I generally like Manjaro. I had a hard time getting my VPN to work with it though.
Any other Linux users here ?
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I generally like Manjaro. I had a hard time getting my VPN to work with it though.
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Manjaro is some what controversial in the Linux community, due to it's controversy https://manjarno.pages.dev/ .
Personaly I think Manjaro is pointless, why would use an Arch based Distro if you can't use the AUR ?
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Me, gentoo as a daily driver. 2 notebooks with arch and a mini PC with batocera for emus. Banned windows entirely from my life.
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I switched to Linux as my only OS about 5 or 6 years ago. Tried most of the popular distros and now I use Debian Stable. If it wasn't Debian it would be Gentoo, but I got tired of having to plan when I'm going to compile updates.
My favorite WMs are IceWM and Openbox. I like to keep my setup as barebones as I reasonably can.
My favorite WMs are IceWM and Openbox. I like to keep my setup as barebones as I reasonably can.
After being a long term PoP user, I switched to Nobara. It took time to get some things working the way I wanted (I'm looking at you OBS) but now very happy with the setup.
Some issues I had with my older OS are no longer present in this new one which is a breath of fresh air.
Some issues I had with my older OS are no longer present in this new one which is a breath of fresh air.
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Been windows free for 12 years. Went from Mandriva -> Debian -> Ubuntu -> Mint -> Manjaro (current for last ~7 years)
Love to see other Manjaro frens here :3 Tried it because smart guy I used to work with swore by it and I have not looked back: all previous ones had given me headaches (cl fixing) at some point. I'm not a "power user" though: as long as OBS and emulators work and most hardware works I'm good, and past 3 laptops gave me no issues with Manjaro, everything worked out of box. I might give arch a try though...
Also, is there a reason to NOT use xfce for your DE? Why not use the most lightweight DE you can?
Love to see other Manjaro frens here :3 Tried it because smart guy I used to work with swore by it and I have not looked back: all previous ones had given me headaches (cl fixing) at some point. I'm not a "power user" though: as long as OBS and emulators work and most hardware works I'm good, and past 3 laptops gave me no issues with Manjaro, everything worked out of box. I might give arch a try though...
Also, is there a reason to NOT use xfce for your DE? Why not use the most lightweight DE you can?
People like customization that's why.
I'm more a fan of KDE plasma, as long as i avoid global themes, but i also have a far beefier pc than you do (ryzen r5 2600x, amd sapphire rx 6700).
I'm on garuda linux, all arch based distros are essentially arch with the exception arguably being manjaro, if your gonna try arch i'd suggest trying endeavor os first as it's a good middle ground between full blown arch and the easier distros like manjaro.
Avoid garuda linux btw, it's a bit more demanding than manjaro.
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XFCE is GTK3 based, and I prefer qt based programs because GTK updates break themes often. Also, I like "making my own" DE with a powerful window manager like IceWM, Openbox or FVWM and then just installing whatever other programs I need. Speaking of lightweight, IceWM in particular only uses about 26MB of RAM which includes a taskbar
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That's fair, but like what? I've always been curious because I have never really felt the need for customization of the DE; I use how it ships, so I feel I'm missing out. Maybe because I pretty much just use terminal for most things I do/need? What is something cool you have setup that you need KDE plasma for?
Looks pretty interesting, I'll keep that in mind
And yea, I will probably never try Arch: the thought has been on my back burner because people have been saying it has gotten easier to install and use, but I doubt I actually have the patience for it 
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Try wireguard, assuming you run your own vpn through a raspberry pi that is....
Technically you don't "need" a DE on linux at all if you want, if you want examples of what KDE is capable of, it would be easier to say what it's not capable of, as a example you can position task bars, buttons etc wherever you want or even hide the task bar if you want, it allows full customization of desktop app coloring, etc.That's fair, but like what? I've always been curious because I have never really felt the need for customization of the DE; I use how it ships, so I feel I'm missing out. Maybe because I pretty much just use terminal for most things I do/need? What is something cool you have setup that you need KDE plasma for?
Looks pretty interesting, I'll keep that in mind
Garuda out of the box looks like this as a example:
While this is my modified desktop downscaled for size limits:
i have to give a warning about icewm as good looking as it is it messes with hotkey daemons for some reason i can't understand (making it inconvenient and unreliable to have custom keyboard shortcuts) (if someone got an explanation or a fix i might need it)
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Maybe some of its default keybindings are messing with your custom ones? You could check the /usr/share/icewm/preferences file and make any overrides you need in $HOME/.icewm/prefoverride
I use IceWM's keybindings for window management and xbindkeys for starting programs and don't have any issues.
Hmmm... I use XFCE because it's suppose to be very lightweight resource-wise. I'm more interested in sheer performance and usability over eye-candy. (Considering the laptop i have Mint on the screen doesn't work and i have to VNC into it to update things every day).
Which distros or window managers would you recommend to be the lightest-weight yet still highly functional. And few (if any updates ever).
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Distro would be a minimal install of Debian stable. When I install it, I untick all the desktop environments and let it just boot me to the terminal when the install's done, then I just install the things I need (and when installing those things, you can use the --no-install-recommends flag for apt to keep your install even lighter). This requires a bit of knowledge and experience with Debian though to know exactly what you want/need installed. You could probably leave LXQT or LXDE ticked instead for less effort, both are pretty light desktop environments that use Openbox for their Window Manager, so you still get a lightweight system with high functionality.
There's also antiX and MX Linux which are both based on Debian stable. antiX is optimized for older computers, MX has a version that makes it easy to install the latest kernel and GPU drivers.
WMs (I have no opinion on tiling WMs, I don't use them) I find IceWM to be the best if you want something with more of a retro look, and Openbox if you want something slightly more modern looking. I'm keeping my eye on LabWC when the next Debian version drops for a Wayland version of Openbox. I also love FVWM but it's hard to recommend because it has a big learning curve and less-than-sane behaviour sometimes. You could also try Windowmaker if you wanted something weird.
I been wondering if archcraft is something to try. But when you search for what other think they always nag about arch. Yeah but if I wanted arch I get arch I wanna know is archcraft worth investing time in because im no fan of arch.
I have Zorin OS (Ubuntu based) on a friend's machine at their request and I'm slowly getting to grips with it, so I don't have any sage advice to share, but I'm enjoying my time with it. It's powerful, lightweight, modular, everything an OS should be (and Windows is not).
To add to what homesforgnomes said, retro looking doesn't mean retro resource management, both kde plasma and gnome can look like windows 95 if you want them to, but that doesn't mean they have win 95 performance.
I second his endorsement of lxqt and lxde for lightweight DE's, though i will say i've never used any lighter weight DE for long as i've always tended to have a pc that could handle kde or gnome with no trouble.
I've been using EndeavourOS as my daily driver for the last few years, with KDE as my desktop environment. It's a nice operating system, even if you have to get your hands dirty and manually fix the odd thing. Certainly beats modern Windoze, and the AUR makes downloading software a lot more convenient than on most other distros.
I used to dual boot, but I've found that juggling multiple operating systems is a PITA, and it's not like I used Windows for much the last time I had it installed bare metal. These days, I just keep a VM around for the odd time I need it.
I used to dual boot, but I've found that juggling multiple operating systems is a PITA, and it's not like I used Windows for much the last time I had it installed bare metal. These days, I just keep a VM around for the odd time I need it.
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I like KDE in theory, but it doesn't like my Nvidia GPU and so there's a few weird quirks that make me not use it.
I think bottles works good for games that needs .net.
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What about it recently? I recall a lot of hate over unity years ago. I tried ubuntu around 2017 briefly and thought it was fine, but this was when I was also using mint and getting tired of Debian based distros: I would always manage to break something or not get things to work; I think I am too dumb for .deb and apt
Wanting to try something none apt was another reason I gave Manjaro a try: apt-get can apt-gtfo :3
That's not really KDE's fault, it has to do with nvidia's official drivers or so i hear, but i don't really disagree with your point anyway,
For me the biggest issue with linux wasn't finding a distro, but finding one that doesn't actively hate me based on political philosophy, but i'm not going to go any farther into this as this is not the place for such talk (pretty much everyone agrees this isn't the place for it), but since you mentioned your problem with kde, figured i should mention mine with a few DE and distros.
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Yeah, unity is not my jam, lol.What about it recently? I recall a lot of hate over unity years ago. I tried ubuntu around 2017 briefly and thought it was fine, but this was when I was also using mint and getting tired of Debian based distros: I would always manage to break something or not get things to work; I think I am too dumb for .deb and apt
Wanting to try something none apt was another reason I gave Manjaro a try: apt-get can apt-gtfo :3
I'm okay with Ubuntu as a starting point for other distros (I.E. Pop) but as a whole, it leaves a bit to be desired.
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