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.
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