Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 1st Dec 2008 23:31 UTC, submitted by linuxlinks
"Mainstream Linux distributions typically default to one of two desktop environments, KDE or GNOME. Both of these environments provide users with an intuitive and attractive desktop, as well as offering a large raft of multimedia software, games, administration programs, network tools, educational applications, utilities, artwork, web development tools and more. However, these two desktops focus more on providing users with a modern computing environment with all the bells and whistles featured in Windows Vista, rather than minimising the amount of system resources they need. For users and developers who want to run an attractive Linux desktop on older hardware, netbooks, or mobile internet devices, neither KDE or GNOME may be a viable option, as they run too slowly on low spec machines (such as less than 256MB RAM and a 1 GHz processor). This article seeks to identify the best lean desktops for Linux, for users that have old or even ancient hardware."
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Member since:
2006-01-17
I was always favoring KDE over GNOME, but somehow I don't yet like the version 4. Partially because they released 4.0 before it was ready for prime time, but mainly because I dislike their default theme and widget design/geometry (no offense, but it feels like it was hacked during a lunch break). That's a shame as I consider the framework, and Qt toolkit superior technically. If they improve design in the future, fine. Until then I'm staying GNOME which feels much more elegant (and gets much more care from distributions at the moment).
Others - I don't think they are very competitive except for fan niches: oembedded folks, bare-interface and "speed" freaks or those with old machines (with current hw prices, this is not that relevant anymore).