What desktop enviroment do you use and why?
What desktop enviroment do you use and why?
So a few months back I asked about you guys os in c/asklemmy, so this time I wanna ask about your desktops you use on this same account.
(I use kde but plan to move to cinnamon I find kde buggy and gnome tracker3 randomly broke for no reason + themeing so yh idk if these happened to anybody)
KDE. It's customizable without adding lots of weirdness. It's got a solid set of included tools like Dolphin and Konsole. It's generally very stable and visually attractive.
No shade to other DEs. I've tried lots of them, I even have a couple of alternative DEs I'll log into when they are useful (i3 is great if I am doing something repetitive). But KDE is just the most comfortable for me for daily use.
The non-Gnome COSMIC DE that System76 has been developing is looking really promising though. I have the alpha on a spare laptop and find it very functional.
Xmonad. I prefer tiling window managers, & I tried Sway but I can’t do color work without proper color management… something Wayland doesn’t support. Thus, I moved back to my old Xmonad config awaiting Wayland to get its shit together after years saying color management was around the corner & distros still adopting it despite not being ready.
I use DWM in place of a window manager because I love the lightweight, minimalist base, and i like to customise my setup very finely. (I use Arch btw)
Gnome. I actually started with KDE. It's a good DE, but it's got so many options that I had choice fatigue. I constantly tweaked my taskbar instead of focusing on what I wanted to do. And it was easy to get it to a "looks broken" state
When I tried Gnome, I fell in love with it. I love the unique workflow, lack of distractions, the modern adwaita design, etc. Everything felt so polished
That being said, I don't like how Gnome devs seemingly can't agree on anything with other desktop environments. And I don't like how they refuse to support server-side window decorations. Like, I agree with them that CSD are better than SSD, but it would be reasonable to support SSD for toolkits that haven't/don't want to implement CSD themselves, right?
I'm excited for Cosmic. It looks like it combines the best of Gnome and KDE, and the devs don't have the “my way or the highway” mindset
My desktop environment of choice would be XFCE. It's simply easy to configure while not giving me choice fatigue like KDE does. Also I don't like Qt for some reason.
GNOME is great but I find their extensions to be super clunky sometimes. Some of them even break in between updates. The main selling point of gnome (for me) is the minimal look and feel, extensions kind of ruin that a little bit.
Don't get me wrong plasma and Gnome are wonderful DEs but XFCE provides a simple and balanced desktop IMO. The only thing that's missing is full Wayland support.
P.S : Anyways most of the time I would be running a window manager instead of a DE, my current favourite Wayland window-manager is Labwc because it gives me openbox vibes.
Kde because i want customization and standard is also ok. I tried gnome but did not like that extensions were required for tray icons etc. Gnome is otherwise good.
I3 and hyperland i dont get. Some windows should not be very large no matter how much free screen space you have. Example is calculator or old school chat applications like pidgin. No native standard set of applications. Everything must manually be added and custom, like everything in kde settings(sound output, network settings, screen size etc). Waiting for when applications can recommend its screen size to the window manager.
GNOME, because I started with Red Hat 6 and I'm used to it, on Fedora Silverblue, because I have a long history of fucking up my PC and that makes it harder. For remote machines XFCE because the mouse is cute.
Typically I don’t use a DE. I’ll go for dmenu + dwm usually if I only want a WM. I find the default bindings and behaviour for the tiling is the most ergonomic when comparing it to other WMs like i3.
When I do have to get a DE setup then I’ll use XFCE because I like how it stays out of the way and I find it easy to customise.
Currently I use gnome cosmic because of PopOS, integration and stuff. When I get around using Arch I'm certainly gonna get myself Plasma, because it's pretty af
I love KDE. It's got easy to use power user features and is very robust.
i3. Superb for keyboard-driven environment. Ultra fast, so responsive and configurable. The best.
KDE Plasma. It came on my steam deck which was my first intro to it, it blew me away and installed it on my laptop and finally ditched Windows shortly after. Works great for me.
KDE on my main gaming PC, or if I want something that looks really modern and sleek without tons of setup/tweaking on another PC.
Mint with Cinnamon if I want a #justworks setup that is rock stable and I don't need to look sexy.
My side business laptop uses LMDE with Cinnamon for that reason. I need that thing to be rock stable and dependable at all times.
Cinnamon has been more stable for me than any other DE, and in my experience, is just as performant as other low-spec favorites like XFCE. My fresh install of LMDE with Cinnamon right after boot uses about 850MB of memory. My testing with XFCE was about the same, maybe 50-75MB less, which for my use case is effectively identical.
Not crapping on XFCE though, I like playing with it on one of my old thinkpads. Not a fan at all of Gnome, I've tried to like it for years, but I just don't care for it, and I experience quite a few bugs.
I plan on trying the new Cosmic DE soon, it seems like Gnome done better, and I could see myself liking it from the reviews I've watched.
I dont use a DE, I use a WM.
Semantics aside I’m on Hyprland, been using it for 6 months now and absolutely love it
XFCE4. It's intuitive and predictable without sacrificing the ability to customize it exactly the way I want (with Chicago95 ofc). The built-in panel widgets are nothing short of amazing: battery, CPU, RAM, network, and disk monitors with labels toggled off to save space and a clock with only what I need on one line:
MM/DD HH:mm:ssEnough features so that it "just works" (no nitpicking through config files), especially on laptops, without being bloated in any way. Bonus of its lightweight nature is that I can keep my Debian/XFCE setup consistent across all of my machines, both old and new.
Can't wait for the finished xfwm4 port to wayland so I don't have to sacrifice some security running X11 and so I can do fractional scaling on hidpi machines.
Gnome, be it PC or Laptop. It just remains out of my way with it's minimalism. Tried KDE for a while, and I seriously can't stand it, personally.
GNOME
xfce, i dont need that other bloat.
Xmonad with XFCE in no-desktop mode.
I can use the xfce tools to configure things like mouse and screen settings, but visually it's just xmonad.
OK so I have used several DEs but right now I'm on Plasma 6 because frankly, it's the best out there. It's easy to use, customizable, intuitive and looks nice. Is it on the heavier side? Yes, but that's okay. Also it helps that I have learnt the keyboard shortcuts on this.
I have used XFCE, Mate and Cinnamon in the past. If KDE somehow vanished off the face of the planet, I would likely switch to XFCE because it's light, customizable and fully functional.
I use i3. Pretty bare bones, so it took me a while to get productive with it. But it's all exactly how I want it, it's all mine.
KDE Plasma on all my computers and also as desktop mode on Steam Deck. because it supports the latest technologies especially when it comes to graphics (HDR, VRR) also has best support for Wayland and multi-monitors. It looks great out of the box and it has a lot of features out of the box and I do not need to battle with adding some extensions that break with almost every update. KDE Plasma is also the most flexible desktop and I can set the workflow really to fit my desires and I can actually set many options and settings. And despite all these built-in features and configurability it still uses very few system resources. Oh and the KDE community is one of the most welcoming I have met in FOSS world, and they listen to their users instead of the our way or the high way mentality I have so often encountered in GNOME for example. So yeah TLDR KDE Plasma is the one I like the most of all in the industry, even when compared to proprietary closed alternatives.
Was a Gnome user until Gnome 3.
Since Plasma 5, I use KDE Plasma.
I'm just going to share my unvarnished opinions here, I clearly understand that Gnome users feel differently, and that's okay.
- Gnome 3 performance was objectively worse on every bit of hardware I tried than Plasma. (Unfortunately I had functional gripes with Plasma 4 so couldn't use it.)
- The years of faffing about I had trying to be happy with Gnome 3 and trying to use other alternatives until Plasma 5 was ready pretty much convinced me of this:
- Gnome devs care more about achieving their vision of how a desktop should be used than they do about accommodating users who might feel differently. This is my perception, and it's a deeply held opinion. No matter how strongly you feel I'm wrong, you aren't going to change my mind. You can come at me if you want, but it's going to bear no fruit.
- KDE devs have a vision, but place nearly equal importance on ensuring their users can make different choices if they choose. If this isn't true, they do a damn good job of pretending it is, and that's good enough for me. 🙂
- I'm unhappy with the degree to which it appears the Gnome team has actively worked against the ability for users to easily customize, and with various feature removals that at this point are so far in my past that I probably don't remember the specific things that pissed me off, but I remember their explanations for feature removals being salt in an open wound every last time I cared enough to investigate their stated reasons.
Plasma 6 does everything I want the way I want. I have loaded it (and Plasma 5) on very low end and very high end hardware and found it performant and functional on both, consistently.
You'll note I don't claim it to be the best. There are folks out there for whom the Gnome vision happens to be how they like to work, or who aren't bothered by whatever hoops you have to jump through currently to customize a Gnome environment, and I'm sincerely happy for those people. For them, Gnome is the best.
There are lots of other DEs and of course tiling WMs exist, but it takes me no time at all to have a fresh plasma install working the way I want my computer to work and looking the way I want it to look, and thus I literally have zero complaints. So for the past few years I haven't even looked at any alternatives. If there's ever a time that I don't find the desktop product itself, and the KDE development team's approach to desktop development, to be absolutely perfect fits for me, I'll look elsewhere - but honestly probably not at Gnome.
I'm running KDE Plasma with the revived Krohnkite for auto tiling. Plasma 6.2 seems to have fixed most of the bugs from 6.0 and 6.1, at least the ones I've noticed.
I was using Sway/SwayFX for a few months but was missing some KDE Gear apps like Dolphin and Okular which I couldn't get to display correctly. KDE is afaik the only desktop with a working Qt theming engine right now, so I can't really see myself switching (unless maybe if they break Krohnkite again).
these days Hyprland but previously i3.
i basically live in the terminal unless i'm playing games or in the browser. these days i use most apps full screen and switch between desktops, and i launch apps using wofi/rofi. this has all become very specialized over the past decade, and it almost has a “security by obscurity” effect where it’s not obvious how to do anything on my machines unless you have my muscle memory.
not that i necessarily recommend this approach generally, but i find value in mostly using a keyboard to control my machines and minimizing visual clutter. i don’t even have desktop icons or a wallpaper.
OpenBox but that's a window manager, not a DE.
KDE for my main PC. Pretty with floating panels, KDE Connect, QT apps are often the best apps in their class and are perfectly integrated (FreeCAD, krita, okular, kdenlive, vlc, dolphin, etc...) And konsole is also very full featured.
I don't know what KiCAD uses, but it also seems very well integrated into the KDE desktop unlike most gnome apps.
XFCE on MX Linux for an old Intel Compute Stick to keep it very usable.
Traditionally I've been running lighter desktops like opebox, xfce, or lmde. Last couple of years I've been using MATE with good results.
I use KDE, no bugs for me (I found one but it's already fixed in the latest update) and it's feels like my second home
KDE Plasma on my PC, just use i3 on my laptop. prefer using the mouse on a pc, prefer not using it on a laptop.
Usually KDE, but I'm messing around with qtile atm.
Plasma, because I want things to Just Work(TM) and the customizability and modernity are neat. I like right click --> pin to top/bottom as well.
KDE on my main laptop, Cinnamon on the TV-connected mini-PC in my living room. I like the customization options of KDE, and with Cinnamon I just wanted to test out Linux Mint, no big reason other than that. I used GNOME for some time with Pop_OS!, and it was not fully my thing. I plan to test out more DEs when I can free up an older laptop to do some more experimentation - for my main laptop I require stability, so I don't mess around with it too much.
KDE, because I'm too lazy to switch back to XFCE, which offered every feature I already use in KDE except without the stuttering, the bugs, and the update cycle that breaks things way, way too often on a rolling release distro.
Or openbox. My old laptop has openbox, but that's more for screwing around with EWW than doing day-to-day things.
I have numerous machines and use several. On my main, KDE because of all the customization. Widgets, window styles, colors, themes etc. It's really like exactly how I want for maximum efficiency and productivity.
I've got gnome on my hybrid notebook and my transformer pad because gnome with Wayland is amazingly compatible with touchscreen.
I have one machine running Elementary which has the Pantheon DE it's kinda like Gnome with modifications.
And finally, I have an older system so just for efficiency, LXQt.
I do enjoy trying out different ones and especially more esoteric ones that I occasionally come across.
Depends on the computer I run. On fast computers (more than 5,000 passmark cpu points), i use gnome on whatever distro. On mid-speed computers (1000 to 5000 points), I use linux mint with cinnamon. On very old computers (400-1000), I use debian with XFce.
For my main workstation and main laptop:
- Cosmic themed GNOME - I just like the way it looks and works without any changes. The basic tiling functions are something I find helpful at times too.
- Plasma 6 - It works pretty well and looks nice. I don't do a lot of customization, so it's not a big deal to me. For my other machines I'm currently using Cinnamon, GNOME, Budgie, and LXDE.
Hyprland on my desktop
GNOME on my laptop
Plasma.
When I try Gnome, within a couple minutes I encounter the Save dialog that defaults the cursor to the Search field instead of the Filename field, and the top of my head goes spinning across the room, and I uninstall it.
GNOME. Love the simplicity!
KDE Plasma
It was what came on the steam deck lol
After trying mostly everything, I always come back to my "custom desktop": (openbox + xfce4-panel + thunar + xfce4-terminal + dunst) .. for the last 15 years or so. It doesn't get in the way, is fast AF, it takes very very little ram/cpu (4.5 Mb !!) and it has everything I need (even tiling via keyboard). It's VERY customizable and it does as I tell. No crashes, no weirdeness. It just works. I will probably move to labwc in a future, just because.. wayland. And now I'm about to use it on a steam deck... it's gonna be fun.
TDE. Functional, stays out of my way, but still reasonably full-featured. The development team is dedicated to adding useful features while keeping the original look and feel, so I don't have to go hunting for settings that have inexplicably moved or changed defaults every time I update. It doesn't support Wayland, but I'm Wayland-neutral (that is, I have nothing against it, but I have nothing against X either).
I use Mate. When I first started using a Desktop in addition to terminals, it was with Redhat 6.1, Redhat came with Gnome-2, I got used to it. I didn't like the changes made in Gnome-3, so I switched to Mate which retained, or at least had the option to be configured to look as I was used to it, save for more refined graphics. It also works well remotely so that's another reason I use it as much of my work involves remote acess.
I currently use Gnome on my laptop, but I've toyed with returning to KDE for a while. I used KDE briefly back in the v3 and v4 days felt like it was a bit bloated compared to Gnome v1 and v2. Cinnamon is nice but a bit heavyweight on graphics. I should probably return to XFCE or Mate.
Xfce. Partly because I've used it for a long time, but mostly because it does what I need it to do and little else.
I have an i3 and a hyprland installation.
I like tiling wms but Wayland still has some annoying issues so I like having the more stable i3 installation on my main computer.
Sway on a chromebook with 4gb ram, sway on thinkpad t430, xfce on my gf's laptop, and gnome on my gaming rig that will go soon either cosmic or just sway. For me sway is thewinner. Sway with me... Marimba... Lalala
Edit: also gnome on the kichen pc with touch. Gnome is the only one that works fully on touch.
I use hyprland with KDE as my fall back.
My hyprland config is 95% stable but some apps give me a hard time, so I'll just run them in KDE.
I find KDE just works. With a baby, things need to work more often than not.
KDE Plasma. I like having a familiar start menu and keyboard shortcuts
XFCE, lightweight and has a terminal. 's all i need when i'm not trying out something like xmonad.
I used enlightenment for something like a decade. When Gnome hit the big time I used Gnome because it looked Nice and was very flexible. I went back to Mac and Windows Land for a bit, when I came back I went Gnome again. I just screw around for a day looking and picking plugins and fighting with it to get it exactly how I wanted it. After fighting with one of the older plugins that mustn't doing what I wanted to do I saw somebody mentioned using KDE. I tried KDE and sure enough every single thing I was plugging the hell out of Gnome for was a default setting in KDE. I'm currently running Plasma. I must say that Cinnamon's not bad either.
Anything I need to actually write code on, Gnome, because I'm addicted to mac-style gesture controls, but hate the holier than thou design philosophy Jony Ive bullshit; anything casual, KDE; but I am planning to try out Cosmic on something soon
I settled on Cinnamon after jumping around a bit. I do still like Gnome though even if both are fairly bulky DEs.
Gnome 3 is pretty great
It's hard to go back after Sway/I3 with pywal coloration, when everything is so sluggish in comparison. It's amazing to see gnome and KDE adding like a second to launch/quit of common applications. Tried hyprland, but animations seemed choppy (beefy AMD desktop), has that changed?
Currently, Plasma. But I have ADHD a bit, so I’ve gone back and forth between that and Gnome mostly. I do like Cinnamon and I really want to spend time with Xfce and maybe others just to see what feels most comfortable right now. I’m trying to go for keyboard comfort these days, so we’ll see where I land at some point!
I recently made a new linux install (to replace my constantly breaking, likely due to my own doing Manjaro install). I went with Cinnamon initially, but in order to try out Wayland, I moved to KDE plasma.
I'm on NVidia, with two different resolution screens. Which causes occasional problems. But overall it's fine.
I'm running MATE on my laptop. It gives me what I need (a task bar, space for some instrumentation, the usual desktop functionality, a way to start applications) and nothing that I don't care about (wobbling windows, compiz, stuff like that). My DE is a tool; I use tools that don't get in my way because I have work to do.
I might give COSMIC a try in a few months, I haven't decided yet.
At the moment, my main machine is on KDE because it has very good Wayland support and isn't Gnome. I prefer Cinnamon
My favourite that I use lots of places is Gnome. Love using it. Use it completely stock.
I also use KDE, which is fine, but I don’t much care for it, I always find it to be buggy and unreliable. Could well be pebkac errors, but I’ve seen it across multiple machines over the years. With this said I still use kde on one machine.
I also use sway. Which is a wayland window manager. I find it very good. I’ve heard that hyprland is also good, but I’m not looking to mess with a window manager, I just like it to be simple, so I’ve not really tried it.
COSMIC. I was using Hyprland before but I wanted to try the alpha. I found it stable enough for my use-case so I stuck with it
Gnome.
With NoMachine to my Windows Host, hot keys go to the host as intended.
Rustdesk can't do it in any config and they don't care at this stage.
Plasma, but I'll be moving to cosmic as soon as it enables auto power off of monitors on idle
I'm old, I come from old X11R4 time, motif, mwm, twm, fvwm, things from previous century. In modern Linux I used mostly gnome, and Cinnamon for a few years and tried to love it but cannot, I finally went back to Xfce because it works, it's simple, neat, nice, I have no icon on my desktop, I have a kind of windows 3 setup: a startup menu (and some quick launches), the window bar, the notification area with time etc
I'm using MX Linux for maybe 8 years now with Xfce
updated screenshot:
Gnome on laptop, KDE on desktop. I go back and forth with those DEs.
KDE Plasma because it's the one I like. If it disappeared tomorrow, I'd use Xfce.
