KDE vs Xfce vs LXDE vs Gnome vs MATE vs Cinnamon

[ivlr3vil]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ID24jbKCZ5A

Valve has many choices really, it looks like they're using Gnome for now on the beta. So what about the final release?

KDE vs Xfce vs LXDE vs Gnome vs MATE vs Cinnamon, etc...

Video doesn't show all of the different types of desktop environments. I'm sure most Linux users can agree that Gnome sucks, so what is your opinion that the final version of Steam OS use?

My vote goes to LXDE for the lightweight use and less power consumption.

[zaune_thegreywyvern]

My personal favourite right now is LXDE; it's easy to transition to it from Windows (it's basically a clone of the XP taskbar and Start menu) and it doesn't waste system resources on flashy menu animations. XFCE I've not used myself, but it's supposed to be an equally close copy of the Mac OS frontend.

[8015]

引用自 zaune_thegreywyvern：

My personal favourite right now is LXDE; it's easy to transition to it from Windows (it's basically a clone of the XP taskbar and Start menu) and it doesn't waste system resources on flashy menu animations. XFCE I've not used myself, but it's supposed to be an equally close copy of the Mac OS frontend.

In all fairness LXDE is pretty much a clone of Win 95, Win XP would be XFCE. Both can use a dock Mac OS like since thats a seperate application anyway. Personally i think a Win 95 look isn't what people are expecting from consoles in 2014 ...

[Person]

LXDE is the most lightweight so that would be their best option but I'd assume that they're sticking to GNOME

[Ollie Branch]

XFCE rockin' my Debian desktop, Steam OS just needs a good package manager and use of Debian/Ubuntu Repos' and I will have an awesome time with this new OS.

[Shark]

引用自 SQLi：

LXDE is the most lightweight so that would be their best option but I'd assume that they're sticking to GNOME

There are way more lightweigth options out there like i3 and openbox. I'm not expecting Valve to use that though.

[_jabbar]

引用自 8015：

@blackout24
Q: What software runs on SteamOS?

SteamOS is designed to run Steam and Steam games. It also provides a desktop mode which can run regular Linux applications. SteamOS makes use of the standard APT package manager for software updates; you can add third-party sources to your subscribed repositories to gain access to more applications. SteamOS currently provides a limited set of packages, but many Debian wheezy packages work fine on SteamOS. We plan to make a wider variety of packages vailable directly from the SteamOS repositories over time.

As 8015 pointed out, it looks live Valve will keep a "Desktop" interface for people to use in Steam OS, i agree with !MF.MrChipmunk and ReBoot's comments re: GNOME3 being user friendly for the average Joe and it is Debian's standard interface now.

[Ollie Branch]

I still think they should have used a lighter DE for the sake of game performance, but oh well, it is probably still better than windows.

[jonasan]

lighter... exactly.... openbox for sure - one swipe on the joypad touchscreen opens the main menu etc... ;)

[8015]

Ah come on, yeah, LXDE is more leightweight than Gnome 3. But how much difference will it actually make? 100-200 MB of RAM and maybe 3% CPU load from a single core while in background?

Lets also not forget that XFCE and LXDE both have trouble with various stuff. For example neither my brightness nor volume keys work while a game runs in fullscreen mode. Not to mention that neither looks as polished as gnome3. Last i checked XFCE didn't even have a system control panel for basic administrative tasks like adding users to groups etc.

Or for another example, lets say you want to control your media player while running a game, or automatically mute system sounds while having incoming voice chat. With gnome and using gnome progs you have a interface for that, the steam client can easily control it. With XFCE or LXDE you would have to program your own or do it on a per program basis. Also gnome-shell has extensions, Valve can incorporate changes to the user interface with it, with XFCE or LXDE you would have to fork it or get upstream to agree.

Also LXDE is going through a major evolution currently, they are merging razor-qt into it. Hardly the ideal time to put it into a commercial class device.

[Ollie Branch]

引用自 8015：

Ah come on, yeah, LXDE is more leightweight than Gnome 3. But how much difference will it actually make? 100-200 MB of RAM and maybe 3% CPU load from a single core while in background?

Lets also not forget that XFCE and LXDE both have trouble with various stuff. For example neither my brightness nor volume keys work while a game runs in fullscreen mode. Not to mention that neither looks as polished as gnome3. Last i checked XFCE didn't even have a system control panel for basic administrative tasks like adding users to groups etc.

Or for another example, lets say you want to control your media player while running a game, or automatically mute system sounds while having incoming voice chat. With gnome and using gnome progs you have a interface for that, the steam client can easily control it. With XFCE or LXDE you would have to program your own or do it on a per program basis. Also gnome-shell has extensions, Valve can incorporate changes to the user interface with it, with XFCE or LXDE you would have to fork it or get upstream to agree.

Also LXDE is going through a major evolution currently, they are merging razor-qt into it. Hardly the ideal time to put it into a commercial class device.

Now I know why I could not adjust my volume while in full screen mode, thanks for letting me know it was my DE not Debian itself, the computer I currently have it on though only has 512 MB of memory though so i will keep it for the sake of that, but if I do get another linux computer I will use Gnome.

[blackout24]

Games don't give a crap about what desktop environment you use and lightweight is just a meaningless buzzword.

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu_1310_desktops&num=3

[adolson]

引用自 blackout24：

Games don't give a crap about what desktop environment you use and lightweight is just a meaningless buzzword.

In addition to that, the games in SteamOS aren't even running on top of a desktop! Steam is running by itself with a heavily-modded Xcompmgr in tty7, as the "steam" user. GNOME is running in tty8, as the "desktop" user. The chosen desktop has no real effect on Steam or the games......

There is NO need for Valve to change the desktop, offer choices, customize it more than it is, or anything of that sort. What's there should serve as more of a debug mode than anything. Valve's entire focus SHOULD be on improving Steam for the living room experience, NOT attempting to improve the desktop experience, which is already done and done well by thousands of distros.

If people want to migrate from Windows to Linux, they've been able to do so since 1991. www.linuxmint.com is a great place to start, for the uncertain.

[EvilPinder]

引用自 Dr.Derp：

I still think they should have used a lighter DE for the sake of game performance, but oh well, it is probably still better than windows.

Until you actually first switch to the desktop it isn't even running. Unless you stay logged on to the desktop whilst playing games then the DE choice has no impact on perfomance.

[Ollie Branch]

引用自 EvilPinder：

引用自 Dr.Derp：

I still think they should have used a lighter DE for the sake of game performance, but oh well, it is probably still better than windows.

Until you actually first switch to the desktop it isn't even running. Unless you stay logged on to the desktop whilst playing games then the DE choice has no impact on perfomance.

I did not know that they did not run at the same time, in that case, you can do whatever you want as far as the DE goes. I should just be glad they added a desktop for the developer's sake.

[SimicEngineer]

They do run at the same time, but only while you're actually logged in to the desktop session.