
Fedora Linux Lets You Choose Your Own GUI Adventure - cryptoz
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/01/federa-linux-interface/
======
antihero
Pretty much every distro does this. Like most things, the way to get the most
out of Linux is to learn and explore it. I've been happily ignoring the "GUI
Wars" because I'm using i3, a tiling window manager that AFAIK nothing comes
with out the box, but you just install it and configure it and bam, you're
away. No worrying about Gnome 3 or KDE bloat or whatever. You set it up so you
have a nice enough GTK theme that is then emulated by Qt (so things look
consistent) - I use Zukitwo - and then you just pick which apps you like and
use them. There's no deciding one way or other, you just use the programs you
like.

------
tikhonj
Coincidentally, if you're considering trying something new, I really recommend
KDE. I've found it to be a very well-thought-out system that's both easy to
use and easy to customize. The defaults are good, so there is no real _need_
to customize, but if there's something you don't like chances are you can
change it fairly easily.

I also really like certain KDE applications, especially Amarok (the music
player). Okular is also pretty good--at the very least, I like it more than
Evince.

I've been using KDE on Fedora for a while now, and I've been entirely happy
with it. I'm switching over to a much more minimal XMonad setup now, but
that's a different story and a much larger shift.

~~~
sasvari

      I'm switching over to a much more minimal XMonad setup now,
      but that's a different story and a much larger shift.
    

I switched from using Gnome on Debian (work) to XMonad approximately one year
ago (I am running Arch with XMonad on my MacBookPro at home and been very
happy with this setup), and I didn't find the shift _that large_ : the basic
configuration pretty much works out of the box without the need for
customization - at least at the beginning. And if you are eager to customize,
there is a lot of information on how to set up xmobar, trayer and some Haskell
XMonad stuff out there.

~~~
alborland
So are you using XMonad without a DE? How is the experience?

BTW, how do you manage wireless networks and stuff?

~~~
technomancy
I use fbpanel to make nm-applet work in my xmonad setup; it's very simple and
config-file driven rather than hiding config in crazy XML gconf files like
gnome-panel did.

~~~
alborland
Thanks! I am about to make the switch to XMonad without a DE and so I was
making a list of things that I would be doing without a DE and wondering how
the experience would be.

~~~
technomancy
You might find this interesting:
[https://github.com/technomancy/dotfiles/blob/master/.xsessio...](https://github.com/technomancy/dotfiles/blob/master/.xsession)

------
mcantelon
Ubuntu lets you do this to (it has for awhile). I've been using Cinnamon which
seems less clunky than Unity.

~~~
BCM43
The article's point is that you have to download it from the web via the repos
to do this. Which seems like an incredibly silly and inconsequential thing to
write an entire article about.

------
vacipr
Too bad Linux Mint is not a fork of Ubuntu.

~~~
esrauch
Is it not? The Linux Mint wikipedia page seems to indicate that it is a fork
of Ubuntu.

~~~
vacipr
Being a fork and being based on something are two different things.

"Version 2.0 "Barbara" was based on Ubuntu 6.10, using its package
repositories and using it as a codebase. From there, Linux Mint followed its
own codebase, building each release from its previous one but it continued to
use the package repositories from the latest Ubuntu release. As such the
distribution never really forked. This resulted in making the base between the
two systems almost identical and it guaranteed full compatibility between the
two operating systems"

~~~
esrauch
That sounds exactly like a fork to me. There are forks of chromium that add
some feature and when new chromium releases come out they patch it back in;
just because a project continues to track the original projects patches
doesn't mean its not a fork. Just because the vast majority of the code base
is identical doesn't make it not a fork.

Besides, the default meaning of "it's not a fork" would be "it's unrelated"
not "it's even more closely related than a fork". Simply stating "Mint isn't a
fork of Ubuntu" is a totally misleading statement.

~~~
vacipr
In case you didn't notice,I quoted text from the Linux Mint wikipedia page
which you said it indicated it's a fork.Apparently I'm not the only one who
thinks it's not.

Forking Ubuntu and rebasing code every single release on a new Ubuntu release
are two different things.

Examples of forks:
[http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTI1N...](http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTI1NTE)
[http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=OTgxM...](http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=OTgxMA)
[http://www.osnews.com/story/24957/Plan_9_Forked_Continues_as...](http://www.osnews.com/story/24957/Plan_9_Forked_Continues_as_9front)

Linux Mint is not a Ubuntu fork neither are other distributions that are based
on Ubuntu.Same thing goes for Debian or Chromium.They are just spin-offs
(excluding the Ubuntu-Debain relationship of course)

Also the default meaning of "it's not a fork" is "it's not a fork".

