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

[Leonid Isaev]

On Wed, Dec 30, 2015 at 11:57:48AM +0100, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
> Xfce4
> 
> After an update e.g. a small window title bar with a clean design,
> became a fat thing with a Microsoft appeal.

Wrong. It's not xfwm4, but the default gtk3 theme. Just use a gtk2 xfwm4 theme
and be happy :) Or better yet, recompile libxfce4ui w/o gtk3 support.

> The long and the short of it, if you want to decide how your
> environment should work, what you need and what not, then better do not
> use ad DE such as GNOME, KDE, Xfce4 or similar, instead use a WM
> such as openbox, jwm or similar.

A DE is a vague concept because it includes many non-essential (IMHO) "apps"
like browser, file manager etc. For instance, is GNOME epiphany in any way
superior to FF or Chromium (besides "better integration")? Or how does a
DE-specific calculator better than bc(1)?

For apples-to-apples comparison, I'd only focus on WMs because this is a
component you interact with the most. Bigger DEs have failry sophisticated
compositing WMs (xfwm4, kwin, whatever metacity is called these days) with hw
acceleration etc. Compositing does not imply eyecandy, it's just a better use
of system resources (for instance by exploiting GPU).

On the contrary, things like {open,flux}box and tiling WMs (i3, jwm) still use
a design from '90s. And from olden days of Win98 we remember what it leads to.

Cheers,
-- 
Leonid Isaev
GPG fingerprints: DA92 034D B4A8 EC51 7EA6  20DF 9291 EE8A 043C B8C4
                  C0DF 20D0 C075 C3F1 E1BE  775A A7AE F6CB 164B 5A6D