And I’ve got another one question: What’s the better: Xfce, MATE or LXQt and why do you think so?
I also remembered that I used Cinnamon in Linux Mint many times ago, and I also remembered that Cinnamon crashes sometimes when Linux Mint gets some updates.
The answer depends on what you’re looking for? I don’t like either of these but it’s mostly a personal preference stemming from a usability and user experience POV than anything else.
I’m looking for a beauty and an elegance. I’m using Xfce now, but every time I needs to set up this environment for it doesn’t looks somehow like this (only if I’m not using MX Linux now) :
Again - this is subjective. The look and feel and how they are in each DE is different. From a usability POV, it’s really a personal preference. If any of them work for you, they work for you. If not, you can move to something else that looks better that you like to use better. For example: I prefer GNOME. It like the look and feel and reminds me less of Windows.
All these DE’s are stable depending on the distro you choose. I like Fedora and GNOME. So I use Silverblue and Workstation.
Thanks! If here be honestly - I’ve create a virtual machine for trying to test them all.
And there has different cons and pros for any environment:
LXQt - Looks very nice . But I can’t open a terminal window by pressing “CTRL+ALT+T”
Xfce - Doesn’t looks so nice (for me) out of a box. And there’s needs to install some themes from a package manager for fix it.
MATE - Looks also very nice (relative), but I can’t open a terminal window from a file manager. So I need to use cd command for navigating through directories.
By default looks ugly (at least for me too), but you can get started into ricing it, but ricing requires some technical knowledge.
What do you exactly mean by that? I’m not sure if you’re talking about the “Open terminal here” button when you right click in a file manager. If it’s that maybe you have to add that option in your file manager’s settings. I think comes by default in Thunar, which comes generally installed by default within XFCE.
You can switch between them indeed, but it might get a little messy because:
Each one of them has their own program to do a same task. For instance, both have their own terminal, file manager and display setting program.
They’re not isolated from one another, meaning that when using LXQT the MATE programs will show up on the menu and you can use them, essentially giving you redundant software. If that doesn’t bother you it’s fine though.
Their apps won’t look the same because they are themed differently.
MATE uses GTK 3, so you need GTK 3 themes. LXQT uses Qt, so you need Qt themes.
There are ways to make them look coherent, for instance, some theme developers make both a GTK and a QT version of their theme, if you install both and set the right options, they’re gonna fit together nicely.
If you need some help with installig themes feel free to ask.
MATE and XFCE are pretty similar in terms of features, and they both use GTK 3.
All of them have pretty much all the functions you will need. Desktop environments don’t make that much of a difference in the long run. What anables you to work are your applications, if they work, them you can work no problem.
So, LXQt is the coolest choice for me now . It looks nice out of the box, and has every tools for daily working. The worst choice for me - MATE. It doesn’t looks so nice, and hasn’t some tools for daily working. Xfce - in the middle. It has everything you’ll need, but it doesn’t looks so elegance.
From a security perspective, none of these desktop environments default to Wayland and instead still use X11, which suffers from abysmal security. Vanilla GNOME (without extensions) seems to be the most secure option at the moment, with Plasma expected to trail close behind in the near future. If you need to use something lightweight, Sway might be the next best option, but because it’s a tiling window manager it shouldn’t be recommended to the average Joe.
If you still need to pick a lightweight yet intuitive desktop environment, the next best thing would be to pick whoever is most ahead in adopting Wayland. I’m not 100% sure, but based on the Linux news I follow, I believe out of these three LXQt is the furthest along in Wayland adoption and Xfce is notably behind in progress.
TL;DR if you want to prioritize security, pick: Vanilla GNOME > Plasma > LXQt > MATE
This ranking will surely change or even out in the future as things inevitably improve over time.
Even Sway doesn’t use the screencopy protocol AFAIK. Not to mention the default wlroots portal implementation kind of sucks. Nowhere near as feature rich as GNOME’s portal.
That is typically correct, though secureblue’s Sericea image (using Sway) apparently secures privileged Wayland protocols. Even without it, using crappy Wayland implementations should still be preferred over X11. At the moment everything falls behind GNOME, so if someone is unable to use GNOME it’s a matter of picking what is “relatively” better.
If you wanna customize your desktop you can check some icons,wallpaper,log in display most of the youtubers are sourcing their customization here here at pling..
And for tools, distro’s have different default applications/some are vanillas, so its good to start learning how to install them and taking some notes for an app of your choice .Also take a research before adding them on your desktop.
Forgive the delayed answer, but luckily @Squash has given you a good one already. Just to complement, I’ll suggest the themes by Vince, a designer that makes, and updates to this day, great themes for both Qt and GTK applications and desktops.
You will notice that many Qt themes by Vince and by other people require something called kvantum. It is a program that changes the style of Qt apps, and makes them follow the style of the theme you install and choose.
Also, the user’s @TheDoc and @anon73303192 gave you some nice security advice regarding linux desktops. There are some terms in their posts that you might not be familiar with yet depending on how experienced you are with the whole linux thing. That’s perfectly normal, just keep calm and don’t get to overwhelmed with all of that.
Play around with linux to learn, just be careful with your data while at it, make your backups and stuff…
Also feel free to ask more questions in the forum and lurk around a bit and you will eventually learn it.