KDE, MATE, Xfce - what do they mean?

[The Colourful Jester]

Decided to look at the website for Linux mint and saw these terms. Not the first time I've seen them, but for the first time I'm wondering what they mean. More in terms of use than anything. I (think) I know that Ubuntu uses Unity, but I'm not sure what the difference is there either.

Just hoping someone can give me the Janet and John versions of what the differences are.

 

[dystopian]

They're desktop environments that run on top of Linux. Basically, they're a GUI (graphical user interface); similar in style and appearance to what you're familiar with Windows (or MacOS). They all basically do the same thing, just slightly differently and with different core programs. I don't use Linux myself, so I can't really tell you about the specific differences between them.

I suppose if we wanted a complete dummies analogy, you might compare it to a car. The dashboard/wheel/pedal is the desktop environment, the engine/wheels/exhaust/etc is the OS.

 

[tantric]

uh, there's also more to it - it's how your desktop operates and looks. do you want it like OSX? Win2000? some are easier to configure than others. i used to use GnomeShell, cause i like the extensions webpage and how you can just click on shit and change your desktop - like adding a weather forecast, a hideable dashboard, etc. i tried bodhi, supposedly because it's customizable but really for the name, and hated it - you *have* to customize it. now i'm on Ubuntu Mate, which you can install like that. it comes with damn near everything - it's feature loaded, not lean, but still blazing fast and Ubuntu, so easy to fix. my desktop is kinda win2000, but with the launcher bar on top and a bar with active programs on bottom. there's a hideable rapid application launcher on the side with just tiny icons, instead of a complete menu like on top. ask away....

i have a server with xcfe, but i got tired of it and install mate. xcfe is very functional, but a bit bare.

 

[NobleSavage]

I use Linux a lot and dystopian is right. I did use it as a desktop for several years, but I'm done with that. I think the desktop is Linux's biggest weakness. It's a great server OS, but screw using it on the desktop. There is so much fragmentation and project forking that it gets very, very, annoying. Unless you just love screwing around with software -- then you will be in heaven.

The 3 that you mentioned are the tip of the iceberg. I prefer Gnome 2 on Ubuntu, but that is a dead end. Gnome made the abomination that is Gnome 3, Ubuntu ditched Gnome for Unity, the old Gnome people went in a thousand directions (Like Linux Mint with 3-6 different new desktop options). When I first tried Unity I thought it was as bad as Gnome 3, just different. Ubuntu tends to fix things eventually so maybe it is nice by now or if you are not stuck in your ways, you just might like Unity. Gnome took some inspiration from Mac OS X.

On the other side KDE started off more like Windows (KDE always annoyed me because of their stupid program names and I hate their file manage and web browser called Konqueror, but because it's Linux you can switch it out for 10 different things that are 90% finished).

Xfce is supposed to be "lightweight". Personally, if you wanted something Linux, simple stupid, and has that has apps like a tablet or phone get a Chrome Book or install Chrome OS. Google is pushing it and not 5 guys sharing an apartment who will go different directions in a year or two. I got one for my girlfriend who knows very little about computers and she loves it. However, if you ask 10 Linux guys what to use you will get 15 different answers.

I personally use OS X now. It has the Unix heritage. There is a bash terminal installed and you can get all the standard Unix command line utilities -- which is what I liked about having Linux as a desktop. OS X has the most clean and stable GUI, IMO. As long as they don't radically change it one day, I'll stay with it. I figure MS has to reinvent the software every so often so they have new shit to sell. At least Apple can make money on the hardware side, so don't fuck it up Apple.

 

[NobleSavage]

Oh yeah, sooner or later some cranky Linux guy will most likely give you a lecture on windows managers vs desktop environments an insist that one of 15 different very basic windows manages is the only way to go. You have a lot of fun to look forward to.

 

[tantric]

i use linux because i'm textually oriented (though i loathe texting...NSFW video of why). when i do shit, i open LXterm, green text on black bg, and go to town. i'm a perl guy, cgi, mysql, so that figures. gnome 2 was a dead end, gnome shell lived on. mate, though, rocks. i didn't like OSX at all, i put one button mice in the category with texting, and that bouncy shit is annoying, plus i can't find crap and bash doesn't work right. i have an old imac 5,2 intel duo core with ubuntu...but it overheats unless i go in and set the fan speed, and for reasons that defy understanding, i can't chron it any such....in short, it's a bitch of a computer. shrug. YMMV.

oh, mate is on an old asus netbook, same tech as the first chromebook, blazes, and i managed to get EA's spore running perfectly under wine, real time. hi def video editing, whatever, it does it. windows crippled it, i think it was win8, with the panels and crap, i just wiped it's brain entirely and went ubuntu. i partition the drive in two parts and only use one at a time as i upgrade, which should prolong the solid state drive's life, right?

 

[tantric]

Oh yeah, sooner or later some cranky Linux guy will most likely give you a lecture on windows managers vs desktop environments an insist that one of 15 different very basic windows manages is the only way to go. You have a lot of fun to look forward to.

hey, is that a typo, you meant 'crazy' instead of 'cranky', right?

 

[NobleSavage]

Oh yeah, sooner or later some cranky Linux guy will most likely give you a lecture on windows managers vs desktop environments an insist that one of 15 different very basic windows manages is the only way to go. You have a lot of fun to look forward to.

hey, is that a typo, you meant 'crazy' instead of 'cranky', right?

View attachment 3091

Hey, my favorite mail client is still Mutt. Why pull the mail to your machine or use a stupid browser when you can just ssh into the server and read it? At least your not a PHP guy. I think it would compliment your craziness if you incorporated Lisp or Scheme.

The trackpad on my Mac laptop has a lot of nice "gestures" that once you get used to are better than a 2 button Win mouse. Same with the "magic mouse" for my OS X Desktop.

 

[tantric]

i hate PHP - it's just dumbed down perl and more embedded. in perl you can do:

my $name = 'person';
${$name} = 'Foo';
print "$person\n";

output---> Foo

that's just not right, it's actually twisted. i hate java because it's a language based on a theory of how you should program...perl is about getting shit done. but as we both seem to know, it's mostly what you're used to. i do wonder if this has helped the OP or terrified him....

 

[bigfield]

I use Linux a lot and dystopian is right. I did use it as a desktop for several years, but I'm done with that. I think the desktop is Linux's biggest weakness. It's a great server OS, but screw using it on the desktop. There is so much fragmentation and project forking that it gets very, very, annoying. Unless you just love screwing around with software -- then you will be in heaven.

On Ubuntu and Mint, most software installs in one click in the software centre. Plus they come with web browser, office suite, email client etc. pre-installed.

The 3 that you mentioned are the tip of the iceberg. I prefer Gnome 2 on Ubuntu, but that is a dead end. Gnome made the abomination that is Gnome 3, Ubuntu ditched Gnome for Unity, the old Gnome people went in a thousand directions (Like Linux Mint with 3-6 different new desktop options). When I first tried Unity I thought it was as bad as Gnome 3, just different. Ubuntu tends to fix things eventually so maybe it is nice by now or if you are not stuck in your ways, you just might like Unity. Gnome took some inspiration from Mac OS X.

The great thing about Ubuntu w/ Unity is that you can ignore it and get Linux Mint w/ Cinnamon instead, and voila you have an excellent GTK+3 DE.

Xfce is supposed to be "lightweight". Personally, if you wanted something Linux, simple stupid, and has that has apps like a tablet or phone get a Chrome Book or install Chrome OS. Google is pushing it and not 5 guys sharing an apartment who will go different directions in a year or two. I got one for my girlfriend who knows very little about computers and she loves it. However, if you ask 10 Linux guys what to use you will get 15 different answers.

Xfce is lightweight in the sense that it is lean, not that it is 'simple'. In terms of UX it's very similar to GNOME 2. It's a completely different target audience than Chrome OS.

 

[tantric]

Man, just try MATE. it manages to be user friendly without being a windows style suck-ass. it's just *easy*.

 

[J842P]

You could get a Chromebook and use crouton to generate a chroot to run Ubuntu as a "guest OS" and tab back-and-forth between Chromium OS and Ubuntu.

 

[tantric]

You could get a Chromebook and use crouton to generate a chroot to run Ubuntu as a "guest OS" and tab back-and-forth between Chromium OS and Ubuntu.

i'm using the same model computer as the first chromebook to run ubuntu/MATE - man, don't get started with chrome book. it's a mess. the custom fixes are a nightmare. YMMV.

 

[NobleSavage]

On Ubuntu and Mint, most software installs in one click in the software centre. Plus they come with web browser, office suite, email client etc. pre-installed.

On Ubuntu you get that cluster fuck Unity. Have they got it straightened out yet? They first tried to copy OS X where the application menu items appear at the top of the monitor, not in the application window. And they were such OS X suck ups they moved the window close / minimize from the right side to the left side. WTF!!!! The result was barbaric compared to OS X. It was shit. Last I heard they were letting apps go back to the old way because it broke so much stuff. Do they have is straight now? Do they still have that search box that searches your files AND the internet + Amazon to "help" you find what you are looking for? Canonical had ok profits in 2013 --- are they gonna survive? I quit paying attention. Seems like they dumped a bunch of money into a smart phone OS... Who uses Ubuntu on their phone? Is there a market for those?

With Mint, have they released updates recently? Last time I looked it had been a long time. How many people are behind Mint? It always has the feel of hobby project when I first tried it out.

The great thing about Ubuntu w/ Unity is that you can ignore it and get Linux Mint w/ Cin/namon instead, and voila you have an excellent GTK+3 DE.

Maybe I'll take a look again. I've got a bunch of distros in VMs that I check out less and less, because it's always the same. But if I find a combo I like someone will fork the project in 2 years, and round and round we go. Last I looked, Element OS was getting a bunch of attention -- which came strait from left field.

Xfce is lightweight in the sense that it is lean, not that it is 'simple'. In terms of UX it's very similar to GNOME 2. It's a completely different target audience than Chrome OS.

Yes, thanks for making that distinction. I wasn't sure about the audience so I was trying to offer what I think will be a very stable system and easy to use -- Chrome OS - Google is behind it. They will make sure it keeps working. They will spy you and put your info into storage where it will never be deleted, but most people don't care.

If you are actually reading this and it doesn't sound like a good time, stay away from Linux on the desktop.

 

[NobleSavage]

Bilby is probably the Linux expert around here and Ray J. If you notice they are not interested in this thread. They are probably running a desktop that is 10 years old. It does just want they want and nothing else. And if there are security vunls the scammers/script kiddies are not targeting the .01% of people who have that setup. A person new to computers is not gonna like their setup.

 

[tantric]

On Ubuntu you get that cluster fuck Unity. Have they got it straightened out yet? They first tried to copy OS X where the application menu items appear at the top of the monitor, not in the application window. And they were such OS X suck ups they moved the window close / minimize from the right side to the left side. WTF!!!! The result was barbaric compared to OS X. It was shit. Last I heard they were letting apps go back to the old way because it broke so much stuff. Do they have is straight now? Do they still have that search box that searches your files AND the internet + Amazon to "help" you find what you are looking for? Canonical had ok profits in 2013 --- are they gonna survive? I quit paying attention. Seems like they dumped a bunch of money into a smart phone OS... Who uses Ubuntu on their phone? Is there a market for those?

With Mint, have they released updates recently? Last time I looked it had been a long time. How many people are behind Mint? It always has the feel of hobby project when I first tried it out.

no, just no - you can get Ubuntu distro with all kinds of custom desktops as primary. here: Ubuntu-MATE 15.04. it's a dream, it's packed with stuff, ready to go on install and you can customize to within an inch of its life. Unity was a nightmare - if i want a mac, i'll buy one. Gnome Shell did me until MATE (Shell is Gnome fork to avoid Unity - Gnome got up from the dead and had a kitten). now, i'm still using 14.10 MATE, but i ain't no linuxasaurus. my stuff rocks - fast, slick, no problems. windows is an awful, hulking monstrosity - and they expect you to pay for it. just say 'no' kids.

 

[NobleSavage]

Oh, great, it doesn't look like an official Ubuntu desktop? Who is behind https://ubuntu-mate.org/vivid/ is it gonna be around in 1 year? Or maybe split into two groups of fighting dorks? The screenshot looks promising.. Is it in the normal Ubuntu repos?

 

[Juma]

Just got very tired of linsucks: how do you check what the sound deviced you have (name, order, driver version etc).
I know the answer: use google..

That is why apple and microsoft rules.

 

[NobleSavage]

You could get a Chromebook and use crouton to generate a chroot to run Ubuntu as a "guest OS" and tab back-and-forth between Chromium OS and Ubuntu.

Yeah, one of my buddies did that. He is endlessly fucking and tweaking it.

 

[NobleSavage]

Just got very tired of linsucks: how do you check what the sound deviced you have (name, order, driver version etc).
I know the answer: use google..

That is why apple and microsoft rules.

Do any Linux distros have a simple back up solution like Time Machine? Yea? I can set up rsync to my NAS, but I'm lazy - Time Machine works great. It backs up my two macs once every day without any thinking. I waiting for Microsoft to someday release the Linux distro that rules them all. You will pay for it like Office 365 and get rolling updates. I think Windows is stopping with new OS es after 10. They are gonna move to a subscription model.