Foreword

Ever since Canonical reorganized their business and ended up dropping Unity in favor of Gnome I have been... less than excited about the Linux Desktop. Its not that Gnome is bad, by all accounts its one of the best desktops for Linux and feature complete enough for anyone to use with only a minor learning curve. Its not that Unity was so wonderful that all other desktops pale in comparison. It was how the community treated Ubuntu, and thus Canonical, throughout the creation, fine tuning, and then the cancellation of the Unity project. It has left a bad taste in my mouth, one that has been lingering for nearly a year now, if not longer.

For those that have no idea what I'm talking about:
* Gnome: A Desktop Environment widely used in the Open Source community
* Unity: A Desktop Environment created and was once developed by Canonical for the Ubuntu Desktop
* Desktop Environment: What the user sees and interacts with when using their computer.

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First Stop Deepin 15.8

Deepin 15.8 is the latest version of an Open Source Desktop OS that is geared for daily use. Deepin based in China is backed by one of China's largest ad agencies, and could be compared to Chrome OS as far as buisness structure is concerned. I realize that this may be a instant NO for some, but several people have audited the code and beyond a little script that sends back hardware information as well as app store analytics you're pretty secure.

The Desktop

Deepin is a fast, intuitive desktop that makes everything feel fresh. The desktops layout is reminiscent to both MacOS and Windows though it takes the common and familiar and takes it in their own direction. The systems settings, which gives you access to almost every aspect of your computer, is accessible right from your desktop without the need to hunt down some tool or control center that's buried in your menus.

It comes with a great set of default wallpapers as well as several icon sets for those that like to tweak things. It also comes with a really fun feature that allows you to set each application (those that deepin created at least) from light to dark theme on a per application basis. Its really pointless, but being someone that has strong preferences on such things its a nice touch.

App Store

This is not taken from Deepin app store but from their webfrontend you can access from their site.

Application distribution via a store is nothing new. Linux has used a network based software distribution model for as long as I can remember. However, these repositories, as they are called, weren't all that flashy. Now days if you want your OS to stand out, you have to have a proper app store that is full of good quality software. Not only that but you have to entice developers to add new software to your store. With Deepin, you get such an experience. Not only do you get a nice looking front end that is easy to navigate (very similar to the above, with just a little more flash) each free application comes with a "Donate" button to encourage users to help developers continue their work through monetary reward.

On the developers side they have a portal for you to upload your own software, I have yet to add anything too their store but from their site they say any application, Linux,WebApp,or Windows can find their way into the store. How this is done, or how well it works I am unsure. If I get to that point I will let you know.

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Take away

The good

Deepin is installed on my gaming machine. I had no issues installing the software via their installer and found it to be painless and very professional. My hardware was detected and initialized just as I have come to expect from a modern OS and the only issue I had was installing the Nvidia Drivers using their built in tool (shame really). However, installing the driver was trivial even if it wasn't as clear cut as I would have liked. After all that was done I installed Steam, and Spotify directly from their store. With a little command line magic I was able to reconnect all my Steam Games to my new Steam install and fired up one or two to make sure all was well. I haven't been on a Desktop Linux (Including Valves own Steam OS) where Steam worked so well! Not only did big picture mode come up and behave as expected the desktop even displayed several games without issue which were unplayable under Gnome.

The odd

In every Desktop OS I've used there are certain folders created for the users when their accounts are created. The folders usually include Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos. All fine inclusions to a users home folder and if you use them correctly, are a wonderful way to avoid the issues of "losing files". However, in every OS I've used until today, a user was able to delete these folders, but not in Deepin. This wouldn't be much of an issue except that I have a large collection of music that I keep on a separate hard drive that is shared out over my home network. Without the ability to remove this folder I can't get the default music player to detect my music which is quite frustrating. Also there are some very humorous translation issues here and there.

Conclusion

Deepin 15.8 is amazing. Its not without issue, but the issues are far from show stopping. The default applications (even the office suite) are more than adequate for most users. The interface itself is modern, elegant, and down right easy to look at. The splash screen, what you see in the 3 to 5 seconds it takes to boot, is reversed when shutting down and just fun to watch. The Operating System gives you the feeling of appliance OSes like Google's Chrome OS and/or Android/iOS with just enough of that "dig deeper" feel that makes you want to use it for more than just something to look at between looking at things.

By far, this "desktop grade" OS outshines anything I have seen from the western world. For all those working on Desktop Environments both open and closed, watch out! This desktop is a real winner.

If you have a spare machine running around or are tired of the same old thing I suggest giving Deepin a try. You can download the installers here

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Thanks for reading.
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