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?
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.
had no idea you could use it on not a deck!
Plasma for the last decade. Then probably XFCE, then Cinnamon.
I try Gnome every year or so, but every time I get pissed off with it within a few minutes and wipe it off my machine.
KDE for sure. The modern versions look exactly like how I want a desktop environment to look out of the box, and they keep the full range of customizability that a desktop should, IMO, allow it’s users to have. Which is something Windows just kept slowly getting rid of over the years.
I also prefer to have a taskbar that is ever present with a traditional start menu that’s cleanly organized by category rather than the current full screen pop up “activities” search thing gnome does nowadays.
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.
Cinnamon’s been working well for me; I’d choose that, and I don’t mind waiting till my laptop breaks to reassess what DE I want!
KDE
If it has to be a de, I’d pick gnome. Otherwise it’s hyprland.
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.
I keep coming back to KDE time and time again. It’s so easy to mess with, I can set it up exactly how I like it without much effort, and it always looks good because someone else did all the work making themes and widgets I use.
That said, I love XFCE, I’m just trash with CSS so it takes me forever to get it how I like, and on my Surface I can’t get the scaling to work so everything is beyond tiny.
KDE plasma. Coming from 30 years of running exclusively windows it’s just the most comfortable and easy for me to use (way more than Gnome). Easily configurable, works. Can’t ask for more.
I don’t mind a little “change” every now and then, but still – “Sway” on my “potatoes” (Orange pi zero 3 and Orange pi 5 max) and “Hyprland” on my x86_64 PC.
Isn’t sway based on i3? i3 is a WM not a DE. But as sway is not X11, I’m not sure if it’s just a WM
Sway still primarily counts as a WM + Compositor, but considering it has keymaps, autostart, and libinput config mechanisms embedded in it, I would say it borders a desktop environment.
My daily driver is Arch running sway. Would be hard to go back from the simplicity and elegance.
KDE the customization is off the charts
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
TBH, I’ve always wanted to do this.
Bad apple in text may be more impressive than it on the Nintendo.
LXQt or XFCE if I have to pick a DE. Fluxbox or openbox if I can get away with just a WM. ;)
XFCE
