On my desktop in run KDE 4.7.2 (as of right now) and on my laptop I use Openbox.

Of course, especially when it comes to DEs, the distro is of importance. I run KDE via Kubuntu with the Kubuntu backports and Kubuntu updates PPAs. This gets me pretty much the most recent in KDE even though I'm not the biggest fan of *ubuntu or canonical (it's fun, though, and easy to maintain).

On my laptop I use Openbox for different reasons. One reason is that I wanted to try Crunchbang Debian and Openbox is pretty well integrated in this distro (it's basically a minimal Debian squeeze with a pre-configured Openbox, tint2 and Conky and some GUI-tools to maintain the configs), another reason was my interest in minimal setups and I wanted to keep it light on my notebook.

KDE has some good applications and naturally as a DE it looks and feels less "rugged" and "patched up" as the applications work very well together. But it's still kinda slow-ish and sometimes sluggish, at least on my setup. Plus, it needs all those extra dependencies and sometimes you don't really have the freedom of choice on what to keep and what not. But a lot happened since the initial release of KDE4 and there are some exciting developments for future releases are waiting to happen (I particularly look forward to Calligra).

Openbox on the other hand is light, fast, very reliable, very flexible and "non-interfering". For my productive system I wouldn't want it any other way, especially when it comes to speed, resource friendliness and stability. As a WM I have ultimate freedom of choice when it comes to the applications I want to have on my system. I can use whatever I like to use the most for a certain job - from the terminal emulator to the panel - and get rid of what I don't like/use. I'm amazed that my laptop setup never caused me any trouble, while Kubuntu/KDE has some crashes and stuff not working properly from time to time.

So if I would have to choose, though I like KDE, without any doubt it would be Openbox + Debian all day every day.

Other DEs/WMs I used before: Gnome, liked it once but the mentality of treating the users as retards got on my nerves pretty quickly. Plus, the applications are often inferior to KDE or "non-DE" apps. I also tried twm and Windowmaker before: I'm still interested in Windowmaker but I don't had the opportunity to use it properly and learn more about it. I don't really want to run it alongside a DE and I haven't found the time to properly set it up on my laptop were I run Crunchbang. Tilling WMs were to much of a hassle for me, though I understand why people like those. I tried awesome and some others whose name I can't remember before (ratpoison and dwm was amongst those if I remember correctly, but I'm not sure) but it somehow didn't feel the need for having/using them and it didn't particularity stuck with me, so I removed them after a short while.

I'm new to nix but I use Openbox on laptop and GNOME on desktop. Also I'm having trouble recognising what the difference between a DE and WM is. Dispite what I've learned.

My only problem with Openbox is that once I installed it on my laptop and switched over to it, it seemed pretty cool, Openbox is what the Window boarders and menus are made out of, but theres some bug that's causing it to still use GNOME for everything that's *inside* the window. GNOME still makes up everything that goes one inside an Openbox window.
How do I get it to stop using GNOME for everything that happens inside a Openbox window?

>>333
Considering that you were using GNOME, most if not all of the graphical applications you are running use GNOME and/or gtk libraries. Also, I assume you're using gdm. The only real issue out of all of these are graphical applications that depend on GNOME's libraries, which can be heavy on RAM when running. What you want to do is to look for alternative applications which don't need the GNOME or KDE libraries and simply use gtk or qt. As for the look and feel you're talking about, I think that's just your default gtk theme. See what you can do with obconf.

Xfce, nigger.

>>331

Yeah i've been hopping around distros a lot too, and finally returned to openbox, using tint2 panel, just because it was so simple to set up and had everything that i needed. I've tried a few tiling managers as well, awesome, ratpoison, scrotwm, wmii, setting up the keys, getting a system tray, were also a lot of trouble for me.

>>334
All Obconf does it change the window boarder, leaving everything inside the window as GNOME.

>>342
Sorry, I haven't really used standalone WMs that much. It appears that you need to download an application to change your gtk theme. I assume you already have one from Gnome or else you would have got the ugly gray default theme.

http://urukrama.wordpress.com/openbox-guide/#Gtkthemes

Again, I advise you to look for programs that don't depend on libgnome. LXDE has decent applications that are good by themself.

>>338
Xfce is a complete hunk of shit all around. While mitigating the shortcomings of GNOME, it still has them.

I use Gnome 3 because out of the big 3 DE's it's the only one I can stomach. XFCE seems as if it's all over the place and has poor integration while KDE has too much integration and demands a K be put in all it's programs.

Not that I would mind but the programs themselves sometimes suck.

I use DWM. It's really nice.

I used xfce and gnome before. I liked xfce, but that was like 2 years ago.

I prefer LXDE. I use Linux primarily on my netbook and I need a DE that has low resource consumption. Out of all the DE's I've tried, it was the best balance of features and performance. I use it on my desktop as well.

I recommend mate. It is a fork of gnome 2 and works great.

http://mate-desktop.org/about/

Cinnamon is pretty great to run. MATE is fine too as >>415 said


http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/

Xfce.

>>428

I recommend notion if you want to get into tiling window managers.

And I recommend tiling window managers in the first place because, with one, less screen estate and time is wasted in arranging your windows.

As a launcher, use dmenu, kupfer, or a terminal emulator.

>>437
Possibly, but how is that relevant?

I've been running GNOME 3 in Debian (srsly brah, non-free software in the Debs?) but have also enjoyed XFCE.

XFCE or KDE. Gnome 3 is becoming like Unity, fuck unity, and Idislike lxde

cinammon isnt bad

any gnome iteration preceding the current atrocity, really, is worth having on ur box. powerful, intuitive, etc. without being uber-resource hogs.

http://razor-qt.org/

This seems nice for a lighter QT desktop than KDE.

I'm still on E16 after 12 years. It's hard to beat "never crashes, every major window management option available" - although if the themes aren't to your liking it could be an issue. Even E17, these days, can be classified as "lightweight."

Remember that rasterman is the guy who thought XRENDER was a useless hack, because his code was fast enough without it. He's the guy that gave E17 translucent windows on animated backgrounds without GPU accelerations and at good speeds... 7 years ago.

xfce4 :)

>>497
e16 for life, too.
the only alternative is the tiling wm notion.

Miss KDE 3 yet?

trinitydesktop.org

I've been using LXDE in Debian lately. It's a nice little setup but quite buggy. My keyboard and mouse functions regularly stop working in LXDE.