:: Re: [DNG] Which DE?
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Author: spiralofhope
Date:  
To: dng
Subject: Re: [DNG] Which DE?
On Tue, 25 Feb 2020 16:29:58 +0100
al3xu5 / dotcommon <dotcommon@???> wrote:

> and I would like a
> de that has the least dependencies but also remains stable and
> "comfortable" in configuration, personalization and use...


I've only had XFCE experience out of your three, and that's really only
because I prefer Openbox. My install inherits a lot of simple UI and
hotkeys that I've customized over the years[1] (all the way from
Blackbox), but I wouldn't call it particularly easy to customize if
you're looking for GUI tools outside of basic window style/colors.

Regarding "stable and comfortable". They have a large user base and are
mature projects, so they're stable. Devuan inherits these things from
Debian. For comfortable, all DEs are, by their nature, kind of the same
thing until you look at philosophy-oddities like those built around
something like ratpoison.[2]

Regarding dependencies, is this simply a philosophy issue or is there
some reason behind this? There could be "a lot" of dependencies for
one DE, but it's because the design is to shatter all the functionality
into independent specialized packages, which is actually a really great
thing. If you're concerned about "lightness" then that's difficult to
pin down and there are a lot of poorly-backed claims about this.
Lightness tends to be another philosophy issue and isn't at all
important to today's computers until you get to environments with 3D
windowing effects and the like.

I don't think a desktop environment would have any impact on your
choice of applications. I've also run without pulseaudio and most of
your applications with no difficulty. (Though I'm not familiar with icc
color management at all, does that matter to the desktop environment?)



[1] https://github.com/spiralofhope/misc-configuration/blob/master/live/openbox/rc.xml
[2] http://www.nongnu.org/ratpoison/