best desktop environment?

[invizible]

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Hi im new to linux, i wanted to know which linux desktop environment is the best and more interactive and userfriendly? im installing gentoo on virtualbox, should i select KDE, GDM, XFCE 4? any recommondation will be appreciated

[oz]

Hi im new to linux, i wanted to know which linux desktop environment is the best and more interactive and userfriendly? im installing gentoo on virtualbox, should i select KDE, GDM, XFCE 4? any recommondation will be appreciated

It's truly a matter of personal preference for each user, so in the end you'll probably need to try each of them in order to know what you really like best. Note that GDM is the Gnome Display Manager and not a desktop environment. You can install Gnome with, or without GDM.

All that said, I personally prefer Gnome, although I am also a big fan of Xfce4.

[i92guboj]

Hi im new to linux, i wanted to know which linux desktop environment is the best and more interactive and userfriendly? im installing gentoo on virtualbox, should i select KDE, GDM, XFCE 4? any recommondation will be appreciated

You do realize that if that question had an answer then there would be absolutely no point in having many desktops, but just one, don't you?

As the other user said, it's a matter of personal preference. My advice is to hand a bit around the net and look some screenshots. Start in the site for each one of the major desktops: kde.org, gnome.org and xfce.org. Then you can try them on livecd to get a taste. After that you you can choose one. By the way, GDM is not a desktop, it's a display manager which is another thing. You probably meant gnome.

What's better for you? only you can say that.

KDE is all about configurability and options, some people would argue that there are lots of options, but not the right ones. To each his/her own.

Gnome is simple, and it's window manager is as dumbed down as a wm can be. It let's you no choice at all. Gnome devs seem to think that features are a bad thing. Again, to each his/her own. Some people find it fantastic.

XFCE is said to be lighter, but it is not that light as it would like to. After all it's based on the same foundation toolkit that gnome is based. I'd say that in terms of configurability XFCE is somewhere in between. In gnome you have almost no option, so having more options than you get in gnome is not difficult.

Each desktop has also its own set of applications that might be better or worse than the counterpart in another desktop for you. It's all about opinions as always. You can mix applications from many desktops as well. You can use kde programs under gnome without problems as long as all the required dependencies are installed.

All in all, you can't be sure what will be the right choice for you until you try yourself.

[Jonathan183]

You might want to use a window manager ... take a quick look here as well ... lots of choices and yet more

[invizible]

im confused between display manager and desktop environment, whats X11 or Xserver?

[oz]

im confused between display manager and desktop environment, whats X11 or Xserver?

The display manager offers a login screen and manages the startup of Gnome, KDE, or whatever desktop environment you run. A desktop environment is a collection of applications that together create an entire environment, such as a terminal, file manager, text editor, and/or other important applications and tools.

Check these links for more information about them:

GNOME Display Manager - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Desktop environment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[i92guboj]

im confused between display manager and desktop environment, whats X11 or Xserver?

A display manager is basically a graphical login manager. It can also spawn additional X sessions usually.

A desktop is the place where you work, might it be a proper DE (desktop environment) like kde, gnome or xfce, or your custom desktop you made using a standalone wm and other pieces you chose.

X is a networked graphics server protocol. X11 (or more correctly, X11R6) is the current version of the protocol, not to be confused with the version of a given implementation of the protocol.

For example, the current implementation of the protocol itself is x11r6, and it's been so since mid 90's, so it's quite old. But there exist many implementations of this protocol (xorg, xfree, kdrive and many other minor ones). These evolves, and their numbering has nothing to do with the one of the protocol. All of these currently implement the x11r6 protocol in different ways, regardless of their version numbers.

So, both display managers and desktops run under a given X server (that can be xorg or xfree usually in most linux distros).