KDE Plasma – It’s pretty, it’s customizable. Workflow is customizable
XFCE – Honestly I consider XFCE to be like Plasma’s sibling, in that its workflow is also very customizable and there is a lot of space for theming, but is lighter and acts nicer on weaker hardware
I tried Gnome and I just hate it? It needs a lot of fennagling to look and act in a way I find enjoyable. Cinnamon is eeeeeeeeehhhhh.
WM-wise, I played with Hyprland and I3WM, but tiling WMs aren’t for me. They just aren’t. For what convenience I gained from being able to use Super+something to do basically everything, I don’t enjoy the workflow.
I also used Wayfire for a bit – Writing my own configuration file and customizing everything IS fun, but like… Nah?
Since we're all here, any chance we can make a small push in the direction of having a standardized "style"/"theme" file that we can plug into the different systems?
XFCE with OpenSuse style is my favorite. Low resource usage, windows-easy ability to put shortcuts all over the desktop (fuck you, Unity), searchbox that just works. I don’t need to spend hours or months customizing the setup for it to work as I want.
Maybe because I used windows first and not Mac, but KDE. Gnome is just opensource Mac DE/WM with the same mentality “we know what’s best for you and you’ll like it”.
KDE. I don’t have to change anything (other than taskbars on all monitors rather than just the main one) for an experience I like. Everything just works. Wayland support is best in class.
I don’t like gnome’s workflow and it takes COSMIC level customization for me to like it. And technical issues are common for me. Namely windows constantly spawning off screen and delayed reactions.
XFCE’s default layout is absolutely horrible and there’s no Wayland support. Mint XFCE’s implementation is good though.
Cinnamon, in my experience, is buggy and has similar technical problems to gnome.
I’ve used i3wm and it’s okay, but I would never use it on my main desktop. Takes a certain kind of workflow.
I’ve messed with AwesomeWM and can say it’s very ok.
LXDE/LXQT are obsolete. Not old school, obsolete. And in the case of QT, there’s absolutely no reason to use it when XFCE has the same ram usage anyway.
–
I haven’t used any other desktops other than these.
I currently use Plasma 6 on both my laptop and my desktop, but XFCE has a special place in my heart, due to it being right in the middle between being lightweight with resources and still staying usable for a buffoon like me.
A DE tries to be a full operating environment, it has panels and configuration tools and (…) all as part of the package
A WM only does window management, and other things need to be added separately. The line blurs a bit since most people who use WMs end up adding a lot of other stuff to them to the point it might as well be a DE, only it was built piecemeal.
None that I know of. Though you can build your own operating environment centered around Hyprland. Their wiki is pretty good and their config files are nice and simple to understand. I did that for a lark a few months back.
… The catch is that, y’know, it’s a whole afternoon spent tinkering to get it right.
From unity to gnome for Wayland support from gnome to KDE because of painful stutterstthough now I use both on wayland, just dep3nding on which syst3m I’m on at th3 time.
Great DEs over all, though in excited to try outt cosmic once I get past some systems projects :)
I’ve ran GNOME for years until this month. Something randomly broke and then on fresh install the dark theme wasn’t working correctly. Switched to KDE and everything looks and works perfectly. Think I’ll hang out here for the foreseeable future.
Add comment