Which DE will you use on Buster?

[NFT5]

That's not a good idea, the new package versions in buster may have different configuration methods

Agree fully. Mixing DEs with a common Home will cause even more problems. If you want common access to data it's better to put that all on a separate partition or drive and than mount that drive/partition to a folder in /home on startup, using fstab.

As for the original question for this thread, XFCE, after MATE continued to suffer panel crashes. I don't particularly like XFCE, I think that it needs quite a lot of streamlining from the rather raw state in which it is initially presented, certainly in Debian, whereas MATE is usable with little extra configuration OOTB. XFCE in MX is a much better example of how it should be.

[ravisista]

That's not a good idea, the new package versions in buster may have different configuration methods

Agree fully. Mixing DEs with a common Home will cause even more problems. If you want common access to data it's better to put that all on a separate partition or drive and than mount that drive/partition to a folder in /home on startup, using fstab.

As for the original question for this thread, XFCE, after MATE continued to suffer panel crashes. I don't particularly like XFCE, I think that it needs quite a lot of streamlining from the rather raw state in which it is initially presented, certainly in Debian, whereas MATE is usable with little extra configuration OOTB. XFCE in MX is a much better example of how it should be.

That's exactly what I am doing and I meant (should have been more clear, I guess). /home is a separate partition and the same user(xxx)/home directory (/home/xxx) is used in both Stretch/Buster. No issues so far. Tried the same with Xubuntu, ran into multiple issues. Dropped the idea and created a new user in Xubuntu - which is only there for backup reasons. Stretch is Primary OS for now, till Buster gets released officially.

[dotlj]

I agree with sunrat and KBD47. I'm using KDE with Buster.
The menu makes life easier that other desktops, easy to configure and customize.
I do a minimal install with no desktop, then add kde-plasma-desktop and remove the unneeded things like kwalletmanager.

Code: Select all

aptitude show kde-plasma-desktop
Package: kde-plasma-desktop       
Version: 5:102
State: installed
Automatically installed: no
Priority: optional
Section: metapackages
Maintainer: Debian Qt/KDE Maintainers <debian-qt-kde@lists.debian.org>
Architecture: amd64
Uncompressed Size: 21.5 k

Code: Select all

aptitude search kwalletmanager
c   kwalletmanager                                       - secure password wallet manager

[woteb]

XFCE, I use this for years and no issues so far on Buster.

[Hallvor]

KDE.

[L_V]

KDE (I never used gnome).
But just KDE minimal light desktop installation (as light as possible / without recommended packages : no akonadi / no kmail etc etc )

Code: Select all

 dpkg -l plasma* | grep ^ii
ii  plasma-dataengines-addons additional data engines for Plasma
ii  plasma-desktop            Tools and widgets for the desktop
ii  plasma-desktop-data       Tools and widgets for the desktop data files
ii  plasma-framework          Plasma Runtime components
ii  plasma-integration        Qt Platform Theme integration plugins for KDE Plasma
ii  plasma-nm                 Plasma5 networkmanager library.
ii  plasma-pa                 Plasma 5 Volume controller
ii  plasma-runner-installer   KRunner plugin for installing packages
ii  plasma-runners-addons     additional runners for Plasma 5 and Krunner
ii  plasma-widgets-addons     additional widgets for Plasma 5
ii  plasma-workspace          Plasma Workspace for KF5

[barlafuss]

KDE, what else ?

[Innovate]

Fooling around on Cinnamon & back to Xfce again.

[floreado]

Another vote for Plasma 5 here and I agree with the others
that there's a big positive diffrence between its implementation in Stretch and Buster.

[cpoakes]

Openbox + tint2

[trinidad]

Will stick with gnome, though I've never particularly liked it. Simple reasons: less dependency problems and a larger selection of compatible software. Stability is the most important factor to me.

TC

[sjukfan]

Openbox and tint2 here too.

This seems to be such a common combination so soon it might be a DE in itself

[Crewp]

I use Cinnamon, I like the look and feel.