News About Lesser Known Desktop Environments
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-03-05 14:03:29 UTC
- Modified: 2014-03-05 14:03:29 UTC
Debate
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When you install a Linux distribution, a set of programs comes along with it. It's easy to add and delete elements of the programs that don't fit with your needs, but what about altering the look and feel of the distribution to suit you? The key is to add a second desktop environment or window manager.
MATE
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It took the developers nearly a year but their work on the familiar, yet ambitious, MATE desktop is finally stable and available for everyone to use. MATE is a complete desktop environment that was forked from the Gnome Project (Gnome 2 to be exact) nearly 2 years ago. The decision to fork came at a time when a significant amount of Gnome 2 users were displeased with Gnome 3, the next major iteration and core of the Gnome Project.
Enlightenment
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After a fast development cycle and the 1.9 alphas just starting recently and seeing the first betas just days ago, 1.9.0 beta 2 is now available for the Enlightenment Foundation Libraries (EFL) core and also a second beta of Elementary.
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We are ready for our first beta release for the upcoming 1.9 release cycle. Please give it a good testing. Since alpha1 we received to many fixes to list them all. Full NEWS will be ready for the final 1.9 release.
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Just one week after the Enlightenment 1.9 alpha series surfaced, the 1.9.0-beta1 pre-release is now available for users of the lightweight Enlightenment window manager / desktop.
LXDE
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Xfce4's panel was improved this weekend and released in its 4.11 development form but that's not the only lightweight Linux desktop receiving some attention; LXDE's LXPanel has also been flagged as a new development version.
Xfce
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Xfce4-panel 4.11.0 is a development release leading to Xfce 4.12 and it has an improved task-list for multi-monitor handling, fixes transparency issues with GTK3+ plug-ins, a configure flag for enabling the GTK3 mode of the Xfce4 panel library, the middle-click action is now configurable, support for time-zone selection within the Xfce4 panel clock, a calendar pop-up for the clock, and other changes.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Ponzi Schemes Are Useful (to Corrupt CEOs)
- Pathetic, corruptible so-called 'media' is bagging bribes to perpetuate the lies about "AI" (slop)
- Body-Shaming Using Fakes
- a lot of the people who casually claim "defamation" are themselves defaming loads of people every day
- EPO People Power - Part XXIV - Today or Tomorrow You Should Write to National Representatives (Delegates) at the EPO in Your Country
- Keep up the pressure!
- Red Hat and IBM Layoffs, Staff Kept Quiet About it, WARN Act Skirted/WARN Notices Avoided
- What a terrible company to be in
- Slop Still Rare
- So far a good start for 2026
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- Links 04/01/2026: US Imperialism in Greenland and Venezuela, "Climate Protesters Face Greater Risk of Crackdown Amid Rising Authoritarianism"
- Links for the day
- 2026 Should be the Year We All Stop Saying "AI" and Call Things What They Really Are
- Don't give anyone the satisfaction of this misguided belief there's any intelligence there
- GNU/Linux at All-Time High in Algeria
- In 2026 it hit a new all-time high
- Online Mobbing (and Worse) Disguised as 'Free Speech'
- People who say they believe in "free speech" have been trying hard to silence RMS and squash the FSF
- A 'Cancer That Attaches Itself' to Bulgaria?
- "Cancer" is what Microsoft called GNU/Linux
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, January 03, 2026
- IRC logs for Saturday, January 03, 2026
- GNU/Linux "Market Share" in Switzerland More Than Doubled Last Year, Based on statCounter
- GNU/Linux continues its considerable growth
- XBox Layoffs Imminent, More Appalling Sales Figures Published
- Expect many layoffs in the gaming division
- Gemini Links 03/01/2026: Climbing, Waking Up, and Social Control Media Woes
- Links for the day
- Links 03/01/2026: Growing Censorship, Another US Invasion, and Will Smith 'Cancelled'
- Links for the day
- Links 03/01/2026: Twitter Turns From Disinformation Powerhouse to Production and Dissemination of Child Pr0n, "New China Cybersecurity Law Becomes A Reality In 2026"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 03/01/2026: Formatting Text for Gopher and Text-only Websites
- Links for the day
- Unverified Claim: Mass Layoffs at Microsoft to Start Around Week 3 (or 4) of This Month
- Let's wait and see if the claim above is from an insider who has inside knowledge
- Firefox Fell Below 1% in Asia
- less than 1 in 100 Web users is detected/assumed to be using Firefox
- Links 03/01/2026: Ryanair Fines and Facebook Misleads Regulators
- Links for the day
- New Record High for GNU/Linux in Benelux in 2026
- If the above trends stand (throughout the year), then we can begin talking more seriously about a post-GAFAM Europe
- In the Search Engine Market, Microsoft is Falling Behind Russia's Yandex
- The so-called 'AI industry' is a boy that cries wolf
- A Year of Relaxation, But Also of Hardcore Whistleblowing
- Expect industrial action some time soon
- The More Influential Richard Stallman (RMS) Becomes, the More Aggressive Attacks on Him (and the FSF) Will Get
- We've meanwhile noticed disinformation being spread in social control media
- GNU/Linux Reaches All-Time High of 5% in Indonesia (Not Counting Chromebooks and Android)
- There are also related events in Indonesia and SUSE in particular seems to have been popularised there
- EPO People Power - Part XXIII - António Campinos Knows He's Extremely Vulnerable at This Time
- Campinos should never have been put in charge
- Gemini Links 03/01/2026: New Organisation System (Notebooks) and "2026 Already Off to an Amazing Start"
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, January 02, 2026
- IRC logs for Friday, January 02, 2026
- The More Buzzwords a Corporation Resorts To...
- buzzwords are a fool's way to compensate for or disguise a lack of knowledge
- So You Should Definitely Call it "Slop" and Stop Saying "AI"
- with more XBox/gaming layoffs being imminent the blowback will be fun to watch
- Why Are We Still Using Voting Machines?
- Voting machines still seem to me like an infantile cargo cult and an act of salesmanship (like various security theatre rituals at airports)
- "Works for Me!"
- Who knows best?
- Why IBM Workers Like Techrights (Same Reason EPO Workers Do)
- IBM will likely be a daily theme (high rate of recurrence)
- Workers Fly Away From IBM's Red Hat (This Year a Lot of Red Hat Staff is "IBM")
- The stock (share price) of IBM says nothing about what actually goes on
- In 2025 We Contributed to the Headlessness of the OSI, But It's Not Over Yet
- By airing some 'dirty laundry' about the OSI last year we contributed to its current state
- Africa's Largest Population Sees Diminishing Impact of Windows
- less than 1 in 10 Web requests in Nigeria comes from Windows
- Russia Cuts Finnish Cables ("Hybrid War"), Finland Cuts Off Microsoft
- the birthplace of Linux
- Links 02/01/2026: Science, Patent Maximalism, and Public Domain Day
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 02/02/2026: Books, Scams, and mkscript (a Script to Make Scripts)
- Links for the day
- Free Software is More Naturally Inclusive
- large, intolerant, violent companies get painted as a glorious example of United Colours of Benetton
- Strong Start for GNU/Linux This Year
- based on statCounter
- More Tools, Factorising Code
- If some things in the site of Gemini capsules don't behave as expected, then that's likely due to a bug
- Europe in 2026: Over 5% GNU/Linux, Not Counting Chromebooks
- 2026 has started strongly
- State of Tech Journalism in 2026: Follow the Money
- in order to understand what motivates an opinion piece one must follow the money
- Slopfarm Says Microsoft's "Biggest Business" is the 'Business' Where It Loses Tens of Billions of Dollars
- TOI still pretends to have a lot of output
- At the Start of January 2025 Microsoft President Said Microsoft Would Spend 80 Billion Dollars on "AI" Data Centres. That Didn't Happen. Microsoft Laid Off 30,000 Workers, Debt Surged.
- Maybe this coming Monday Microsoft will come up with more false promises and vapourware
- Links 02/01/2026: Insurrectionist Attacks Musicians Critical of Him With Lawfare, Project Gutenberg Now Has Over 75,000 Books
- Links for the day
- Decline in LLM Slop About "Linux" is a Good Start for 2026
- When the only remaining proponents of slop are slop, which is pretty much what's happening right now, the bubble is popping
- EPO People Power - Part XXII - Contact Officials and Inform Your National Representatives (Delegates) of the EPO's Cocainegate
- Europe's largest media intentionally covers up serious scandals in Europe's second-largest institution
- Slopwatch Still Dead, Not Enough LLM Slop About "Linux"
- this is the desirable thing
- LibXML2 Will Carry on (Without or With the Name "LibXML2")
- The proprietary software boosters are projecting
- Gemini Links 02/01/2026: ThinkPad, SHARP Zaurus, Lagrange Handheld Support
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, January 01, 2026
- IRC logs for Thursday, January 01, 2026
