Yes I have always kept my panel size at 30 pixels. Mostly from poorer eyesight from old age!
I see it the other way around.
Trinity doesnāt rely on Qt3 anymore. I donāt think there is any reference to Qt3 in their source code anymore. They maintain their own TQt fork since many years.
Itās probably the only desktop environment that controls their own toolkit except Gnome.
I think Cinnamon, MATE and XFCE are in a worse position. When gtk5 is released gtk3 will be out of support. Moving to gtk4 probably isnāt an option. So what do these desktop environments do? I donāt know. They will have to fork gtk3 probably.
MATE is in a worse position, because they canāt upload new versions to Debian Sid anymore. Donāt ask me why, but MATE version 1.28 was released a long time ago, but is nowhere to be seen in Debian or Ubuntu.
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I didnāt know that, thanks.
I do think GTK5 is a long way off, but your points stand.
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The reasons for no MATE 1.28 on Trixie are discussed here: "Mate 1.28 on Debian" Ā· Issue #646 Ā· mate-desktop/mate-desktop Ā· GitHub.
The issue seems to be a lack of time that the developers have; the shifting sand of GTK3 is partly to blame (this is why developers complain about GTK3 and API/ABI breakage).
GTK2 reached EOL in 2020 after reports of about 4 years of focussed effort to develop GTK4. If GTK5 is developed and released on a similar schedule, then we've probably got at least a couple of years before GTK3 reaches EOL.
LXQt seems to compare quite well to MATE in terms of being a lightweight traditional desktop. I've decided it's not realistic to expect consistent themes across apps; Qt, GTK, Electron (which I hate) are never going to cooperate in terms of look and feel. So, basically, my priorities boil down to 1) low resource utilisation, and 2) easy to navigate for me (I'm probably not going to change to, say, a tiling window manager any time soon).
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If I saw a Distro choose to take on the massive task of developping/maintaining its own GUI API, preferring to diverge from an industry-standard and evolving a custom API, without any other consideration, I would have to take the stance that the Distro would be a "hands-off" option for me.
Just that situation alone tells me it is at too high a risk for developer burnout, which also leads me to put distance between myself and that Distro.
Only factors which could impact that initial, instinctive stance would be the following:
-
is there a substantial, steady/growing wave of developers abandoning the Qt? API to support the TQt API with their time and energies?
-
is there a similar migration of developers abandoning the GTK? API to support the TQt API with their time and energies?
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developers that are migrating are demonstrated key resources to the projects that they are leaving behind.
Without those two trends being demonstrated with statistics, there is no basis to assume that it would have any longevity, IMHO.
I can't seem to find any indication that Lubuntu allows the dual-panel setup which is default for Ubuntu MATE. Does anyone know if that option is available? I would prefer to know before I download an ISO for tryout. For me that is a critical feature that I would not do without.
Don't want to put you on the spot, Chris, but this posting on the Lubuntu Discourse shows some degree of your involvement with Lubuntu.
Given that dual awareness, on the following scale
L100 L70 L30 0 M30 M70 M100
with
- L100 being all-Lubundu,
- M100 being all-UbuntuMATE,
- 0 being equally "self-enabled" by either environment
where would you place your preference leanings on that scale?
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I think gtk3 is pretty stable. gtk devs focus on gtk4 and gtk5 development at this point.
One problem mentioned in a blog post comment by Clem Lefebvre (the main dev behind Linux Mint) is that his MATE commit rights had been taken away. If you remove a person like Clem from the project then the future of MATE is more uncertain.
I donāt know how much he contributed, but with his skills any problem with 1.28 could be solved.
I think Linux Mint will continue their MATE flavor for a while, but without developers and distro support for the latest release the future of MATE looks a bit dim.
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Why limit yourself to just two panels??
My current Lubuntu setup here on my primary machine has 11 panels spread over my 5 monitors.
I have panels at the top of some displays, some at the bottom, some at the sides (I eventually decided I did like that feature from the Unity desktop, so it made its way to my Xfce setup, with this LXQt setup made to match as close as I could that Xfce setup). The setup is manual (add a new panel, put it where you want it & then configure it how you want it) with some panels on the left side of my monitors larger as they contain only a quicklaunch bar with icons of my commonly used apps (aka. what Unity 7 had, or appears on the Ubuntu GNOME desktop too). Only one of my panels is set to always display; the others are all hide unless I hover over them. Each of my panels is configured differently; some made to look/work like docks, but using less RAM than using specific dock software would require.
( LXQt isnāt as flexible as Xfceās panels are.. eg. on my Xfce setup I have multiple panels on a single border of a display; such that if I move my mouse pointer to one position of the edge a CLOCK will show nice & large so it easy to read.. on another portion I only see my workspaces (different panel setup), or another section shows some apps I can start (a third panel on same display border).. Whilst all of that could be done as a single panel, the panel isnāt using 100% of the border and by having 3 panels configured allows them to be different sizes thus the clock is HUGE compared to the othersā¦ My LXQt setup has them all that on a single panel that is a specific width, with each of the items size fixed by what works best for all )
FYI: That post you refer to was Ubuntu's Discourse; the Lubuntu discourse was shutdown; if it wasnāt Iād provide a link to an old view of some of what I was describing with regards panels I posted there back in ~2019 (the way Iāve setup this machine hasnāt altered for many years; it was slighly simpler back then as I only had 2 monitors, and thus I think only 4 panels; we [Lubuntu] started a screenshot thread & I posted my setup; it may not be āprettyā but to me its fully functional!)
My leanings of Ubuntu-MATE vs Lubuntu would be messyā¦ and far from complete, as the link you gave was in reply to something of mine that highlighted I wasnāt really a Lubuntu/LXDE/LXQt user to begin with; being recognized for QA testing & thus asked to apply for membership.. My usage of Lubuntu/LXQt really grew after that (the other flavor team asked if I wanted to join them as QA Lead a few weeks later, but Iād already joined Lubuntu so said no). To me all flavors are still Ubuntu (I was a Ubuntu member prior to doing any QA testing anyway that lead to my flavor team involvement).
If I had to say; Iād be more Lubuntu as Iām a Lubuntu member, Lubuntu Council Emeritus ā¦ where I donāt see myself as a Ubuntu MATE team member anyway (I was recognized for some QA thus have a badge on this discourse, became a moderator, so maybe my not seeing myself as a Ubuntu MATE team member is suspect anyway, but Iāve got enough teams vying for my time already, and Ubuntu-MATE is lower on that list).
I really donāt have a favorite desktop that I want to use all the timeā¦ I really do like Xfce, MATE, LXQt .. etc.
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I kind of agree. I recently figured I would give my three most used desktop environments a usability score (ease of use and features). So this is my personal verdict.
Cinnamon 9
XFCE 8
LXQt 7
The big selling point of LXQt is the Qt toolkit which supports fractional scaling at the toolkit level. But I think it is hard to beat Cinnamon if you have 4 GB of RAM or more. Unless you like KDE, but I never did. My personal joke is that K stands for kitchen-sink, but if you like that approach KDE might be the best desktop environment.
Since developers of that stature don't limit themselves to contributing to only one Distro or GDM, I can only imagine that they would have removed that for reasons that there may have simply been sufficient concern (not necessarily demonstrated proof of actions) that an individual who is a prime-mover for a competitive GDM (namely Cinnamon) could be considered an inherently un-trustworthy character, due to the potential for conflict of interest, regardless of the good works he may have contributed in the past.
It would be a crying shame, for the broader Linux Community, if such an action was taken without there having been any specific instigating incident!
I tried KDE on 2 separate occasions about 10 years ago and 6 years ago. In both cases, I backtracked because I hated the overall feel of interraction. I can't put my finger on anything more precisely than that. 
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Strangely enough, it never crossed my mind that I would want, let alone think of, having more than 2 panels, for my single display setup.
But now that you mention it ... I see some exploratory Desktop tweaking in my future!
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One panel at the bottom is sufficient for my needs, but I seldom have more than two apps open at a time. Same for web pages. Two desktops are also enough for my needs. It is great we can all have the right amount for our needs even though they differ greatly person to person.
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Clem Lefebvre is listed as one of the project founders along with Stefano K and Perberos - I don't see much panic about them being "removed". For 'mate-desktop' itself, Clem made 6 commits back in 2016 - that's not exactly "driving force" energy.
I don't know what the "reason" for the low interest amongst developers is for MATE.
Speculatively: it's because MATE desktop is not exactly a hotbed of innovation (and no one really wants it to be); therefore it's a project that only needs maintenance. And that's just not all that exciting for many (young?) developers.
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I think the reason Clem was slightly upset was that no explanation had been given. I think it was āthe new guyā that did it. He might be a good dev, but when you deal with a complete desktop environment you really need all the help you can get.
In the short term (coming years) there is a ray of hope. The Debian maintainer wants to package version 1.28 for Debian which means it will reach Ubuntu at some point.
There is work on Wayland compatibility so a lot of work is kind of needed at this stage to make that transition.
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While choices are good, you can have too much of a good thing! I hold up the ābalkenizationā of streaming movies, TV shows, and live TV as an obvious example, the number of variations of Intel CPUs, the number of shampoos on the shelf at Walmart etc. Linux is pretty much there already.
At age 74 I am āthat crotchety old man that lives down the blockā.
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If QT3 still works and does everything required without any issues that canāt be worked around why does it need to be āmaintainedā? If it aināt broke, donāt fix it!
If it canāt be compiled for new kernels then clearly means that Linus has lost control, I recall he recently asked if anyone still had working MFM/RLL hard drives so if not, that support could be removed form the kernel. I know I used support for 5ā floppy drives a few years ago to help a colleague retrieve some very old but suddenly needed again data from ābackupsā that had been sitting in a storage locker for many years.
I donāt subscribe to the idea that software can never be āfinishedā and must always be āimprovedā. The conspiracy theorist in me is starting to think that most malware is created by the vendors to sell new hardware and software. There is nothing new in Android that has been useful to me since Kit-Kat.
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Iām thankful the Mate default is a single panel as chasing things around my 4K dual monitor setup has given me borderline carpal tunnel. Although āclonedā top and bottom panels could reduce some of this, I might miss the loss of top and bottom pixels when sizing and positioning windows more.
I try to stay with default settings as ācustomizationā can be a time sink. Since I am old, Iāve hated the āpastelā color schemes since XP first came out and most all my customization is simply larger fonts and higher contrast color schemes. The ādarkā themes have been a god send and I wish they could automatically be applied to all apps. Example, I have Yaru dark (with a few tweaks) and Chrome Dark theme, but this site is white background in its tab, fortunately the text is black enough to still be easily readable, not true for a lot of sites.
I noticed my default install of 24.04 for a media player PC on our large screen living room TV has an accessibility menu/widget, a quick trial of the contrast option looked interesting, but I havenāt had time to see its impact on photo viewing or video playback.
Edit: I may be foggy on what is meant by ādualā panels. Top and bottom is the default for Mate, and the default for multiple monitors is no panels on the secondary monitors. If they can be enabled I donāt know how. If I can make duplicate top and bottom panels on each monitor so I can raise windows or launch menu selections without so much mousing around it would be worth a try.
I've seen mention of Panels on every display.
I just don't know how to do that, since I've never had multiple displays.
I think Eugene (@ugnvs) made comment about that multi-display setup recently in another post.
4 posts were split to a new topic: Community site dark theme and auto detection
For customizing Panels in a multi-monitor configuration ...
I couldn't find the link for my previously mentioned posting by Eugene, but I did find this one, which is quite detailed: