If a choice is possible in the wizard, which desktop environment(s) the Pyra OS should ship ?

[rygD]

You can ignore me, too, but you might miss out on me doing something stupid that you can laugh at.

I still fall into the camp of those that say pick the "best" option (at present the most popular is Xfce, so go with that) for the default and for newbies, and everyone else can install and use what they prefer (it is really easy). If we want to be user friendly to the rest of us, I picked KDE, LXDE, and for something like MiniMenu. That is based purely on personal preference, although I would like a tiling window manager as well. The real best options for the community would be to go with what it's most popular. Unfortunately (for me) that includes GNOME. Regardless of what is shipped I will probably use either something lightweight or something that has all my toys (KDE) if it doesn't burn through the battery.

 

[Klumpen]

I still fall into the camp of those that say pick the "best" option (at present the most popular is Xfce, so go with that) for the default and for newbies, and everyone else can install and use what they prefer (it is really easy).

Exactly.

Afaik Xfce is still the way to go if the priorities are
A: intuitive (=Windows-like) experience everybody can handle instantly
B: lightweight/fast

 

[bukkit]

Hang on, do we have to get approval from Sulu as to what our favourite desktop environment would be? When did this happen?

Never, certainly. Neither anyone needs mine. Or we yours. But isn't this whole forum to a large part about discussing the merits, caveats, consequences of personal preferences regarding the Pyra to be?

And Sulu raises, in my opinion, rather valid questions. And, excuse me, what I hear about Pantheon sounds a lot like evangelism (justified or not) and the humble question about one specific scenario where Pantheon has one specific advantage over the other DEs to sufficiently show that there might be an advantage big enough to justify the delvopment overhead and prolonged update cycles resulting from that shouldn't be too hard to answer - but stays unanswered.

Which is fine with me, btw. You're free to spread the sermon as much as you like, only it will not touch many people this way, I'm afraid.

Almost unrelated: Pantheon looks like a well rounded and pleasant DE to me.

 

[comradekingu]

Pantheon looks better because it has less inconsistencies and a well-thought out and polished design.
Actual things that are different, less visual chaos and information overload.

I use mate and Xfce on a daily basis, both are usable, neither is as pleasant, even with tweaks.

Raspberrypi has recently launched https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/introducing-pixel/ which for some reason is based on lxde and not lxqt.

 

[Alperoot]

Do you even, MATE?

 

[TrashyMG]

I use mate and Xfce on a daily basis, both are usable, neither is as pleasant, even with tweaks.

I've always considered XFCE4 and MATE the more pleasant choices. Although I haven't used Pantheon.

 

[ZXDunny]

Which is fine with me, btw. You're free to spread the sermon as much as you like, only it will not touch many people this way, I'm afraid.

Related: the only DEs I've ever used were Cinnamon, KDE and XFCE. Not sure what your point is.

 

[spiralofhope]

MiniMenu and Xfce are recommended, just to bring over Pandora users.

Openbox is obviously the superior choice.

 

[TrashyMG]

@spiralofhope , Minimenu would prob take a lot of work to move over. Xfce really isn't much different than Mate which is currently the default. But literally using another desktop environment is just a sudo apt install away. We're literally just using vanilla Debian Stretch with a Pyra specific repository to control Pyra specific software (Kernel, drivers and such).

 

[spiralofhope]

Well alright, then if minimenu would take *any* effort, it should be abandoned. I never used it.. I found it awkward to use. I guess it's good because it uses less memory, but that's not an issue on the Pyra.. unless there's Dreamcast emulation.

Something full-featured and familiar would be useful. I don't care for Xfce, and Mate would be just fine.

It sounds great that more technical people could trivially install another window manager, but the real question is regarding official support and configuration. I, for one, would likely support Openbox myself, configuring it especially for the Pyra. Themes, hotkeys, etc. Then I can share all that out in some third-party package.

 

[Silent-Hunter]

I plan to try to get CDE working because I said I would, and then use i3.

 

[spiralofhope]

Is this CDE? :

https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/

 

[PCXT]

CDE?
This is a very good environment, it was designed by engineers for engineers, and operates in most Unix systems. But its power can be really used when both screen and resolution are large, like in these 2048x1536, 21-inch CRT displays of Sun/IBM workstations. If it will be used in HD, but very small screen, for optimal operation fonts will have to be so small that they won't be readable.

 

[Silent-Hunter]

Is this CDE? :

https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/

Yes it is.