Deepin spin?

[Daniel Wei]

Hello Sam!

It's me again.
I was bored and browsing the websites of different distros when I realized that the Deepin Desktop Environment is installable straight from the OpenSUSE repos.
https://software.opensuse.org/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=deepin

As I found out here:
https://www.deepin.org/en/dde/desktop-transplantation/

If you don't know, it looks like this:

It's quite a jaw-dropper.

Is it possible for you to include Deepin as a desktop version? Just wondering.

Thanks!

[S.]

Hi there Daniel,

Yep, I too have been keeping an eye on Deepin for openSUSE. It's looking pretty promising, and I am considering the possibility of a GeckoLinux spin, once I manage to release the other ROLLING spins first. Deepin would only be available as a GeckoLinux ROLLING spin for now, as the developer tells me it won't build for Leap 42.x. Hopefully it will for Leap 15 though.

[Daniel Wei]

Alright! Good to know!

Thanks!

[alexande...@gmail.com]

Hi Guys,
I came across this post while I was looking to send a note about a glitch in the webpage for Gecko.

I've used SuSE for years (among almost all the other versions of Linux) and find that what the author says on the homepage is true for me too.
I waste incredible amounts of time trying to find the best all round experience/speed/stability.

I recently upgraded to 42.3 and found it somewhat better than it's predecessor ...lol

So the point of replying was to say that before the upgrade I tried installing Deepin on a fresh install of 42.3 (yes, I always do a test install before doing a final install)
and wanted to see how difficult it would be to get them to work together given that the deepin repos from SuSE are all for Tumbleweed.
After adding a lot of other repos to get all the dependencies, it did work and looked as beautiful as Deepin does if you get the iso and install the whole OS (yes I did that too, just to see).
The problem is: it really isn't worth it.
The amount of options available in any given software package and the OS itself are very minimal. I mean less usability than elementary. ie. No tabs or split screen in Files (a Must for me)

So now I'm running 42.3 with the Pantheon DE, which gives the same kind of look and only needs 2 added repos, the regular and Next, and installed a bunch of Gnome3 applications to get better
functionality than the stock pantheon app.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, there are few dependency links with Pantheon, so you don't need to install any of the apps that
you don't want or need.
The downside is, when you're installing it, you have to pick everything one at a time, and doing that doesn't pull all the deps.

Maybe in retrospect, since I chose originally to do a minimal install with no desktop and then took it from there, it would be better to chose Gnome3 in the installer first, then add Pantheon and then remove gnome-shell and GDM, since Pantheon uses gale/vala/lightdm.

After a first login to Gnome, I would make sure those (gale/vala/lightdm) are installed and then do a DE switch from the login screen from Gnome to Pantheon, then do those two Gnome3 uninstalls.

Well I hope you all found that interesting and informative.
I'll be around all week for questions..lol
Best regards,
alex

[S.]

Interesting, thanks for sharing your experience. I was testing Pantheon on Leap 42.2 and Tumbleweed about a year ago, and it was still too buggy. I'll give it another look now that you report it's working well.