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.