XFCE, tried cinnamon a couple times it was okay but I just prefer the simplicity and stability of xfce
Seems like I'm the outlier here that prefers Gnome over KDE. Gnome feels more polished than KDE for me. Granted KDE comes with more features out of the box, but I don't find anything lacking in Gnome for me.
Tried KDE long time ago to compare it to Gnome 3, went back to Gnome. Tried KDE again a few months ago to compare to Gnome 42, came back to Gnome again.
I also can't stand having all my programs' name starting with K.
GNOME, for sure. It works out of the box, and it's kind of pretty out of the box.
I also tried it on a touch screen PX and it works surprisingly well.
Vanilla Gnome. It's simple/boring, and I like that. It seems like most people that like Gnome don't care that it's not a poweruser DE, and aren't excited to talk about it either.
I use gnome, but it's basically the worst DE, except all of the other ones that have been tried
It has the least features, so by default the least bugs.
I'm a simple person. I see KDE, I upvote.
Default GNOME (Wayland), it just works
KDE forever!
i3. I mean, it's fast, customizable, and you can make it look good. That's all i need.
Absolutely KDE Plasma.
KDE is love, KDE is life
I've been using Cinnamon for years. It's stable, fairly lightweight, and pleasing to the eye.
Love me some Cinnamon. Specifically what comes out of default Linux Mint. It isn't trying to do more than it already is. As cool as tech is I wish I didn't need to care about Wayland or X11. I just want it to launch applications, feel like the windows I used as a kid, and stay out of my way. Cinnamon does this all for me. And since freaking high school mint has been there trying to do that.
KDE Plasma on desktop
Cinnamon on (older lower spec) laptop
Gnome with pop_os tiling window manager
I like Gnome with Pop OS's tiling
i3 / Sway with Albert or dmenu or rofi
I just love keeping my hands on the keyboard
Gotta be KDE for a full featured DE.
But using Sway for now.
Xfce, i just like it.
No DE just DWM
Cinnamon is the best
GNOME, with a little bit of extension customisability!
Cinnamon. Stupidly simple and elegant looking.
For aesthetics: Budgie, with Cinnamon a close second For simplicity and speed: XFCE
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Sway or GNOME (Wayland) with Pop shell extension.
XFCE and/or AwesomeWM
I am enjoying GNOME at the moment. But I think I may switch to Cosmic DE when that gets released.
Hyprland ftw!
It's between XFCE for it's simplicity and KDE for it's Wayland support for me
Pop! _OS's Cosmic Version of GNOME (regular GNOME kinda stinks) but KDE is also pretty great. Can't wait for COSMIC DE. I'm sure that one will rock itself up to the number 1 spot really quickly.
Sway and dmenu when in a keyboard productivity sorta mood, KDE otherwise.
Vanilla Gnome
KDE
I used to only use KDE or KDE plasma with i3 but after using fedora I've fallen hard for Gnome and the design philosophy of the project.
I've got used to XFCE.
i use i3 + kde its really cool
Although I use sway, I used KDE for a long time and XFCE prior. They're both phenomenal. I'd love to see XFCE make its way to wayland in the future.
As an aside, I feel like Wayland has a market ripe for the introduction of lightweight DEs. Sure, it has the very lightweight (hyprland, sway, river, dwl) and heavyweight (KDE, Gnome) but nothing between like XFCE, LXDE or MATE
Budgie is cool
Xfce overall, but I like MATE a lot as well. Just give me a traditional desktop experience, I don't need mobile-like options on a desktop.
I actually switched to MATE primarily because I like its suite of software a bit more (calculator, file manager, file archiver) than Xfce's, though I use some of MATE's stuff (Caja mainly) on Xfce on my laptop.
KDE - using it with Manjaro now, but also used it on Mint before that.
Xfce, Gnome or just a WM like Sway.
I like Gnome. It is very usable out of the box and requires the least amount of work to get it to my liking. I am current running pop_os' cosmic version of gnome though I also enjoyed vanilla-ish(that is with 2-3 extensions) version of gnome with fedora. If only mutter starts officially supporting vrr when using wayland
@fugepe I can live with KDE, Cinnamon, Xfce, Gnome, Lxqt., Mate... I am using KDE right now but I like Xfce more than others...
KDE + Latte dock is what I use. Very simple and minimalistic setup with no widgets.
Not a DE but AwesomeWM. I like its default aesthetic and it's highly extensible using Lua which gives a lot of power to the user.
I'm not huge into customising desktop environments, so when I've tried window managers like i3, I typically only get it functional to my likings and then realise how boring I am compared to how others use it.
So typically I use gnome or kde, but I like cinnamon and xfce as well. I don't really have a favourite, they're all good. At the minute I am trying to adopt wayland and have been using gnome while I do that.
Kde because it has a really useful and functional out of the box tools, being dolphin and connect the most useful ones for me.
Never had an issue since last year, but yeah, was buggy as hell.
Mate if I want more juice from a not so good pc, and xfce for the low end ones.
I keep wanting to try out vanillaOS and everytime I liveboot it, I immediately regret my decision. I cannot stand Gnome.
I love KDE, I love it for how versatile, intuitive and customizable it is.
Bot to mention, I rarely experience any bugs. It just works.I have been using cinnamon for many years. For the last 2 y it is xfce for me.
Simple, reliable and stable, low in resources, does the work well.
Pop_OS underneath with Regolith (basically a pre-configured i3) on top.
I have a hard time recommending it, but I ran Deepin on Arch a few years and was blown away by it. There were some weird limitations to how much you can customize, and I prefer window managers in general, so I eventually stopped using it. But that was the best time I had with a DE in Linux overall.
The best I can actually recommend is KDE.
My very first WM was Blackbox, back in 2000, and I imprinted on it like a baby duck, so today I still mostly use Fluxbox. It's abandoned and unmaintained, but still works (for now). It's very minimalist and lightweight. When it finally dies completely I guess I'll finally learn how to use a tiling WM.
(I use Gnome on a laptop with a HiDPI screen, because that was too annoying to configure correctly on Fluxbox. It's... fine. I added a bunch of customisations and it mostly stays out of my way, which is what I want in an environment.)
No matter what WM/DE I use, I always add a dropdown / "quakelike" terminal application -- I previously used Yakuake, but switched to Guake. It uses a hotkey to show / hide a terminal (and you can use multiple tabs, and multiplexers inside the tabs). I can't live without this, and I highly recommend it if you often find yourself hunting around for your terminal window.
I'm super torn on desktop environments. There simply are too many great choices! I like XFCE, KDE Plasma and the most recent Gnome versions - for different reasons. KDE is the perfect choice when you want the full shiny, modern, bling desktop and if you love to customize it in all kinds of ways that are possible out of the box. When I spend time with KDE, over the course of weeks, I keep constantly changing my wallpapers, themes, cursors, icons, colors, etc. - just for the sake of variety. With KDE, the desktop never gets boring.
BUT... I also love minimalism (to a tasteful, practical extent) and classic retro computing, as well as efficiency. That's why XFCE is very comfy to me. It only has the features you need, but still to the extent of a nice and fully featured desktop environment. Doesn't eat too many system resources, still can look very pretty with themes, does what it's supposed to. Very stable, too. There are times when KDE just feels cluttered and ... too much for me, then I retreat to XFCE.
I'm running Fedora Silverblue for quite a while now and although I always had my gripes about modern Gnome... after using it for a while, it really grew on me. Since version 42, modern Gnome really is going the right direction. It's nicely clean and readable, modern, performant, and once you get used to it, its different approach to the workflow really makes sense. The apps are lovely, they do one thing and do it well, and they're beautifully integrated in the same design language. There's a wonderful collection of apps called Gnome Circle, these are not developed directly by the Gnome team, but endorsed by them, as they're useful and integrate perfectly into the UI design language. There's some amazing tools in there! It all feels very unified, and with the Blur-my-shell extension, you don't need much else for a pretty look. The only downside is that this clean look sometimes is achieved by cutting poweruser features, which can be frustrating when you bump into something you need to do, but the UI doesn't account for. For example, I have multiple bluetooth adapters in this PC and can't select which one to use. Still, great desktop.
@fugepe Gnome
Been a gnome guy for the past ~13 years with a bit of unity thrown in back when it was relevant! I've tried to love KDE repeatedly over the years but it's never quite clicked with me - the customisation is great, but using it just feels kinda wrong personally!
Enlightenment
For me efficiency and less eye strain is important. I want my eyes to be at the center of the screen for the majority of my session. Gnome is my goto for that reason but any tiling windows manager would do as welll.
KDE and the windows start bar lookalikes constantly have your eyes going to the corner or sides to open and find apps.
I'm a Gnome user, with a few extensions but mostly vanilla.
Kde for the win!
xfce
I usually use WindowMaker or FVWM but as a desktop environment... CDE
Xfce, didn't try KDE yet, using gnome currently.
I personally like Mate, especially with i3 as the window manager.
xfce if i had to run a desktop environment, but i usually stick with dwm and haven't got around to trying wayland yet
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River, not a DE but close enough. I could configure it in fennel without much problem.
Hyprland + bemenu. Minimalistic, very little overhead, but still a pretty boi.
XFCE, while it doesn't have all the fancy animations and such it is incredibly customizable while still being super light weight.
@fugepe Wow, not a lot of replies are saying Gnome, but there's a lot more XFCE than I thought I'd see
I've been using QTile for probably a year now. It's not perfect, but I like the tiled windowing and I know python.
Um....none.
FVWM.
is anyone used herbsluftwm for low powered CPU here?
@fugepe I use Ubuntu but, is KDE easy to pick up? Just getting into Linux my self.
Vanilla Gnome Shell. I know it's heresy, but I've been using it since beta and I actually enjoy the work flow.
i3 counts, right? I have always been a keyboard oriented user and a big part of what drove me from Windows is them breaking or changing the hotkeys I used regularly. To me it is the perfect "you have control, this is your device, it works and looks how you want." wm
I've used gnome for years, about a month ago I decided to give KDE a try on my old spare laptop. Two days later it was on my desktop and work laptop. I am loving KDE.
I am on pop is for my home desktop. I like the built in tiling manager. Ubuntu for work. Might give nix or kde a go next.
Mine is a combination of Sway + i3bar. Stick with it since I downlosded Pop!_OS
EXWM (Emacs X windows manager)
all it lacks is a good editor
(j/k, I've settled on Cosmic on Pop for the last few years, and now I'm so lazy, I barely update it)
kde
I cannot but mention xmonad wm with my own configurations
barless dwl, love the simplicity
Debian/KDE
I really like KDE, but I’ve been daily driving Gnome since version 40. Insanely polished and I really like the workflow of everything. I do wish they were faster in implementing stuff like VRR though.
Xfce on work desktop, gnome works well with gestures at home on my laptop. Will be changing to kde when I get a new machine at work!
A while back I was into KDE Plasma but for whatever reason had this bug that would cause my system to run at 100 percent at all times. When I looked into it, many stated it was a bug that related to how kde searches for stuff on the system. Dont remember much else but that had me look elsewhere.
Been on gnome for awhile now and havent had any issues.
bspwm + sxhkd, for years. Based on the Manjaro config at first, today it's my own setup. Even convinced may family. The best!
dwm, I got too much used to "it just works" and never ever breaks afrer an update.
KDE if I have performance to spare. XFCE if I am running this in a container on my phone.
For me it was Enlightenment DR16 (discontinued). you could make themes with shaped borders (transparent regions, buttons and titles anywhere, even overlapping into the window a bit), have it remember window positions, change border style for a window (e.g. drawer, so it can be collapsed sideways) and it would not steal focus. it had really good effects and features. I miss it a lot in Wayland. Check the web for some screenshots, if you want to be inspired.
TDE (for those who haven't encountered it before, the Trinity Desktop Environment forked from KDE3 more than a decade ago). It might not be the flashiest or the newest, but it has a decent selection of features and applications, and presents a traditional desktop environment whose interface doesn't get changed for the sake of change. In other words, it stays out of the way and lets me get things done.
(If I'd liked Gnome 2 better than KDE 3 rather than vice-versa, I probably would have gone for MATE instead.)
i3 on my laptop, gnome on my gaming rig (cuz wayland)
@fugepe XFCE is the best in my opinion. It's lightweight, full customizable & easy to set up....
@fugepe I use a mostly vanilla Gnome, with the exception of the Blur My Shell and Vitals extensions
