I’m relatively new to the linux space, I was introduced by the steam deck which uses kde, and it’s pretty similar to windows in terms of how it works so that’s the DE i’d be leaning towards when I eventually switch. I’ve never used gnome so i’m not sure if it’d be worth using I guess?
So I’m just looking for some input from the community, do you use Gnome or Plasma, why do you use it, and what’s kind of like a pros and cons kinda thing between the two?
KDE Plasma. GNOME is nice but I like the customizability and the features of KDE Plasma.
Gnome is Snow Leopard OSX basically in attitude and experience, do NOT try to customize anything, go limp and do the experience. KDE is Windows 98, full of fun customizations, but unpolished in odd ways no matter what you do. Choose your fighter!
KDE is Windows 98, full of fun customizations, but unpolished in odd ways no matter what you do.
Absolutely perfect. And part of why I’ve grown to love it.
I agree, but I got hooked on Apple gestures from work. I’m like a cop who had to go undercover and got hooked on speed to operate
Uhm, what? Gnome is all about customization lol Mine looks more like windows than it does mac
Enjoy 1/3rd of those customizations breaking if you ever upgrade.
Been through two sofar and its been fine ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Sweet summer child…
You can customize Gnome quite a lot if you want it just requires a bit of knowledge.
but only until the next update, which will probably break half your extensions, because they are entirely unsupported and uncared for bythe gnometeam
You have spoken the actual truth
I had about 16 extensions before the last update. After I updated 2 of them became unsupported which 1 of them is already supported again if I am not mistaken. It depends on what extensions you use of course.
I’m still waiting for Gnome’s titlebar hiding on fullscreen extension to work again on Fedora 41 Gnome. As an enlightened individual where Gnome is good, tell me how to hide it again since I am dumb and you are smart.
You could use dash to panel extension, in the settings move the bar to the top, reorganize it as you wish (you should be able to make it look practically indentical to the original panel), make it thinner and turn on autohide. Even though I have some bad experience with the dash to panel authide feature and know this is a half baked solution. See if it works for you.
XFCE fan here.
Agreed, especially if the point is to breathe life into old hardware.
It’s great for machines you’ll be using via VNC a lot, too.
I would agree but it still heavily relies/requires X11 for many of the core components and apps. Wayland support on the horizon. For now though I wouldn’t recommend anyone use any DE that doesnt support Wayland, since X.Org is has been unmaintained for many years, it is a bloated protocol, and is insecure by design. This is because it was designed 40+ years ago in a time before security was a big concern to developers.
Unmaintained? Can you clarify on that?
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I like Plasma. It feels very modern and has an easy interface with lots of customization if wanted. It also supports Wayland and lots of HDR features. Overall it’s a cutting edge DE
I haven’t been following the HDR news on Wayland lately, does this work across all Wayland compositors or just Plasma?
KDE… Mostly sane defaults out of the box and tons of customization options if there’s anything you dont like.
Kde. I’d love to be able to give some erudite examples of why.
Alas, the default is clean and works for me. It stays out of the way.
Gnome is my choice because it doesn’t look and feel like it was designed in 2015. I also much prefer the workflow with the touchpad gestures. I used to have extensions but since I reset my PC and didn’t install any apart from the one that shows my cpu temperature in the top bar.
Touchpad cringe
KDE.
As a former Windows user myself, I find it to behave pretty much like how I’d expect, albeit some differences in details.
I use and love both. KDE (Bazzite) on my desktop gaming PC, and Gnome (Bluefin) on my laptop for casual stuff, mostly YouTube.
KDE is a bit better for gaming since it has HDR and VRR and is the standard DE on the Steam Deck. I tried Gnome too just a few days ago, but it felt inferior in regards of gaming and content creation.
Gnome on the other hand has a place reserved on my laptop aswell as in my heart. Especially the ultra smooth and well thought out touch gestures and minimalist UI makes it perfect for laptop usage.
For me personally, I prefer Gnome over KDE. KDE is a bit more capable, but it overwhelms me sometimes. Gnome has a better concept and workflow for me. You either love or hate it, I do the first.
KDE Plasma. It makes sense to me and everything functions more or less how I prefer it to. If I need something, it’s usually easy enough to find. Plasma being flexible is a plus, but I rarely need to do any modifications.
I loathe GNOME. Any time I use it it’s like pulling teeth. On a touch surface I can maybe get it, but on desktop I honestly think it has some serious usability problems cooked in. And since GNOME extensions can break at any time, trying to “fix” GNOME is a losing battle. If I had to use GNOME, I’d install GNOME Classic which is ok. Or better yet, use XFCE or MATE. GNOME is highly opinionated and that’s fair enough, they can do their thing and people seem to like what they offer, but boy is it not for me.
Neither, XFCE.
I use KDE. It’s very powerful and flexible. While it can be windows like, you an also craft pretty much any GUI you like with it with relative ease. It can be Mac like or something unique, or even Gnome like if you really want that.
It’s also intuitive and user friendly, with well made apps and a comprehensive settings menu.
I’ve found KDE to be reliable and stable, as well as attractive and customisable.
There are a lot of apps made for it - the only downside is software bloat if you install all of them. I’d start with the basics KDE desktop and add apps one by one rather than install the whole KDE app suite. Although the apps are usually excellent lots of the apps may not be useful to you personally . For example I don’t like installing the PIM suite (email, contacts etc) as I don’t use it - all that is online for me so I don’t need the native apps.
I’m personally not a fan of Gnome. It’s got a single rigid GUI philosophy which you can now expand with extensions but I find they can be hit and miss on whether they work or are stable, and time consuming to set up how you want.
So for gnome you either like it as is or you don’t, and if you dont like it then honestly I’d say don’t bother trying to make it be what you want - just use something more flexible.
But regardless of what desktop you use, Apps will work on either or any of the others available.
I used KDE Plasma for a long time ever since I started daily-driving Linux.
I like how KDE Plasma allows quite a surprising amount of customization. I also had some experience with Gnome via Ubuntu, and XFCE. Gnome looks polished, but doesn’t allow for much customization. XFCE is a lot more customizable than Gnome, but getting it to look quite right took a lot of effort.
Does XFCE today look any less late 90s than when I tried it 10 years ago?
Can’t really remember much of how it looked out of the box, since I proceeded to customize it quite heavily. However, though my memory is fuzzy, I remember it looking like a combination of Windows XP and mid 2010’s Ubuntu.
Checking with the xfce website, they have this screenshot of one of their latest versions:
KDE for best fully integrated, out of box, modern DE.
XFCE + Compiz if you’re running on lower end hardware (uses less ram and utilizes gpu better). Also if you want even more customization than KDE with the drawback of limited SVG support (and still on X11 if that matters for you)
GNOME if you hate yourself and want to use a knockoff of ChromeOS or Mac.
Cinnamon and MATE if you want to see when GNOME used to be good.
LXQt is the XFCE equivalent of KDE, but is now on wayland with GPU accel, so it can fit the same area as XFCE+Compiz.
Wayfire (compositor) basically Compiz for Wayland if you want all the fancy effects on anything that uses wayland.
Why no love for XFCE ?
Xfce and Debian is the best combination. Stable, lightweight. Overall pretty good.
Then Try MX-Linux
Nah I’m more into the main distros, they tend to have better support. Debian, Fedora are my main OSs, with Debian being what I use with old hardware that I still want to use on a daily basis, and Fedora for anything that’s new and might require a more up to date kernel.
I didn’t know it existed till making this post, as someone that’s new those are just the only two I hear about.
