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Cinnamon is so nice. It’s what got me into Linux Mint 14.1 back when that came out.
After 20 years of casual distro-hopping with windows as my main, I finally landed on Mint Cinnamon about one year ago, gave up windows completely and haven’t looked back :)
KDE.
Back when everyone was failing horribly trying to come up with a new desktop that nobody wanted KDE was the only one to get it right.
Instead of trying to shovel some bullshit “next generation” interface down your throat they decided to make all of the interface parts modular.
If you want traditional start menu you can have it, want Mac style dock got that covered, want a touch/table type interface it’s in there. If you can’t make up your mind you can setup activities to flip back and forth.
KDE. I used to use Gnome but switched over to KDE a few years ago.
GNOME. Been using Linux since before GNOME Shell was a thing and when it became a thing it just clicked for me. In my opinion, it’s by far the most polished DE and provides the most elegant and intuitive launcher and workspace switcher of any DE or OS I’ve used. At least they did, until they fucked it up by moving from vertical to horizontal workspaces and made the workspace previews so small you can no longer see what’s in them.
Which is the downside of GNOME. Sometimes their developers are their own worst enemies. Fortunately, there are usually extensions to fix the most egregious “enhancements”.
GNOME. I love the ecosystem of apps and the great design and simplicity, even if I sacrifice customization and features.
GNOME is designers trying to develop a DE
KDE is developers trying to design a DE.
I like to say that GNOME is a consumer DE, while KDE is a hobbyist DE. I let my wife use GNOME cause of simplicity, but I use KDE Plasma for my desktops.
Lack of customization is a feature for me. I waste too much time fiddling with configuration otherwise trying to get everything set up how I want. Gnome is ready to go out of the box.
KDE Plasma
had to scroll way too much…
Gnome without extensions. It gets out of the way and let’s me work. Whenever I have to use something else, it feels like going backwards in time. I used to love tinkering with my system and tried a lot of DE’s back in the days. Don’t have the time for that anymore.
I did have to adjust though. I think that a lot of the hate gnome gets is because of this. If you espect it to work like a traditional desktop you’re going to get frustrated and install too many extensions to make it like one. My advise would be to set aside your presumptions and try it like it’s meant to be used. You might be surprised, I know I was…
A while ago I found this video, which explains it in more detail.
I love how minimal and clean Gnome is, I use couple extensions like Blur My Shell, User Themes and couple to show temps and wireless mouse battery. And the search is fast and definitely the best way to open apps or files
KDE
Qtile. Full DEs are for rich people.
Qtile is great, finally put an end to my WM hopping (at least until I try out Wayland maybe)
Kde
For a while I used tiling window managers, no DE really, but for the past year or so I’ve been using KDE and really enjoying it again.
GNOME 44 with a couple extensions. I’m a big fan of its general look and feel
Sway and I love it. A bit of a hassle to configure but once it’s set up how I like it’s then it’s great! I tried hyprland for a bit and it was super shiny but I just haven’t had the time to tweak.
XFCE. I love how lightweight it is.
GNOME. It doesn’t let customization get in the way of me using it, but everything I actually need to change has an extension to do that, even on my Surface.
