Which DE / WM for the next "Y" release ?

Which of the following DE's would you like to see in the next "Y" release ?

  • GNOME

    Votes: 1 3.4%

  • KDE SC

    Votes: 1 3.4%

  • CDE

    Votes: 1 3.4%

  • IRIX Interactive Desktop

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Xfce

    Votes: 14 48.3%

  • EDE

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Etoilé

    Votes: 1 3.4%

  • LXDE

    Votes: 13 44.8%

  • Mezzo

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • ROX

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • UDE

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Unity

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Gnome shell

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • KDE Plasma

    Votes: 3 10.3%

  • No DE !

    Votes: 4 13.8%

  • Panorama

    Votes: 4 13.8%
  • Total voters
    29

F11 would fullscreen most of windows in XFCE. Check out keyboard shortcuts, with ctrl and alt placed so close you can make fantastic combos. :) I used to have 3-4 workspaces on my Pandora, each running 1 app in fullscreen, then I would just switch between them with ctrl+alt+arrow. Scrollable array of icons as background is a tricky thing to do.


Even more finger-fu is possible if you add keyboard shortcuts for launching apps.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Hoodoo said:
F11 would fullscreen most of windows in XFCE. Check out keyboard shortcuts, with ctrl and alt placed so close you can make fantastic combos. :) I used to have 3-4 workspaces on my Pandora, each running 1 app in fullscreen, then I would just switch between them with ctrl+alt+arrow.


Scrollable array of icons as background is a tricky thing to do.
Click to expand...
Were were talking about the ideal user environment weren't we? Doesn't that just require writing the scrolling in at a low level?
 
Don't think so. I'm afraid it would be some sort of black magic to add a scrollable background like this, and it could interfere with things and cause trouble of all sorts, thanks xlib! :)


Besides, mimicking (screwed up) Android's approach doesn't seem to be that brilliant idea to me. Apps must be grouped in categories for easy browsing, and there must be some 'favorites' and a way to launch an app through an entry field. That's it. If you have to scroll a huge list of icons your interface is far from being ideal.


At the moment I'm teaching myself some freedesktop.org specs and some gtk2-perl in order to write a custom dynamically populated, touchscreen-friendly application launcher for Pandora to work with xfce/gnome/whatever. It's not too difficult to create a window populated with any number of custom buttons, but I really need to figure out how to build the menu data structure the smartest way possible. After that it would just need some facelifting here and there. :)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
The problem with the 'ideal' or 'ultimate' user interface on the Pandora is that there exists two (if not more) very different use cases for the device itself.


Some people use for gaming, so Minimenu is king. Others use it like a full-out Linux laptop (web browsing + document editing + code development). Some people use it for Linux administration. And the list goes on and on.


This is of course great, as the Pandora can fit into different niches and find a special place in many people's lives. However, trying to get one UI to bridge all of these different use cases becomes very difficult, if not impossible.
 
^ I don't think it is possible, myself. Such a thing strikes me as a very "Jack of all trades, master of none" proposition. :p That's why we already have more than one option, I guess.
 
Bringing us back to the original question!


What do we want in a desktop environment for the pandora?
 
binky said:
Bringing us back to the original question!


What do we want in a desktop environment for the pandora?
Click to expand...
Ha, right. Sorry binky.


Um, KDE! Wait, no, I'm doing it again. KDE is bad for gaming and desktop environments.


Honestly, once they have wireless working nice in Minimenu, I'll probably never fire up a DE. So this topic isn't really for me at all. [whistles and walks away]
 
As for me, I'd propose to keep the current xfce/minimenu setup as the default. I believe it's more marketable this way. These who want something else totally are able to make it work on their own and find similarily thinking community members to make and maintain corresponding packages. :)
 
Mr Rob said:
Um, KDE! Wait, no, I'm doing it again. KDE is bad for gaming and desktop environments.
Click to expand...
I think KDE will be great in a couple of years when we have a pandora2, heaps of ram/nand and a super-whizzy multicore cpu.


until then, maybe not!


In general I rather like KDE, but wait. Where did 0.5GB of ram go?!
 
binky said:
Mr Rob said:
Um, KDE! Wait, no, I'm doing it again. KDE is bad for gaming and desktop environments.
Click to expand...
I think KDE will be great in a couple of years when we have a pandora2, heaps of ram/nand and a super-whizzy multicore cpu.


until then, maybe not!


In general I rather like KDE, but wait. Where did 0.5GB of ram go?!
Click to expand...
Eh, I've never been a KDE fan, but I know people who use it. Personally, I usually end up with Gnome 2 on my Linux computers, and then mod them a lot to get it just the way I want it.


Though with Gnome 2, my netbook usually boots up and is ready to go in 100MB, which is pretty snazzy. It does have 2 GB, but who cares, less is more.
 
binky said:
wow!


These chaps say that gnome uses 390MB


http://www.phoronix....op_vitals&num=1
Click to expand...

Ah, well Ubuntu (10.04) does add a couple things that the standard Gnome 2 that ships with Debian 6 doesn't have, so that's probably part of it. Plus I disable some unnecessary things, which helps a lot.


And obviously with things running (I'm looking at you [insert web browser here]) memory jumps a good amount.
 
Mr Rob said:
The problem with the 'ideal' or 'ultimate' user interface on the Pandora is that there exists two (if not more) very different use cases for the device itself.


Some people use for gaming, so Minimenu is king. Others use it like a full-out Linux laptop (web browsing + document editing + code development). Some people use it for Linux administration. And the list goes on and on.


This is of course great, as the Pandora can fit into different niches and find a special place in many people's lives. However, trying to get one UI to bridge all of these different use cases becomes very difficult, if not impossible.
Click to expand...
I think it would be very hard to find an interface suitable to all applications.


I typically classify the Pandora usage into four categories, each with its own "better" desktop environment/launcher.

  • Gaming handheld: Minimenu
  • Portable desktop: XFCE/LXDE (or some other Linux desktop)
  • Media player: XBMC (a bit heavy on the memory unfortunately)
  • PDA/Organizer: Android
 
Caine said:
I think it would be very hard to find an interface suitable to all applications.


I typically classify the Pandora usage into four categories, each with its own "better" desktop environment/launcher.

  • Gaming handheld: Minimenu
  • Portable desktop: XFCE/LXDE (or some other Linux desktop)
  • Media player: XBMC (a bit heavy on the memory unfortunately)
  • PDA/Organizer: Android
Click to expand...

Much better categorization than mine. I would have never thought of using it as an organizer, actually.
 
I'll throw in my two cents:


I personally think it would be neat if there were options on choice. Practically, if anyone selected Unity, KDE, or GNOME3, w/ Compiz on install on the pandora, then they will get the experience and performance they really demanded.


[/troll]


A little about DE/WM. Please understand that in linux, you could replace ether one, or both, at anytime. These programs are not bound to the operating systems like windows. You could change them right now for your Pandora if you wished. I really now wonder what is the point of this poll?
 
Stradian said:
A little about DE/WM. Please understand that in linux, you could replace ether one, or both, at anytime. These programs are not bound to the operating systems like windows. You could change them right now for your Pandora if you wished. I really now wonder what is the point of this poll?
Click to expand...

I would make sense if the most wanted ones were neatly organized to avoid everyone fiddling around making the same new one work on our hardware.
 
I think I have to agree with lxde/openbox!!


With a bit of tweaking lxde can be a very nice DE that is also very lean.


Xfce is cute and all, but still a bit too heavy for a minimal system like the Pandora.


Personally I use fluxbox, but that would be too much for any newbs ;)


So another vote for lxde!
 
Interestingly enough, KDE/KSC/Kplasma/Kwhatever Is getting more votes than gnome, despite Gnome's apparent efficiency over K-=-
 
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