Testing Ubuntu 19.04 with other than the official DEs or without a DE

Desktop
#1

The screenies would tell the story…

04
041366×768 329 KB

04
041366×768 374 KB

2 screenies above are without a DE, just a WM…

The minimalism of the window manager is actually its real strength. It doesn’t come with panels, file managers or even a menu. You pick and choose whatever you want, that is, you are not a prisoner of a fixed desktop environment (DE) – you are in control.

And below, with a DE…created by Vitor Lopes, not yet available for Ubuntu.…called Jade…

Jade-akoya
Jade-akoya1366×768 424 KB

Interestingly, Jade is a DE that is docks, panels, file managers, web browsers, etc agnostic and works with any WM. Everything is right in front of you, so anyone can use it.

All on Ubuntu 19.04…
Anyone else?

2 Likes
Anyone interested in replace GNOME with a custom Desktop Environment
Testing Ubuntu 20.04 LTS & official Ubuntu flavors
New Unity7 based distro
Flavor Comparison
#2

Ubuntu MATE 19.04 with Mutiny panel layout

mate1904
mate19041360×653 200 KB

rocks!

2 Likes
#3

I just added Nemo as the default file manager to Openbox, and it boots much faster than Thunar. Also, Nemo has inbuilt search, which Thunar doesn’t, plus all kinds of options that other file managers don’t have. Looks like, the “old” Nautilus 3.4 was the best ever file manager that happened to Linux!

openbox with trizen obmenu
openbox with trizen obmenu1366×768 263 KB

Note the Office online web apps…Also created by Vitor Lopes.

office webapps
office webapps1366×768 365 KB

Ubuntu 19.04 base is excellent!

2 Likes
#4

With the latest Nemo available at the moment…Nemo 4.0.6

6 the latest
6 the latest1366×768 231 KB

Will be installing it in all other 19.04s I have, Ubuntu-Budgie, Ubuntu-Gnome, Ubuntu-Unity.

1 Like
#5

Decided to check, if gnome classic (gnome 2 lookalike) would work Ubuntu without any breakage. Well, if it is the default DE of CentOS, why not here. First tried with both panels, then deleted one of them, leaving one to work as long ago Gnome 2. Then, thinking of what @bavarianph was saying about the Cairo dock, installed it, even though it is not maintained for quite a long time, most of the needed add-ons worked, even the weather applet.

Only package that has the name gnome shell is the gnome-shell-common, as it is need for gnome-tweak-tool. Otherwise, that package also can be uninstalled. Nautilus or any other file manager is installed manually.

Gnome Flashback with Cairo dock
Gnome Flashback with Cairo dock1366×768 335 KB

Been using it the whole day for work. No breakage of any kind. One panel is still there, on the top, but autohidden. There are so many options with Ubuntu 19.04, after all.

#6

It sounds to me like you are using GNOME Flashback then.

RHEL and CentOS use GNOME Classic which is just a different mode of GNOME Shell (so it uses a different theme and some default GNOME Shell extensions sort of like the Ubuntu mode). GNOME Flashback on the other hand uses gnome-panel.

1 Like
#7

Yes, it is Gnome Flashback. Mentioned the word classic automatically. The default Ubuntu don’t have Gnome tweaks too, so cannot change fonts, icons, themes etc without it. As you are the maintainer of Gnome Tweaks, is it possible to take off the gnome-shell-common dependency from Gnome Tweaks?