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.
after changing animation speed in KDE i have never managed to get back to gnome, holy cow does my computer feels responsive
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!
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…
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
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
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.
You have spoken the actual truth
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?
X.Org server has been largely abandoned by maintainers and developers.
Here are some links:
https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/30/x_server_lead_maintainer_declares
https://www.phoronix.com/news/XServer-Abandonware
https://www.osnews.com/story/132507/its-time-to-admit-it-the-x-org-server-is-abandonware/deleted by creator
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?
I don’t know the details but my understanding is Plasma has a more developed HDR system than other DEs
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.
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.
I agree. I want the DE to be opinionated and lean toward heavily opinionated software in general.
Touchpad cringe
KDE… Mostly sane defaults out of the box and tons of customization options if there’s anything you dont like.
I use GNOME. KDE is nice in that it allows you to customize everything, but if I want that degree of control I’d rather use a fully customized window manager setup (sway is generally my go-to).
GNOME is also designed to be used in a keyboard-centric workflow, which I prefer. It’s a nice comfy default for when I want the option to use my computer “lazily”, i.e. just kicking back mostly using the mouse to browse the web, but still has enough power-user functionality to make zipping around without touching the mouse feel good.
I also just like their defaults a lot. If you start to install a bunch of third party extensions etc it starts to get messy and degrade the point of the whole unified vision, and at that point you’re better off with KDE IMO.
It’s also worth noting that I don’t really like the default Mac OS UX – while I can see why people say “KDE is like Windows, GNOME is like Mac,” it’s really only a surface level comparison that mostly ends at “KDE uses a taskbar and GNOME has a dock”.
Gnome is so much more different, the closest comparison would be android but android is frankly a downgrade of gnome for me with how slow and clunky it is even with touch controls funnily enough
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.
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.
As a former Windows user myself, I find it to behave pretty much like how I’d expect, albeit some differences in details.
KDE.
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.
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.
GNOME on desktop is built for keyboard-centric workflows, it really shines when you don’t need to use the mouse. I’ll also say that the official extensions do not break, that’s why they’re official. Third party extensions can and do break and have weird wonky behavior, because they’re not up to the same standards.
It’s certainly not for everyone, but a big part of the reason some people have such negative views of it is because they install a bunch of third party extensions to change it into something it was never designed for, and then inevitably there are bugs or conflicts or updates break some of them. A vanilla GNOME environment with maybe a couple judiciously picked third party extensions is a very comfy experience.
I used KDE for about 10 years, but switched to GNOME when 3 came out and haven’t looked back. It’s a little unusual if you’re coming from Windows, but I’ve found that once I let go of old paradigms like a start bar and icons and embraced multiple workspaces, that GNOME is pretty damned amazing.
