I've been using Fedora for a couple of months now, and have been loving it. Very soon after I jumped into this community (among other Linux communities) and started laughing at all the people saying "KDE rules, GNOME drools," and "GNOME is better, KDE is for babies." But then I thought, "Why not give KDE a try? The worst that happens is I go back to using GNOME."
Now I get it. The level of customization is incredible, it's way faster than GNOME, and looks beautiful too. At this point, I'm not going back.
I'll happily contribute to the playground fight over desktop environments. KDE rules, GNOME drools.
I essentially did the same. Used GNOME for almost 10 years, then got my first try of KDE last year and don't plan on going back either. GNOME has some really good points, I wouldn't have used it so long if it didn't, but I can actually use an honest to goodness theme on my desktop and customize without having extensions break on every update. Also, the UI in GTK is just too big and chunky for me, it's like every window is designed for tablets or something. I don't need a title bar that's practically an entire inch tall. If you like GNOME, awesome, I will likely never say GNOME is bad, but I'm a KDE guy now.
EDIT: apparently I need to specify that the "entire inch tall" comment is exaggeration, because internet. My point being that GNOME's UI is too big for my tastes.
Yeeees, GTK looks awesome but I just cant see how apps like Plasma systemsessings, qBittorrent etc using Qt could work like that.
Gimp 3 alpha is pretty crazy, as GTK2 was very nice and usable, but already with GTK3 everything got huge, so now the buttons dont fit as well anymore.
Also I have to say GNOME would have some big issues for me.
I dont want a top panel on a laptop, as it makes me look down more
docks are weird as they waste screen space. Why not use a normal panel, everything there, at the bottom or side?
not seeing all my open apps is weird, also not being able to open or close from the panel is weird
I and I guess 99% of Desktop users dont need virtual Desktops. As they dont change the panel and more, I dont even use Workspaces on Plasma
thus, normal window decorations are necessary
hitboxes need to be in the upper corner and not some padded thing in the center. Every decoration failing this (looking at you Firefox & Thunderbird) just sucks
UIs need to be compact when needed. Not everyone is a child and settings are not that simple.
Gnome has some nice apps like Loupe that are actually more secure. And it probably is way more stable. But KDE apps are so great, at least for usability! Could not live without Dolphin for example
Gimp 3 alpha is pretty crazy, as GTK2 was very nice and usable, but already with GTK3 everything got huge, so now the buttons dont fit as well anymore.
not seeing all my open apps is weird, also not being able to open or close from the panel is weird
The extensions that enable this are so simple too. Its a real shame its not built into the settings out of the box, even if they want that to be the default. I wish they made extensions more discoverable too, since you kinda need to know they exist in order to go get them, and easier discoverability would help people solve tbose problems faster.
UIs need to be compact when needed. Not everyone is a child and settings are not that simple.
I really wish these things were built in settings. Thunderbird Supernova's setting for this is a fantastic example of how much of a difference it makes. Yeah, it's a bit spacious by default. But once you drop the spacing to medium or small based on your needs and dpi, it feels great. Opinionated design done well makes for great consistency and feel, but it also needs to have some room for adjustments without needing to install stuff.
Agree, if they had the flatpak extensionmanager installed by default that would be cool. But dash to panel is still much worse, way less tray icons fit there, the app menu may be inconsistent.
Also I have to say that the complete lack of .desktop entry modification makes distinguishing flatpaks from native apps, or creating entries with slightly changed parameters, appending arguments like "force X11" etc. very hard.
Nautilus may be solid but it lacks so many features and I still dont know how to deal with it. If you know how to add a real "delete" entry that would be great.
I also think the traditional decorations extension is gone? But I dont know.
Didnt know you could change the UI density, thats cool.
Gnome is great because of the large UI size. Like my 14" notebook has a roughly 2800x1600 screen resolution and it's still pretty usable without any UI scaling. If the bars are an inch tall, you're either using a huge TV or a screen from the garbage dump. Gnome really needs a modern system.