Debian: A noob query

[Jared Norris]

On 30 November 2011 16:03, LinuxIsOne <linuxisone at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 12:59 PM, Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Me, personally, I would say a firm NO; I think Unity is less fiddly,
>> simpler and more approachable.
>
>
> Okay, but just as a matter of interest and curiosity, I would like to ask if
> Unity is even easier than XFCE? I saw xfce desktop (with live CD) and it was
> easy....However, I would have to download live CDs to see for Unity and
> Gnome and I would do that.

No one can say what is easier for anyone else. Everyone else has
different experiences and dispositions. My suggestion, try as many as
you can and see what works best. My personal preference is swinging
back to Unity (I didn't like the 11.04 release but 11.10 and testing
12.04 is looking good).


> On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 2:51 PM, Joey Hess <joeyh at debian.org> wrote:
>
>> This graph clearly shows a spike in xfce in the past month; while lxde
>> is generally growing in use it has not had a similar sharp spike.
>
>
> This graph really shows much of the things, I was to ask!
>

As this post was off-list (or on another list?) I cannot comment on
any graphs as I have no idea what they are of. I am dubious about any
graph until I know it's source. It is VERY difficult to get an
accurate read on how many people use what. Most rely on either page
hits or surveys to a specific site, neither of which would stand up to
any sort of scrutiny as an accurate measure.

XFCE and LXDE are aimed at different targets (at least in Ubuntu, I
can't speak for upstream). Xubuntu is aimed at a slick experience,
Lubuntu is aimed at a minimal experience. You can't really compare
them when they're aiming for different targets. Personally Lubuntu is
the only thing that made P4s even remotely usable but for my quad core
machines I much rather Unity over XFCE, again, personal preferences.

*snip* (I pretty much agree with the next section, no point restating)

> On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 5:16 PM, Art Edwards
> <edwardsa at icantbelieveimdoingthis.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> Many people regard Unity (Gnome 3) as a huge mistake.
>
>
> Because of any bug(s)...?

Fair question, who are these many people regarding it as a huge
mistake? I've seen fairly even comments both ways so "many" is a bit
subjective. I think 11.04 needed more polish but 12.04 is looking
great for Unity from my daily use (this email is coming from Ubuntu
12.04 running Unity).


>> I. If you use the computer primarily for reading email and surfing the
>> web (including watching videos) then Unity is probably fine.
>>
>> II. If you have had a lot of experience computing using either windows
>> or Mac OS, and you do a lot of work (code writing, science, etc.), then
>> I would recommend unequivocally, that you start with Gnome 2.
>>
>> Make recommendations based on this understanding.
>
>
> Oh well, thanks.

As stated, to each their own. I'd encourage users try multiple
environments and see what suits them best.



-- 
Regards,

Jared Norris JP(Qual) BBehSc(Psych)
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/JaredNorris