5 ms·

The word minimal often means minimalistic in appearance and resource use, what I want is minimal work. That's why I run default gnome.

athorax 4y ago
That's why I run xfce4, best of both worlds!
ogogmad 4y ago
Default KDE does more out of the box, and is very usable. Resource usage seems OK. I recommend it over Gnome. The only thing I liked about Gnome was the appearance, which was something purely superficial. (I don't use Linux anymore.)
- dysoco 4y ago
  I enjoy KDE more than Gnome nowadays but it's far from being more minimalistic; it has way too much options, applications, dropdowns, buttons, etc. compared to Gnome and pretty much any other DE. It DOES run great though, but I think they'd do a good job by simplifying some aspects of it, too bad the community seems to be mostly opposed to that as they want KDE to remain a more power-user friendly desktop.
  - nvrspyx 4y ago
    I haven't tried it out in awhile, but I wonder if LXQt might be worth looking at for something more configurable than GNOME, yet more simple than KDE. Of course, there's also always XFCE, MATE, and Cinnamon. I just don't see LXQt mentioned much.
- nvrspyx 4y ago
  I think the parent comment's choice of "minimal work" was key. In my experience, KDE requires quite a bit of work to set up because it encourages you to adapt the system for your workflow. GNOME, on the other hand, encourages you to adapt your workflow to the system, which is minimal out-of-the-box, and IMO doesn't take much effort or work to do so. Regardless, I think once KDE is set up to one's workflow properly, it stays out of the way and can remain out of the way on new systems by transferring the config files. It just may take a lot of upfront work to get to that point and you can get easily distracted tweaking the minutiae over time. For that particular reason, I also prefer just using vanilla GNOME (with only the AppIndicator extension for DropBox and Steam tray icons). Granted, that's a "me problem" because I get easily distracted and can never stick with a specific setup when there's so many options available for me to tweak. TL;DR: Both KDE and GNOME can be minimal, but the latter requires "minimal work" because it's minimal out-of-the-box and there's not much work that can be done.
- eloisant 4y ago
  I prefer Gnome but I also use KDE because that's what's on my Steam Deck. Both work great and have all the features I need, but KDE feels a bit boring, a bit "Windows XP" while Gnome seems like a more modern desktop to me. I much prefer Gnome's dock to KDE's "start menu" with so many things cramed at the same place (well, like Windows).
MuffinFlavored 4y ago
> That's why I run default gnome. That's why I run Mac OS X and don't waste hours setting up a machine/operating system that could just work out of the box.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  After you log in to iCloud, of course. And then you have to download the Xcode tools, which is fine because it only takes ~8 hours. You'll probably want to reboot after the latest version of Monterey downloads, but make sure you do this after the Xcode tools are done downloading. While you're at it, you should also disable SIP so you can use the filesystems on your external drive, and you'll also want to double-check that your docks/Ethernet components are all MacOS-compatible. You'll also need a copy of GNU's coreutils, so grab those after installing Homebrew/Nix or else you'll get dozens of bash errors. Can't forget Docker, either! That's okay, just go to the Docker website and download their Commercial Client, and only run it when you need a container. We can't just run Docker in the background of a modern OS, can we? Depending on your workflow, MacOS is fully capable of wasting your time. Especially if you're a developer, MacOS will frequently go out of it's way to deliver you a worse UNIX environment than Linux. If MacOS makes you happy, use it - but nobody is deploying their web infrastructure to MacOS. You're beholden to Linux usage whether you like it or not.
  - tinus_hn 4y ago
    Why would you do all that when the minimalist desktop apparently is running a mail client, an irc client and an ftp client? You can do all that minimal desktop does and much more without MacOS ‘wasting your time’. Do you really want to pretend this minimalist desktop includes Docker?
  - mustache_kimono 4y ago
    > it only takes ~8 hours Um, what? Can't say as I've experienced this. Only time I ever felt like this is when I was downloading rustc and cargo from the FreeBSD repos. The rest is semi-fair, if not completely understanding of the trade offs (rootless is mostly good, lots of people use docker on Linux, no one is deploying their web infrastructure on MacOS, not because you couldn't, but because it's not free, etc.) As always, use what works for you! I made a joke about how this OpenBSD desktop has like Linux of 25 years ago vibes ... which I'd amend to say, and Linux has a MacOS of 5-10 year ago vibes without the apps (all the love in the world for Linux and the BSDs, and my M1 Macbook Air too).
somat 4y ago
I like to understand the system and am happiest with a simple setup. So openbsd with a small tileing wm(I use spectrwm) is perfect for me. If I were less addicted to web browsing I would probably use plan 9.
- MisterTea 4y ago
  > If I were less addicted to web browsing I would probably use plan 9. You can run a linux vm using vmx on 9front and run a browser in there. Not fast as lots of vm work is still needed to improve guest performance (send patches.)
MisterTea 4y ago
I run xfce on my Linux machine and find that it does what I want out of the box. I'm sure most of the people here complaining about custom configs can't be bothered to read documentation and hope the gui gives them enough hints to stumble through using it. And this has worked well enough for simple programs as visual hints allow one to stumble through the interface using trial and error. The gui as documentation has done massive amounts of damage because you can only hint so much before the idea breaks down in the face of 100's of knobs and levers. Then the GUI becomes a liability because once the program becomes stable management (or bored oss devs) find reasons to change the gui breaking the user experience by corrupting the documentation. Now the user has to re-learn everything. The web then becomes a graveyard of obsolete how-to guides. Goes to show you why emacs or vi and their clones haven't changed much ui wise yet visual studio and other monster ide's are moving targets. man pages and command driven interfaces are very stable.

athorax 4y ago

That's why I run xfce4, best of both worlds!

ogogmad 4y ago

Default KDE does more out of the box, and is very usable. Resource usage seems OK. I recommend it over Gnome. The only thing I liked about Gnome was the appearance, which was something purely superficial. (I don't use Linux anymore.)

dysoco 4y ago
I enjoy KDE more than Gnome nowadays but it's far from being more minimalistic; it has way too much options, applications, dropdowns, buttons, etc. compared to Gnome and pretty much any other DE. It DOES run great though, but I think they'd do a good job by simplifying some aspects of it, too bad the community seems to be mostly opposed to that as they want KDE to remain a more power-user friendly desktop.
- nvrspyx 4y ago
  I haven't tried it out in awhile, but I wonder if LXQt might be worth looking at for something more configurable than GNOME, yet more simple than KDE. Of course, there's also always XFCE, MATE, and Cinnamon. I just don't see LXQt mentioned much.
nvrspyx 4y ago
I think the parent comment's choice of "minimal work" was key. In my experience, KDE requires quite a bit of work to set up because it encourages you to adapt the system for your workflow. GNOME, on the other hand, encourages you to adapt your workflow to the system, which is minimal out-of-the-box, and IMO doesn't take much effort or work to do so. Regardless, I think once KDE is set up to one's workflow properly, it stays out of the way and can remain out of the way on new systems by transferring the config files. It just may take a lot of upfront work to get to that point and you can get easily distracted tweaking the minutiae over time. For that particular reason, I also prefer just using vanilla GNOME (with only the AppIndicator extension for DropBox and Steam tray icons). Granted, that's a "me problem" because I get easily distracted and can never stick with a specific setup when there's so many options available for me to tweak. TL;DR: Both KDE and GNOME can be minimal, but the latter requires "minimal work" because it's minimal out-of-the-box and there's not much work that can be done.
eloisant 4y ago
I prefer Gnome but I also use KDE because that's what's on my Steam Deck. Both work great and have all the features I need, but KDE feels a bit boring, a bit "Windows XP" while Gnome seems like a more modern desktop to me. I much prefer Gnome's dock to KDE's "start menu" with so many things cramed at the same place (well, like Windows).

MuffinFlavored 4y ago

> That's why I run default gnome. That's why I run Mac OS X and don't waste hours setting up a machine/operating system that could just work out of the box.

smoldesu 4y ago
After you log in to iCloud, of course. And then you have to download the Xcode tools, which is fine because it only takes ~8 hours. You'll probably want to reboot after the latest version of Monterey downloads, but make sure you do this after the Xcode tools are done downloading. While you're at it, you should also disable SIP so you can use the filesystems on your external drive, and you'll also want to double-check that your docks/Ethernet components are all MacOS-compatible. You'll also need a copy of GNU's coreutils, so grab those after installing Homebrew/Nix or else you'll get dozens of bash errors. Can't forget Docker, either! That's okay, just go to the Docker website and download their Commercial Client, and only run it when you need a container. We can't just run Docker in the background of a modern OS, can we? Depending on your workflow, MacOS is fully capable of wasting your time. Especially if you're a developer, MacOS will frequently go out of it's way to deliver you a worse UNIX environment than Linux. If MacOS makes you happy, use it - but nobody is deploying their web infrastructure to MacOS. You're beholden to Linux usage whether you like it or not.
- tinus_hn 4y ago
  Why would you do all that when the minimalist desktop apparently is running a mail client, an irc client and an ftp client? You can do all that minimal desktop does and much more without MacOS ‘wasting your time’. Do you really want to pretend this minimalist desktop includes Docker?
- mustache_kimono 4y ago
  > it only takes ~8 hours Um, what? Can't say as I've experienced this. Only time I ever felt like this is when I was downloading rustc and cargo from the FreeBSD repos. The rest is semi-fair, if not completely understanding of the trade offs (rootless is mostly good, lots of people use docker on Linux, no one is deploying their web infrastructure on MacOS, not because you couldn't, but because it's not free, etc.) As always, use what works for you! I made a joke about how this OpenBSD desktop has like Linux of 25 years ago vibes ... which I'd amend to say, and Linux has a MacOS of 5-10 year ago vibes without the apps (all the love in the world for Linux and the BSDs, and my M1 Macbook Air too).

somat 4y ago

I like to understand the system and am happiest with a simple setup. So openbsd with a small tileing wm(I use spectrwm) is perfect for me. If I were less addicted to web browsing I would probably use plan 9.

MisterTea 4y ago
> If I were less addicted to web browsing I would probably use plan 9. You can run a linux vm using vmx on 9front and run a browser in there. Not fast as lots of vm work is still needed to improve guest performance (send patches.)

MisterTea 4y ago

I run xfce on my Linux machine and find that it does what I want out of the box. I'm sure most of the people here complaining about custom configs can't be bothered to read documentation and hope the gui gives them enough hints to stumble through using it. And this has worked well enough for simple programs as visual hints allow one to stumble through the interface using trial and error. The gui as documentation has done massive amounts of damage because you can only hint so much before the idea breaks down in the face of 100's of knobs and levers. Then the GUI becomes a liability because once the program becomes stable management (or bored oss devs) find reasons to change the gui breaking the user experience by corrupting the documentation. Now the user has to re-learn everything. The web then becomes a graveyard of obsolete how-to guides. Goes to show you why emacs or vi and their clones haven't changed much ui wise yet visual studio and other monster ide's are moving targets. man pages and command driven interfaces are very stable.