Descent OS

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Sat Jul 21, 2012 8:45 am

It actually looks pretty decent.

http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=descentos

It uses the Mate desktop, which I love.
But it also comes with Gnome2... which is Mate... maybe we get a choice.

uses a DEB package manager, so I'm guessing we can use Ubuntu software repositories... er... maybe.

Just thought I'd share...

roid · Post by **roid** » Sat Jul 21, 2012 8:12 pm

goodness gracious, it's amazing how much that looks like Microsoft's Windows

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Sun Jul 22, 2012 1:49 pm

It's becoming more common to make Linux look and feel more like Windows. I prefer it to the some of stranger desktops, like Unity and Gnome, which kind of feel more like bloated smartphone menus, rather than a desktop you can do regular work on.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sun Jul 22, 2012 8:26 pm

Especially since these days, Windows is looking a lot less like Windows...

TigerRaptor · Post by **TigerRaptor** » Sun Jul 22, 2012 9:26 pm

Now it looks like the old America Online.

Sergeant Thorne · Post by **Sergeant Thorne** » Sun Jul 22, 2012 9:50 pm

TechPro · Post by **TechPro** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 7:27 am

It burns! It burns!!

CDN_Merlin · Post by **CDN_Merlin** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 8:00 am

Windows 8 will bomb. Not everyone wants touchscreen on desktop PCs

Foil · Post by **Foil** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 8:19 am

I tend to agree. It's not a bad OS (there are some really cool additions), but the interface changes are going to throw a lot of people off.

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 1:36 pm

They'll just pull an Electronic Arts marketing tactic, where the company pays for good reviews and five star ratings. And pay people to go on Facebook and Reddit to defend the product. Instead of a shitty arcade-style third-person-shooter it will be Windows 8.

snoopy · Post by **snoopy** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 7:00 pm

Isaac wrote:It's becoming more common to make Linux look and feel more like Windows. I prefer it to the some of stranger desktops, like Unity and Gnome, which kind of feel more like bloated smartphone menus, rather than a desktop you can do regular work on.

I'm getting real close to doing away with my menu entirely. I already got rid of the desktop icons and the taskbar.

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 7:29 pm

Are you just using a search launcher or just have a hot-key to the terminal? Or is it something crazy, like voice command

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Wed Jul 25, 2012 10:27 am

Isaac wrote:They'll just pull an Electronic Arts marketing tactic, where the company pays for good reviews and five star ratings. And pay people to go on Facebook and Reddit to defend the product. Instead of a **** arcade-style third-person-shooter it will be Windows 8.

That's of questionable legality though, and astroturfing is already against company policy.

vision · Post by **vision** » Thu Jul 26, 2012 7:14 pm

snoopy wrote:I'm getting real close to doing away with my menu entirely. I already got rid of the desktop icons and the taskbar.

I'm the same way. I launch everything from the keyboard and alt+tab through the windows, desktop completely disabled, empty, used purely for decoration. My taskbar/panel is pretty much a clock holder that shows my wifi strength.

Not totally jazzed about Descent OS. I like that it's kind of minimal, but why not just use LXDE or something? Whatever.

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Fri Jul 27, 2012 6:53 am

I hated LXDE and XFCE. If you're using a debian based os you end up installing tons of Gnome dependencies anyway, so your "Light weight" desktop is heavy, because you're running conflicting DEs at the same time. It's more light weight to just stick with Gnome 2 based DEs.

Jeff250 · Post by **Jeff250** » Fri Jul 27, 2012 3:11 pm

Isaac wrote:I hated LXDE and XFCE. If you're using a debian based os you end up installing tons of Gnome dependencies anyway, so your "Light weight" desktop is heavy, because you're running conflicting DEs at the same time. It's more light weight to just stick with Gnome 2 based DEs.

RAM-wise, I think you're right. Speed-wise, it seems like when using a lightweight distro the lightweight programs will still be faster--the heavier ones will just be slower (assuming you don't run out of RAM).

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Fri Jul 27, 2012 9:48 pm

Exactly! And as you say, for limited ram it's a problem... I only have 1GB in my netbook. Though, I use the hell out of 1GB. The SSD helps.

vision · Post by **vision** » Sat Jul 28, 2012 1:00 am

Jeff250 wrote:Speed-wise, it seems like when using a lightweight distro the lightweight programs will still be faster--the heavier ones will just be slower (assuming you don't run out of RAM).

This. I notice a big difference between using Abiword/Gnumeric on LXDE desktops versus LibreOffice on Gnome desktops (same hardware). But I do remember reading an article with benchmarks on all the major desktops and it showed that LXDE was the only one with a significant performance boost while Gnome/KDE/XFCE were all about the same. The Enlightenment desktop is pretty fast, but I've had a lot of problems getting a stable system out of it, so I gave up. And I have no experience with ICE and some of those other super light DEs.

When all is said and done, I'll probably wind up using MATE anyway. It's not all that big a deal to me. I always remove all the animations and compositing crap because they annoy me more than anything.

Maybe Descent OS isn't so bad. My current release has expired and I'll have to upgrade eventually. Maybe I'll download it. * shrugs *

Jeff250 · Post by **Jeff250** » Sat Jul 28, 2012 3:14 am

Have any of you tried Gnome 3's fallback mode on Gnome 3.4 or later? I've gotten its panel to be effectively like my old Gnome 2 panel with some customizing of it. Or is there some other reason you prefer Gnome 2/Mate?

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Sat Jul 28, 2012 10:39 am

vision wrote:When all is said and done, I'll probably wind up using MATE anyway. It's not all that big a deal to me. I always remove all the animations and compositing crap because they annoy me more than anything.

x2! I love mate, but compiz works terrible with it, due to the windows manager "marco" and mate-config being named differently. So if you like no effects, then Mate might be what you want.

Jeff250 wrote:Have any of you tried Gnome 3's fallback mode on Gnome 3.4 or later? I've gotten its panel to be effectively like my old Gnome 2 panel with some customizing of it. Or is there some other reason you prefer Gnome 2/Mate?

last I checked, customization of the tool bars wasn't allowed in Gnome 3. It's also buggy on some systems. Gnome 2/Mate is pretty much perfected and customizable.

Jeff250 · Post by **Jeff250** » Sat Jul 28, 2012 1:39 pm

You need to be running in the fallback mode. On Ubuntu, install the gnome-panel package. Then log out, switch session type to one of the Gnome Classic variants, then sign back in.

snoopy · Post by **snoopy** » Sat Jul 28, 2012 7:01 pm

Isaac wrote:Are you just using a search launcher or just have a hot-key to the terminal? Or is it something crazy, like voice command

Yes and Yes.... sort of.

I have a launcher - it's got tab completion... I don't know if you'd call it "search" but it gets it done.

I also have a terminal hotkey.

Awesome is really nicely configurable.

If you're about speed - once you try a lightweight WM, you won't go back.

vision · Post by **vision** » Mon Jul 30, 2012 6:44 pm

Jeff250 wrote:Have any of you tried Gnome 3's fallback mode on Gnome 3.4 or later?

No. I got really spooked by Ubuntu + Unity when I first installed it. After about an hour I was like "screw this" and ran to Mint. I imagine I'll check Gnome 3 out again soon enough. Eventually there will be some software I depend on that requires it and I'll jump back in. Maybe sooner than later. I'm sure something on my system will go horribly out of date in the next few months.

Off topic: Issac, I remember you used LMMS to write music. I wrote a music utility that makes writing a little easier, especially if you need to make delay/Hz calculations. It's mostly a music calculator, but does a couple other things too.

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Mon Jul 30, 2012 8:00 pm

vision wrote:Off topic: Issac, I remember you used LMMS to write music. I wrote a music utility--

SAY NO MORE! INSTALLED WITHOUT CHECKING THE SOURCE CODE!

Sweet. It works. Played some notes.

What's this? https://launchpadlibrarian.net/90417324 ... con_64.png A fish frog?

vision · Post by **vision** » Mon Jul 30, 2012 9:55 pm

Isaac wrote:What's this? A fish frog?

Something like that. I didn't want some generic "music calculator" looking icon, rather something with personality.

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Tue Jul 31, 2012 6:16 am

I think the app will be good for guitar playing. I can tune my guitar and I can set the metronome faster as I get better for some guitar parts.

vision · Post by **vision** » Wed Aug 01, 2012 8:20 pm

Yeah, that's one of the things I use it for. Glad it works for you. The metronome might crap out at higher speeds because my code is very, very bad. I have no idea what I'm doing. Plus I hear Python is bad for any audio.

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Thu Aug 02, 2012 2:08 pm

Who decided one day that the normal desktop was not good enough? I mean, some Linux DEs and Windows both went retarded at about the same time. At least KDE lets you set it up how ever you want.

So much noise... so much ppttttpp... Yeah. Lightweight is better. Mate 1.4 is now out. I'm looking forward to upgrading.

Jeff250 · Post by **Jeff250** » Thu Aug 02, 2012 2:45 pm

Here's my environment with Gnome 3 in fallback mode:

The panel is customized to just about how I had it with Gnome 2.

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Thu Aug 02, 2012 3:01 pm

I might have to try that. Though, I might use Cinnamon. That's pretty much the same thing as having the gnome3 fallback, right?

I assume you get Unity desktop settings in fallback menu, doing it that way.

Fyi: LM13 Mate has been amazing at work. But also I've been doing 3d animation again and having a light DE has been a big help.

Jeff250 · Post by **Jeff250** » Thu Aug 02, 2012 8:31 pm

I don't know what the Cinnamon panel is a fork of, or if it's written from scratch, but it at least *looks* similar to the Gnome 3 fallback panel. Then, of course, they've got something completely different going on with their fork of Gnome 3's window manager.

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Fri Aug 03, 2012 6:23 am

I'm always surprised that these distros never use a tiling windows manager, other than those that use it as a desktop effect...

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