Thinkpads Forum

As a new linux migrant, I'm curious what shell everyone is using.

List your distro + setup, briefly explaining what you like about it.

I installed GNOME and xfce, both are different but good in their own way. I like GNOME's look, but xfce has better window management and feels lightweight. Not sure if that's true but just speaking from impressions alone. I'm running Debian (Jessie) on T420.

I've been a recreational Linux user for years, and for me it's Gnome.

I use Linux Mint Cinnamon.

KDE 4. Definitely the best of them all for me. I liked Gnome 2 and Xfce too though, but they weren't as customizable and advanced.

Not really a desktop environment, but ratpoison is the best WM for me. Super lightweight and maximizes screen space. It is a tiling WM and is easy to split the screen however you want. Only issue is that some programs like gimp do not show up properly.

I like anything that is based on Ubuntu, as it just seems to work for me. As for environments, I am quite torn. Unity is genius, but the launcher is ugly and stupid on 4:3 aspect machines. (I must applaud them however for being the FIRST OS EVER to be optimized for widescreen displays which is the only aspect you'll find on any laptop today) Luckily, Cairo dock does exist, but that doesn't change the fact that the launcher is still part of the system and better integrated than Cairo dock.

Elementary is the next best thing IMO, but the lack of a global menu makes it a no-go for me. An experimental global menu does exist, but it only works 10% of the time. Still, at least there is hope.

Apart from that, Ubuntu Mate seems promising, but I am yet to test it extensively. Until then, or until Elementary has a global menu as standard, I'll be sticking to Ubuntu with Unity and Cairo dock.

Gnome2 or Mate
LMDE Mate adds many fine points, I suppose Mint Mate is OK but I avoid Ubuntu based things.
Point Linux Mate also works well.

GNOME 3 on newer CPU's, Archbang for the older hardware.

brchan wrote:Not really a desktop environment, but ratpoison is the best WM for me. Super lightweight and maximizes screen space. It is a tiling WM and is easy to split the screen however you want. Only issue is that some programs like gimp do not show up properly.

Try i3?

I use cwm on all my machines and don't plan to use anything else anymore. I used to use spectrwm because I like tilers (and I still like spectrwm a lot), but cwm lets you tile windows too despite being a stacking WM. Best of both worlds.

I used to use Gnome 2.x back in the day.

Lately it's been OpenBox and KDE4. Both of which I really like.

What's one feature that you cannot live without?

To me, the windows snapping feature is indispensable. For example, in Gnome, if I drag to the left, the window will snap and fill 50% of the screen (much like the behavior in Windows 7+). That way, I can have a document open and a browser open, 50/50.

Workspaces

As a Linux noob, I'm using Linux Mint 17.2 with Cinnamon. It's Ubuntu-based and the desktop is close to basic Mac/Windows desktops. I'm running it on a Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro, and Lenovo has excellent Linux support. Everything works right from the install - no fuss/no muss.

rambo47 wrote:As a Linux noob, I'm using Linux Mint 17.2 with Cinnamon. It's Ubuntu-based and the desktop is close to basic Mac/Windows desktops. I'm running it on a Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro, and Lenovo has excellent Linux support. Everything works right from the install - no fuss/no muss.

Nice! I like cinnamon. It has like the windows start button with the nice aesthetics of Mac. Configuring on my current distro, Debian's been an adventure. While a lot of things work out of the box, there are some features like power management, graphics that need attention. My fan was running at 3500 rpm no matter what!

Sense wrote:While a lot of things work out of the box, there are some features like power management, graphics that need attention. My fan was running at 3500 rpm no matter what!

PM can be troublesome, using powertop to check and tlp & thinkfan work well as does laptop-mode-tools and thermald.

Dekks wrote:Workspaces

This is one of the best things in linux in my opinion. Using a computer without them is a chore for me. They are extremely convenient and useful. They are the reason I won't be switching to anything else but continue to use KDE as it has the best developed workspaces of all DE (different wallpaper for every workspace is very practical, as you always instantly know what workspace you are on, unlike in Gnome-derivatives, Xfce etc where you have to look at the pager (or whatever it is called in those DE) which takes like 2 seconds and since i'm constanly switching workspaces all the time it would consume a lot of time in total.

kony wrote:

Dekks wrote:Workspaces

This is one of the best things in linux in my opinion. Using a computer without them is a chore for me. They are extremely convenient and useful. They are the reason I won't be switching to anything else but continue to use KDE as it has the best developed workspaces of all DE (different wallpaper for every workspace is very practical, as you always instantly know what workspace you are on, unlike in Gnome-derivatives, Xfce etc where you have to look at the pager (or whatever it is called in those DE) which takes like 2 seconds and since i'm constanly switching workspaces all the time it would consume a lot of time in total.

Never been a problem for me as i've used workspaces for so long so know whats in the 4 i have routinely open.

Is there a utility that disables touchpad temporarily while typing and trackpoint in use in linux?

Cheers, thinkpadcollection

thinkpadcollection wrote:Is there a utility that disables touchpad temporarily while typing and trackpoint in use in linux?

Cheers, thinkpadcollection

yes.
go to System/Preferences/Mouse touchpad tab

I would prefer to turn the touchpad off entirely (I use a mouse) but if you do that and the mouse dies then all is dead... we need a keyboard toggle

thinkpadcollection wrote:Is there a utility that disables touchpad temporarily while typing and trackpoint in use in linux?

Cheers, thinkpadcollection

The keyboard shortcut fn +f# works without a problem in Debian 8/Gnome.

fn +f1 is the predefined toggle on my Sager NP8170, works on LMDE ... unfortunately not available on my T61

if I knew the command I would make a keyboard shortcut...

Gnome pre-version 3.0 was the cat's pyjamas as far as having a highly configurable desktop with program and file shortcuts. Since then I've gone to XFCE and am mainly happy with it. Gnome Nautilus is still my file manager of choice.

I went to Mate after Gnome 2 was pulled out from under our feet. (still annoyed with that).
It took a couple years to mature but I think it is 100% now. Mint adds a lot of refinement to both the 17x and LMDE versions.

tried to be open minded but Gnome 3 is a big disappointment to me. Cinnamon is built on top, also not satisfactory for me... not ready for prime time, still under constant development, continual "bug of the day" issues. They work hard on it, but Gnome 3 appears to be a very difficult base to work on.

Xfce is way to bare bones for me.

I run Debian with LXDE. It is responsive, easy to customize, and on my faster machines, I add in a few Gnome applications.

I like XFCE. I've used it since the late 90's. Like anybody, I've tried other desktop environments for 6 months - 1 year at a time, but XFCE is so configurable without getting in the way, that I find it powering my desktop more often than not.

Years ago, I used to have it set up like CDE (dock on the bottom, iconify to desktop, right click root window for an applications menu). These days, it's set up exactly like Gnome 2.x was (top/bottom bar, traditional desktop, see the Screenshots thread for an example). Most systems I administer at work are running Gnome 2.x on some variant of RedHat, so this layout is exactly what I expect a conservative UNIX-like workstation to be.

Whenever I set up a computer for the tech-illiterate, I give them XFCE, and set it up with the Whisker menu to look and behave like Windows. I've been burned in the past by KDE's Plasma desktop crashing in the most unexpected ways on them and leaving the system unusable, so no more of that.

XFCE is going on twenty years old. They've changed toolkits three times during that span. It's always been rock-solid for me. The best part? From their Tour of 4.12, released earlier this year:

"All but one of those screenshots were taken on machines running OpenBSD -current, a good proof that Xfce is still portable and friendly to all Unix systems."

I've since stopped using KDE4 and now use only openbox. None of my systems are hurting for resources in any manner. But dear god, KDE and Plasma - while pretty - are very resource heavy. Openbox and Tint2 are light on the resources. Leaving more of my cores and GB's of RAM free to do other things.

For instance earlier today I had 5 video's playing on my C2D laptop. When that machine was running Linux Mint 16 the most I could get was 3. The 4th would break things. During this test I also had IceWeasel open with about 30 tabs, SublimeText and Geany both running with about a dozen files opened, wget wgetting things for me in the terminal.

Once I upgrade my Precision M4400 to a QX9300 I am going to re-test and see what it takes to break this system. That CPU is a beast. Way better than the P8600 I have in there now.

Small Update: I have been able to use Ubuntu Mate for some time and have replaced all my regular Ubuntu installations with it. One of the styles, called Eleven, offers the Plank dock in combination with a good old panel, so I'm very happy about that. In fact, I fell in love with it at first sight. The enivronment itself is a wonderful mixture of classic and modern Linux design and has a sense of unity that Unity (ha ha ) lacks once you start customizing it. And the customization options in Ubuntu Mate are plentiful, instantly accessible and incredibly easy to apply.

So Ubuntu Mate with "Eleven" is my favourite environment for 4:3 and 3:2 machines now. On 16:10, Unity is still hard to beat with its vertical space saver known as the global menu and the side mounted launcher. (not to mention the pretty modern design elements)

XFCE 4.11 or 4.12 for sure.

I've tried many Linux Distros and, time and time again, the XFCE ones are the most solid and resource friendly yet still flexible: KDE was full of crashes and glitches, LXDE was good but not as many options as XFCE and XFCE did not use very much more RAM than LXDE. Mate and Cinnamon didn't give me anything that I wanted that XFCE didn't.

KDE for me since 2006, it has always been my favorite, except at the beginning of KDE 4 (from 4.0 to 4.3) when it was too unstable and I was using Gnome.

I have been using using Debian for a few years after using Kubuntu and Archlinux. I will probably keep it longer because it works without hassle.