[arch-general] [OT?] Which is most future-proof desktop environment?

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Mon, 28 Dec 2015 15:02:17 +0800, Gener Badenas wrote:
>On Mon, Dec 28, 2015 at 7:43 AM, Francis Gerund <ranrund at gmail.com>
>wrote:
>  
>> Just a call for opinions:  if you use Arch, and you wanted to choose
>> and stay with a desktop environment long-term, what would you choose
>> - and why?   
>
>
>Regardless of distro, I always go for LXDE.  

I assume with openbox as it's WM?!

Since Arch is a rolling release and following the KISS principle, the
less issues are to expect, when using something simple, instead of
something bloated.

I don't know the actual state of affairs regarding LXDE's transition
from GTK to Qt, however, since my recommendation was openbox with e.g.
lxpanel, I suspect that LXDE likely is a good choice, without ever using
it myself.

Another user mentioned GNOME and another user retorted Mate. IMHO Mate
is a better choice than GNOME (and Cinnamon). Mate provides a steady
work-flow, GNOME has broken it's work-flow (as KDE unfortunately has
done too and seemingly Xfce4 is going to do). I'm using a few Mate
tools, since I'm still used to a few GNOME 2 tools from my first Linux
steps. Among other issues GNOME and Cinnamon suffer from slowness, this
has nothing to do with a slow computer, it's related to the task the
computer is used for.

I started with KDE3 (never tested Trinity), then used GNOME2
(Cinnamon and Mate are installed for testing purpose) and after that I
used Xfce4 for a very long time. When Xfce4 started causing issues with
updates (e.g. braking themes), I completely had enough from desktop
environments. I used a few other DEs and WMs within my more then 10
years Linux experience and ended with jwm and openbox without a desktop
environment. I prefer openbox over jwm, but both are ok.

LXDE usually is used with openbox, perhaps it's worth to test LXDE if
somebody prefers a DE over a WM. However, using openbox without a DE I
don't miss anything.

Regards,
Ralf