta (or Windows) button then typing 'fire' and return.

I don't like your docks taking up my valuable screen space, a single taskbar with everything on it which is always shown is the ideal compromise between screen space and minimal clicking around!

What docks? Gnome 3 has no more docks than KDE.

I have one hand on my mouse and the other in a resting position on my armchair.

I think that's the main difference between us I don't have an armchair and I get RSI when I use the mouse too much.

[Crendgrim]

What people say about KDE and "too many clicks" is a load of crap.

Hmm... I'd like to start Firefox! So: click on Kickoff, then Applications, then Internet, then Browsers and then Firefox. It might be a matter of taste, but I prefer hitting the meta (or Windows) button then typing 'fire' and return.

While that is not configured by default, you are able to do this as well in KDE (by default, the key combo is Alt+F2 — which is admittedly quite weird). I don't know about the Gnome thing, but this dialogue also allows searching for contacts, locations, music, ... whatever.

[lipk]

Yeah, I know that. There's also a cool plasmoid called 'Lancelot Launcher' which can do that very well. It would be fine if Plasma were a bit more stable . I haven't properly expressed myself with that Kickoff-thing: in fact, I'd happy with KDE's functionality but it freezes up and crashes too many times to my taste.

I don't know about the Gnome thing, but this dialogue also allows searching for contacts, locations, music, ... whatever.

Gnome even drags the contact list from my Gmail account

[Iris]

It would be fine if Plasma were a bit more stable

Plasma Desktop (using mainline widgets or Lancelot, which I didn’t like at the end anyway) hasn’t crashed for me on 4.4.5 or 4.6.5.

[Crendgrim]

Yeah, I know that. There's also a cool plasmoid called 'Lancelot Launcher' which can do that very well. It would be fine if Plasma were a bit more stable . I haven't properly expressed myself with that Kickoff-thing: in fact, I'd happy with KDE's functionality but it freezes up and crashes too many times to my taste.

Nah, I don't speak about the lancelot menu (which I don't like, FWIW), but about KRunner, which is a plasma tool for running programs, commands, doing unit converts, whatever comes to your mind. You could describe it as a powerful command line.

[Evropi]

Lancelot's not a plasmoid, it's an application. Also lipk, you'd put Firefox in favourites if you use it the most. Simple and easy. Personally, I love Kickoff and I've always disliked Mint-style menus (what's Lancelot has ripped off), they take too much screen space. Or as Crendgrim mentioned, press Alt+F2, it's the same functionality that GNOME Do has but just as well.

By the way, Kickoff has exactly the same functionality... there's a search bar at the top and if you type, stuff comes up, like Firefox which you so dearly want to open up.

As for GNOME 3, I meant that most distributions explicitly choose to include a dock with the top taskbar. That's my issue, that the taskbar is so unwieldy (especially selecting programs to open). As I've said; I like doing things graphically (especially relating to position) and using the keyboard is uncomfortable.

I've only began using Linux relatively recently--about a year and I have yet to compile a program--not that I really want to. Gentoo wouldn't be a good idea either because it takes so bloody long to compile stuff. I've only compiled a program once on Windows and that was a lot slower than installation. This is also the reason I'm a bit more open to change and KDE I guess, I hadn't even heard of Linux until a couple of years ago so I have no clue about the KDE4 fiasco.
I have had an idea; being a modular sort of kernel, I suppose it would be possible to install one OS over another, and then, say, flip between package managers? Am I a genius or what?! Please confirm if this is possible, personal army of geeks!

[Crendgrim]

[...]I hadn't even heard of Linux until a couple of years ago so I have no clue about the KDE4 fiasco.

What's the "KDE4 fiasco"? So far, nearly everything became better than in the old KDE3. Okay, the first versions were really unstable, but by now it's a very nice, stable system...

I have had an idea; being a modular sort of kernel, I suppose it would be possible to install one OS over another, and then, say, flip between package managers? Am I a genius or what?! Please confirm if this is possible, personal army of geeks!

I doubt that. The kernel itself is modular, but the distributions aren't. If you even start to use different package managers, how is one supposed to know which packages the other installed? This would become a big, big mess.

[Gambit]

Because Unity and Gnome 3 both really suck and because I've needed a stable system for school, I've been stuck on Ubuntu 11.04; unwilling to upgrade to oneiric, and unable to risk the move to anything else.

The semester ended yesterday, and today I switched to Linux Mint. It's the first distro to ship with Mate (a fork of Gnome 2.x). It's been about seven hours since I started backing up my files this morning, but I now have Mint fully installed (meaning the OS, and all my extra programs (git, svn, scons, frogatto, several copies of Wesnoth, unknown-horizons, apache2, mysql, kate, kolourpaint, quassel, gcolor, phpmyadmin, chromium, dropbox)).

After getting some Mate updates from the "unstable" "romeo" repo (bug fixes) and installing the Ambiance theme, you really can't tell the difference. (Though as my own little private "f-u" to Ubuntu for putting me through this, I'm using Mint's incon-set, and not the Ubuntu-Mono one)

[eliddell]

@Evropi: Heh, not to worry, Gentoo scares most people (although it isn't quite as bad as it looks--the easiest way to deal with compiling everything is to 1. be selective about you install, which Gentoo permits, and 2. let major updates run unattended overnight.). I use it because I'm a control freak, but I don't generally recommend it to others.

My suggestion of Trinity was serious, though--packages are available for Ubuntu if you would like to try it out (and it includes an older version of Kickoff, which might be a plus for you).

And installing multiple package managers on a machine is a really bad idea unless you have some way to coordinate between them. The dependency nightmare that would arise just boggles the mind (I can think of a way you might be able to run Portage, Gentoo's package manager, in parallel with something else, by making creative use of wrappers and the package.provided file, but . . . No, let's just not go there). However, most packages can be installed on almost any distribution--you just have to poke around for a while to find the right repository sometimes. There really aren't that many package formats: something like two-thirds of all current Linux distros use either Red Hat's rpm or Debian's dpkg, usually with a fancier package manager layered on top of the original low-level one. Ubuntu is a Debian-descended distro, for what it's worth.

Also: XWindows and the associated graphical loadout are not part of the Linux kernel, which is slightly less than 3MB in total size these days, judging from a quick look at my /boot (you used to be able to fit it on a floppy disk--I guess those days are over). You don't have to load the kernel all at once, so in that sense it is modular, but you can't mix-and-match parts from different kernels.

@all: I tested KDE4 in its early days, and I wouldn't have liked it much even if it had been stable. Too much eye candy and other resource-instensive stuff I didn't need, like strigi/nepomunk/the semantic desktop in general--at the time, I was also running a single-core machine with 1GB RAM and an antique (GeForce 3) graphics card, so the unwanted autostarting applications really hurt. Even after I figured out how to turn them off, they were wasting space on my harddrive simply by being installed, and for me nothing in KDE4 was an improvement over KDE3. I had both versions installed in parallel for a brief period, then kicked KDE4 off and went back to its entirely satisfactory predecessor.

Basically, KDE4 ticked a lot of people off because it was its own thing rather than an improved KDE3, just as Gnome 3 ticks a lot of people off because it's its own thing, rather than an improved Gnome 2. Both projects would probably have been better received if they'd started fresh under new names. I have nothing against people who are happy using one of the newer DEs--if one of them works for you, then good. Let me use what works for me, and we can all be happy. Diversity is good.

[Crendgrim]

My suggestion of Trinity was serious, though--packages are available for Ubuntu if you would like to try it out (and it includes an older version of Kickoff, which might be a plus for you).

What comes to my mind again upon reading this: If only (or mostly) Kickoff is troubling you, you can tell it to use the old menu style.

Basically, KDE4 ticked a lot of people off because it was its own thing rather than an improved KDE3, just as Gnome 3 ticks a lot of people off because it's its own thing, rather than an improved Gnome 2.

For what it's worth, I heard more bad reviews on Gnome 3 than on KDE4. The latter is convincing most people. Of course, if you don't need all that applications-working-together-with-much-eyecandy-thingy, it's not really a good choice; but both Gnome 3 and KDE4 are only following the path of time. Mobile devices are becoming more and more important, so the desktop designs are slowly adjusting to allow everyone a consistent workflow with all kinds of devices. Just have a look at Windows 8, which seems (from what I heard so far) to become merely a desktop adaption of the mobile Windows version.

I have nothing against people who are happy using one of the newer DEs--if one of them works for you, then good. Let me use what works for me, and we can all be happy. Diversity is good.

Definitely.

[eliddell]

Basically, KDE4 ticked a lot of people off because it was its own thing rather than an improved KDE3, just as Gnome 3 ticks a lot of people off because it's its own thing, rather than an improved Gnome 2.

For what it's worth, I heard more bad reviews on Gnome 3 than on KDE4. The latter is convincing most people. Of course, if you don't need all that applications-working-together-with-much-eyecandy-thingy, it's not really a good choice; but both Gnome 3 and KDE4 are only following the path of time. Mobile devices are becoming more and more important, so the desktop designs are slowly adjusting to allow everyone a consistent workflow with all kinds of devices. Just have a look at Windows 8, which seems (from what I heard so far) to become merely a desktop adaption of the mobile Windows version.

I've encountered plenty of bad reviews of both, with varying amounts of vitriol attached. I think most of the former KDE3 users who hate KDE4 have long since bailed, though—to various distro-maintained versions of KDE3, to Trinity, or to XFCE4 or LXDE.

As for the other, I'm not, and likely never will be, convinced that a uniform interface that more-or-less works on most devices is better than having a purpose-made interface for each device that plays to its strengths. They're both defensible positions, though—I think it may boil down to a split between people who are willing to Learn New Things to get the most out of their device, whatever it may be, versus people who Just Want It To Work. I'm firmly entrenched in the first (admittedly smaller) camp.

[Einherjar]

My current operating system is GNU Emacs. Sadly, Wesnoth hasn't been ported to Emacs yet.

[uncleshelby]

Wait, GNU Emacs is a text editor... What?