I know Gnome is the default on popular distros: Fedora, Ubuntu, Rhel, Pop OS (it’s Cosmic Desktop yes but it is still based on Gnome)…etc. But Gnome just doesnt work for me. I would pick XFCE - stable and no BS.
Before Manjaro and their cetificate shenanigan, I used to use their XFCE version. At the time, it was marketed as the “Flagship Manjaro version”. I went 4 years without any problems and I did tinker a lot, just couldnt get their XFCE to break.
After a tough Arch or Gentoo installs, I just want to put XFCE on and call it a day.
What about you guys?
That’s not too hard a question for me, I’ve been using the same DE for years: KDE
KDE is one of the main reasons for me to use Linux. I immensely like the performance, silence and battery lifetime of MacBooks. But if I have to work with anything but KDE, it’s not worth it for me. The only thing OSX does better than basically any other desktop out there, is the ability to drag whole virtual screen between monitors.
My computer doesn’t really break, I’m Ship of Theseus-ing it regularly.
Apart from that, the only one among the normal window based ones that has felt like it respects my will to configure stuff in ways that feel right to me has been KDE Plasma.
KDE Plasma.
It has been great for gaming, adopting Wayland protocols at a faster rate than other DEs due in part thanks to Valve’s contributions.
I freaking love GNOME & Adwaita, but I’ll switch back when I deem it better than Plasma.
KDE
GNOME because it works out of the box like GNOME
Desktop environment? Who needs a desktop environment?
Bro watches videos through ASCII conversion in the cli😭
Bro doesn’t need DE to watch videos. Bro doesn’t need DE to do anything.
mpvfor the winbut if you really want your ASCII conversion:
mpv --vo=cacaormpv --vo=tctIt’s actually possible! Thats amazing lol
Bad apple in text may be more impressive than it on the Nintendo.
Plasma, been using it since I was a kid
Plasma’s not that old, it just came out a few years ago…
2008?
K so I just realized they didn’t call it plasma until 2008, I first used KDE in 2005.
I’d rather not use a computer at all than use GNOME for the rest of my live.
For me it’s KDE Plasma all the way.It’s wild to me how GNOME evokes such strong opinions in folks. It really is a love it or hate it kind of deal (I’m in the “love it” camp).
I wonder why that is. I like KDE ok, but it doesn’t elicit a strong emotion from me. KDE works fine, I just really like GNOME.
There must be something about GNOME in particular that some people love, and others hate.
For those of us that expect room to breathe and make our machine work for us rather than the other way around, we feel like Gnome takes a lot of liberties away for the sake of “simplicity.” There is so much missing from Gnome that is present in most other DEs and even custom WM setups.
The primary contributors who work under The Gnome Foundation also come off as controlling and arrogant in a lot of cases, and refuse to take community feedback to heart, whereas KDE has literal summits to get user feedback on major core features we want to see which then later get added to their backlogs and sprints as Epics. Gnome acts a lot like Apple in the sense that they’re very much “we know what’s best for you better than you do.”
Now, the singular area I can give Gnome true props in is their accessibility functionality, but that’s primarily it. KDE’s accessibility is fairly behind by about a decade in comparison.
That’s just my take, take it as you will.
can you exemplify a few of the things you miss?
I miss old Gnome. I wish they’d stuck with the old Gnome 2 design philosophy but breathed new modern design principals into it, instead of trying to go the Ubuntu Unity route. Maybe something like Cinnamon but even more flexible and feature-rich.
Honestly, that defaulting to the Search field in the Save dialog when I’m trying to save something just gets me wild. It beggars the imagination why the developers think that’s a reasonable thing to do and it colors my whole perception of the DE.
This and shortcut for creating a subfolder doeesnt work in save dialogue.
I haven’t lasted long enough after the Search piss-off to notice the tomfoolery of that. Well, you probably shouldn’t be creating new folders from there, don’t you understand how the workflow-as-handed-down-by-Jehosaphat is supposed to be used?
There must be something about GNOME in particular that some people love, and others hate.
GNOME is heavily opinionated.
As such it gets praise from people that share that opinion and gets hate from the people that do not. Many other DEs are much more configurable, giving a broader audience the possibility to adjust everything to their liking.
GNOME is a lightly upgraded MacOS interface. Every time I’ve had to use a Mac has pissed me off so GNOME gives me war flashbacks.
Not necessarily the DE’s fault but ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Gives me more Windows 8 flashbacks than Mac.
An interface that works well on touchscreens, but feels clunky on mouse and keyboard and the general theming of it looks more phone like than a desktop PC. Gnome itself being harder to theme doesn’t help with that.
That being said I’d pick Gnome over all else for touch devices. I threw it on an old Surface 3 and it worked better than the original Win8 interface.
Ok.
But, in Mac OS, Windows, and Linux, all three of which I work in regularly, I open up a terminal and type stuff in it, open up applications in windows and work in them, and copy and paste between them.
Really, any DE can handle this stuff. Not sure what all the fuss is about otherwise. But it’s all good.
You know how the ending of LOST or Game of Thrones can bring up feelings in people? That’s how it was for me when Gnome 3 first came out. I had been using Gnome 2 for a few years and had a good workflow, and then suddenly, everything changed. Back then Gnome 3 was buggy and lacked a lot of things, which didn’t help. It also didn’t help that the devs took a “the problem is you” stance to all feedback. That said, I use Gnome now, and I like it, it took some years to mature and become good. But the feeling is still there sometimes.
I was team Gnome before Gnome 3 came out. Nowadays I don’t mind it for auxiliary computers that I don’t interact with regularly. It has a huge community behind it and that is a quality in its own right. But since MATE never really managed to become a worthy successor to Gnome 2 I guess I’m team Plasma now. I got it “forced” on me by my beloved Steam Deck and I can definitely see why Valve went for it.
Currently I’m experimenting with Hyprland but that is definitely too early to call it my forever pick, so Plasma it is.
why do you think gnome is the default on everything?
Definitely Gnome here. Though I have a long list of notes, it mostly just works exactly like I expect with little friction or guessing. I donate $100/year to both Gnome and KDE since they are both good pieces of software, and I love that I get to chose mine. Further, I think KDE is the logical choice for something like the SteamDeck where it’s going to have a lot of gamers that expect computers to work like Windows. (even if I don’t like it, >_<)
KDE - I love to tinker and own my DE. 😎
If it has to be a DE then I’d go with XFCE, otherwise I’d probably go with openbox.
KDE
any computer I need to be stable enough for work/school: KDE
any computer whose primary purpose is for goofing off and gaming: LXQt (and I will spend the entire time configuring LXQt instead of gaming…)
Why not use steam or arch if it’s just fucking around? Arch you can at least configure easily.
tbh hadn’t heard of steam and always assumed arch was difficult to learn. but i had been considering trying arch just to see what the hype was about
SteamOS is the arch Linux off shoot they made specifically for the steam deck. It’s great for integrated graphics gaming.
Cinnamon by and far.
I’ve used so many distros and DEs I don’t even know where to begin, but Cinnamon got me hooked for the long run. It’s legitimately the most polished and “ready to run” DE I’ve ever used, yet still allowing for far more customization than Windows ever offered.
gnome head all the way!!!
