I have been using a very similar setup for 12 years now. In the past few months I've been wondering what the Linux experience is like for newcomers and "normal" users. I am considering doing a clean install with a full fledged modern desktop environment such as KDE. I may not be able to manage such an environment, I fear that it's too constrained compared to controlling everything that runs on my computer. But I'd like to try.
Has anyone done a switch from very minimal keyboard first lightweight environment to a modern desktop environment? If so, what was it like?
I did. It feels good. The interactions are smoother, file managers are more useful. Had to tweak some shortcuts to emulate some moves I am used to in tiling managers.
I went from awesome to KDE (kubuntu 18.04lts).
I do webdev, cm and reports at the moment.
I believe the terminal only approach suits most sysadmin, devops and the like ; not your run off the mill wordpress dev.
In my current setup, I do not even have a file manager installed. I just use the coreutils (cd, ls, mv, cp, rm, etc.).
I'm not doing webdev, I mostly program in different languages (Racket, OCaml, C, and Python mostly) and write a lot of LaTeX. Most of my time is spent in Emacs (it's also were I'm doing my emails) and Firefox.
In addition to graphical file managers, I'm also wondering what it's like to use a mail client such as Thunderbird, Kmail, or Evolution.
Graphical file managers are really good at managing pictures and random arbitrary selections.
I am not using mail clients anymore, only webmail (I have a thunderbird install at work that is used as some kind of back-up/dumpster). I don't spend a lot of time in email or calendars though.
It sounds like a sort of "best of both worlds" scenario...i'm interested in any suggestions. The last several years had me use more debian-centric distros (formerly Ubuntu, nowadays Mint). Is there a pair of DE+tiling WM setup that you suggest might be good? I'm open to recommendations!
For me XMonad+Gnome has worked pretty well. There's a nice PPA[1] that gives you most of what you need then you load the Gnome compatibility options[2] in XMonad config file and everything works. Well, there is one annoyance in that there's some sort of race condition and I have to restart xmonad after everything is up (alt-q by default) if I want windows to avoid the task bar like they should. But that only an extra second when I reboot.
I use i3 daily but every couple of months I switch over to Gnome (I have both installed). I appreciate the appearance of Gnome, but I get frustrated with it's handling of multiple displays (I dock the laptop at work and have two monitors). With i3, the windows stay on their virtual desktops and it's pretty seamless when I dock and un-dock.
That said, it's not very attractive. My partner thinks it's looks bizarre and I don't think I could slide my laptop over to, like, anyone and have them be productive.
Has anyone done a switch from very minimal keyboard first lightweight environment to a modern desktop environment? If so, what was it like?