Subj : Re: For you SBBS Sysops o
To   : Accession
From : Gamgee
Date : Sun Jun 30 2024 12:55 pm

-=> Accession wrote to Accession <=-

 Ac> On Sun, 30 Jun 2024 04:20:04 -0500, you wrote:

 G>> Next time you're bored, spin up a VM with MX Linux (xfce desktop) and
 G>> see what you think.  It's about the only one I like any more.

 A> Thanks for the heads up, I've downloaded the XFCE as well as the Fluxbox
 A> (brings back memories) variants, and will give them a shot in the
 A> morning and get back to you.

 Ac> Following up on this, both versions are snappy, and installation was a
 Ac> breeze. However (and this has been long-standing), I would have to
 Ac> spend a good amount of time changing themes, icons, window borders,
 Ac> etc. because the stock ones that come with XFCE and Fluxbox are old,
 Ac> plain, blacked out, squared corners and just flat out ugly, to me
 Ac> anyways (always have been).

Yes, I also change up the theme/cosmetics some, but it's not too bad to 
tweak up the way I like it.

 Ac> The Fluxbox version is on an older kernel (6.1 compared to 6.6) than
 Ac> the XFCE version, which they tout as their flagship. I have always had
 Ac> a place for Fluxbox, though. And it looks like now you're able to have
 Ac> a decent dash to dock type thing like Gnome uses in there as well. I've
 Ac> always liked how you can right click anywhere on the desktop and pull
 Ac> up a nice, straightforward application launcher menu. Again, though,
 Ac> default window borders and icons leave something to be desired.

I've always found Flux (and similars like blackbox/openbox) to be a 
little more minimalistic than I prefer.

 Ac> Besides my anal retentiveness on how things actually look, it seems to
 Ac> operate nicely, and that's the important part. If I were to ever go
 Ac> with a GUI on Linux, it would probably either be a slimmed down version
 Ac> of Gnome (if there's still some kind of gnome-light version or
 Ac> whatever) in order to try and keep it fast, or I would have to
 Ac> completely change up the aesthetics of a default XFCE or Fluxbox
 Ac> install.

I think Gnome only comes in the Bloatware size any more.  There may be 
some variations though, as I recall in Mint Linux (I think) that you can 
choose between "Cinnamon" and "Mate" and the Cinnamon was almost 
tolerable for me.  But it's been a while.

 Ac> I still imagine as far as speed goes, you're probably better off
 Ac> installing a base like Debian, or Archlinux, or Slackware, or whatever
 Ac> you're into, and then installing your desktop environment on top of
 Ac> that. That way you control what else gets installed after that, since
 Ac> most of these distros add their own apps and bloatware that you may
 Ac> never actually need. Obviously, people pick these distros to avoid the
 Ac> extra work it takes to do all that, and MX definitely seems to be able
 Ac> to compete with the rest of them.

You may be right, but I don't see nearly as much "extra" in MX as I have 
seen in other distros.  Glad you gave it a look.



.... Bug free, cheap, on time, works. Pick two.
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