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Why is LXDE losing its popularity among Linux users?

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TonyVanDam
Posts: 67
Joined: 2013-05-17 19:22

Re: Why is LXDE losing its popularity among Linux users?

#21 Post by TonyVanDam »

prahladyeri wrote:After trying out all the DEs including KDE, Unity, GNOME, XFCE and LXDE, I've found that the last one is a marvelous piece of engineering and is the only Desktop that follows the unix philosophy in the true sense.

In fact, it is not as much a DE as a meta-package consisting of components like openbox, lxpanel and lxappearance that you may as well assemble on your own! In other words, simplicity and minimalism which you don't find anywhere else.

But I was truly astonished when I visited LXDE forums and found that it is quite inactive. There hasn't been a single post in the month of february. This indicates that lots of people have shifted to GNOME or KDE and forsaken this wonderful DE.

And the interesting part is that in most phronix benchmarks, LXDE turns out to be the fastest, then why do people insist on installing bloated monsters like Unity and GNOME. If all I use my machine is to do "actual things" like browsing the Internet, checking emails, working with spreadsheets and other apps, then why is the choice of DE such an important thing?
First of all, who told you that LXDE was no longer popular among Linux users? Are you not aware that there are still Linux distros [EXAMPLES: Lubuntu, LXLE, Knoppix, Raspbian, etc.] that use LXDE as their primany desktop environment?

TonyVanDam
Posts: 67
Joined: 2013-05-17 19:22

Re: Why is LXDE losing its popularity among Linux users?

#22 Post by TonyVanDam »

Wheelerof4te wrote:There is really no need for LXDE since even the most low-end PCs and notebooks of today will run XFCE easily. For really old hardware, there is openbox/fluxbox and Co.

I get the ''Unix'' philosophy, but we shouldn't constrain ourselves with blind ideology any more. People simply like stuff that just works.
Not true. My 13-years-old Gateway desktop PC has been kind of slow running modern-day middleweight XFCE, hence why a lightweight desktop environments like LXDE are still needed. What's even better is a lightweight distro like antiX [Full] that used IceWM as a primany window manager. My desktop may lived to see age 15 yet! :mrgreen:

And lets not forget that lightweight distros using LXDE, LXqt, Enlightenment, Fluxbox, IceWM, Openbox, or JWM are pretty fast on newer desktops & laptops with faster CPUs & loads of RAMs.

TonyVanDam
Posts: 67
Joined: 2013-05-17 19:22

Re: Why is LXDE losing its popularity among Linux users?

#23 Post by TonyVanDam »

thanatos_incarnate wrote:I use Xfce because of 1 thing: Thunar has the custom action thing. If pcmanfm had that, I'd rather use LXDE since I think Openbox is a leaner WM as Xfwm and the DE itself has less overhead. It has everything an advanced user would need and a lot of other UI stuff can be borrowed from other leaner DEs like Xfce or Mate.

Of course, if you need a complete set of GUI tools and don't like to use the console from time to time, then Xfce or better yet Mate would be better contenders, while still beaing overall lean desktops compared to Gnome or KDE.
In my professional opinion, xfce is currently the best desktop environment because it looks and feels "complete", which makes it's a great thing for my laptop. 8) And also, xfce has never been over the top or overproduced like what KDE 5 & GNOME 3 has become with all of their [dis]respected software bloating.

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GarryRicketson
Posts: 5644
Joined: 2015-01-20 22:16
Location: Durango, Mexico

Re: Why is LXDE losing its popularity among Linux users?

#24 Post by GarryRicketson »

But I was truly astonished when I visited LXDE forums and found that it is quite inactive. There hasn't been a single post in the month of february. This indicates that lots of people have shifted to GNOME or KDE and forsaken this wonderful DE.
This does not indicate Linux users have forsaken LXDE, nor that people have shifted to Gnome, or kde, all it indicates is that for some reason people have lost interest in the LXDE forum.
In no way does it reflect on how popular or unpopular lxde is, all it shows is the forum is not popular.

MALsPa
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Re: Why is LXDE losing its popularity among Linux users?

#25 Post by MALsPa »

I'd tried LXDE a few times, a few years back, and didn't care much for it. Since it brought in Openbox, which I did like, I always ended up using that instead.

Now I have two installations with LXDE -- Lubuntu 14.04 and Jessie with LXDE. I'm liking LXDE a lot more than I used to, although I did still set up Openbox on both installations, so sometimes I log into LXDE, sometimes into Openbox.

I didn't think that LXDE was "losing its popularity" but if that's true, it doesn't really concern me.

I enjoy running different enviroments on different days (because I can!), can't say that I really have a favorite. Each one has its pros and cons. Xfce is great, too, and I also like Unity, GNOME Shell, and KDE. I use Fluxbox, as well. LXDE is nice to use on my slowest computer. I want to try LXQt next.

dieselnutjob
Posts: 133
Joined: 2011-04-12 10:25

Re: Why is LXDE losing its popularity among Linux users?

#26 Post by dieselnutjob »

Years and years ago I used to be a KDE user. At a certain point (I don't remember exactly when) they totally changed everything, and it seemed to become too bloated for the ancient hardware that I was using at the time and so I was forced to change. I think it was they changed to that complicated launcher thing instead of kicker.

Where I landed was XFCE, which I think is great. I also tried LXDE but for some reason that I'm not quite sure of, I just didn't like it as much.

Now LXQT has landed, and I really like it. I would absolutely encourage anyone to give it a go.

LXQT is now part of Debian Stretch (testing at the moment) and it works really nicely. It looks nice and works well on older PCs, or absolutely flies on newer hardware.

I could not get the stretch netinst installer to work, so to do a fresh install this is what I did:-

Build a jessie minimal install with no desktop environment at all.
Change sources.list from jessie to stretch
apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade
reboot
apt-get install xorg sddm lxqt
reboot and enjoy

I think that LXDE is basically going to die out now to be replaced by LXQT.

It is well worth giving it a try out, and I think good enough to get a few KDE or ex KDE users and also maybe some XFCE users as well.

capricorny
Posts: 10
Joined: 2016-03-29 07:32

Re: Why is LXDE losing its popularity among Linux users?

#27 Post by capricorny »

dieselnutjob wrote:Years and years ago I used to be a KDE user. At a certain point (I don't remember exactly when) they totally changed everything, and it seemed to become too bloated for the ancient hardware that I was using at the time and so I was forced to change. I think it was they changed to that complicated launcher thing instead of kicker.

Where I landed was XFCE, which I think is great. I also tried LXDE but for some reason that I'm not quite sure of, I just didn't like it as much.

Now LXQT has landed, and I really like it. I would absolutely encourage anyone to give it a go.
Thanks for the info! I have a similar pre-history, except that I used LXDE because it was "adequate for my needs". Now I would be very interested in the relative merits of contemporary XFCE and LXQt, and the necessary dependencies. You prefer LXQt over XFCE now, or? Comparisons to old LXDE isn't really that interesting anymore, now LXQt is testable.

dieselnutjob
Posts: 133
Joined: 2011-04-12 10:25

Re: Why is LXDE losing its popularity among Linux users?

#28 Post by dieselnutjob »

yes I really like it (LXQT that is). I am now using it as my everyday environment.

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MARKMENTAL
Posts: 22
Joined: 2016-03-31 21:01
Location: USA

Re: Why is LXDE losing its popularity among Linux users?

#29 Post by MARKMENTAL »

LXDE never appealed to me. I always prefered GNOME 2 and 3. XFCE is pretty nice however if you're looking for a light desktop.

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