Who needs stable, feature-rich desktops anyway

It's hard to believe that KDE used to be considered one of the worst DEs around and now it's like Gnome is getting worse while KDE is getting better and better.

I’ve found GNOME a pleasure to use. From my experience many folks that use Linux like to tinker with their computers. Even those new to Linux see a world of possibilities. GNOME doesn’t really embrace this tinkerer philosophy. They have an opinion on what at desktop manager should be and they’re constantly working towards that vision.

When I introduce GNOME to new people I explain to them some the project goals, design elements and how it’s intended to be used. Then I tell them that GNOME is opinionated on how things should behave and look, and if you try to force GNOME to be something it’s not you’ll probably end up using poorly documented or unsupported third-party extensions that break things. Generally the advice is, GNOME is great, but not for everyone, take the time to learn the GNOME way of doing things and if you don’t like it you're better off switching to another desktop environment than trying to change GNOME.

I agree with the general sentiment, though KDE’s apps do have some real performance issues.

Dolphin sometimes takes 2-5 seconds to open on my gaming PC, whereas Nautilus (Gnome Files) is usually done before I’ve even let go of the click.

Maybe that’s just preloading, but it makes a bloody enormous difference in everyday usage.

I prefer Plasma overall, though.

It’s wild what an impact organizational politics can have on a codebase

xfce rules

UX wise, GNOME is oversimplified and Plasma is overcomplicated.

I just realized that this desktop environment debate has slowed down a lot these last few years. I reckon it's about time we heat it back up. I'll get the popcorn!

Both KDE and GNOME are good when you compare it to anything Windows have today.

I personally prefer KDE because of much customization support. I have it working with many keyboard shortcuts. I would miss the settings panel in hyperland.

GNOME is simple and elegant. Showing only what is needed. I can really understand people liking it. I like but just miss some small details like the keyboard shortcuts thing and focusing etc. How GNOME works is different mindset which O just have not learned. But GNOME looks good and have everything covered.

Xfc and lxd just need some more love from the developers. There are very few of them so I completely understand. Money issue.

Use whatever floats your boat

I use Gnome because it works for me

Eh, Gnome is fine. I like KDE, but I'd rather use my PC for the stuff I want to use it for rather than obsessively change some stuff so it looks better only to change it the next time I boot it again.

KDE is objectively the better DE from a technical standpoint (in my objective opinion) but sometimes GNOME just feels right in the moment. I have both installed and switch between them all the time

I mostly neutral on KDE vs Gnome thing, but after I got into theming my computer more I started to hate how Gnome handle its theming capability (confusing, messy, if I fix one thing something else break) while on KDE it has menus dedicated to colors scheme and general looks and feel

No love for GNOME these days smh

Nah both Gnome and KDE are incredible and I say that as someone whos been using Linux since early 00s

KDE has almost perfect fractional scaling, that was the real chadfeature for me.

"i have painted myself as the chad and you as the virgin"

I have one PC on gnome and another on kde. I like them both for what they are. I lean towards gnome though. Looks nice, feels nice. I don't find myself needing more functionality than what is there. I tried mimicing gnome in kde, for fun. Didn't quite get there. I appreciate simplicity where possible.

Maybe I’m biased because gnome is stock fedora but it runs so smoothly and I love how the windows button and search feature works out of the box. I know that can be setup in KDE though. I love how it feels unique unlike KDE and most other DE that just feel like bad windows. I love that it doesn’t have dumbass names like KDE adding k to everything. Also feel it just works.

Every time I’ve added KDE there’s also a bunch of stupid minor things that just down make sense. Why do so many applications lose the ability to use the right click menu like in jdownloader? Why do windowed games get pushed so vertical low? Why does search recommend things I clearly didn’t ask for? Moving windows with the arrow keys is icky and not smooth. Blowing them up with windows W like gnome’s windows key just looks bad. I want to love it but it just feels like a FOSS windows.

Whenever I try KDE there are a many minor bugs that are super annoying. Last time it just switched main and secondary monitor so my main one was a weird mix of both. I really wanna like KDE but since I switched to Wayland it always feels like something weird is going on.

I've tried KDE on both Debian and Fedora. Neither have allowed me to do what I want to do: add a secondary storage device to my steam library. Whenever I try to, it just pops up a separate Dolphin window that doesn't affect steam once a folder is selected (almost like it's a separate process and not a child process of Steam).

The flatpak works, but 1. Ew; 2. It runs steam on Xwayland; 3. Being a debian nerd, I want to be as much of a <default package manager> purist as possible to make life easier down the road

I'll switch once this is fixed, but I just gotta stick with Gnome until it is

I am really glad both exist. Gnome is awesome because of its simplicity and ease of use and KDE is really cool because it makes me feel like a superior human being

As a Gentoo user, I can say that qtbase is probably the one piece of software that caused me the most failed emerges due to some conflict of python packages.

Where is TempleOS when you need it, huh?

I think both have their use cases. Gnome is absolutely fantastic, if you use it on a laptop with a touch screen (for university, school, etc), but on desktop I dont really like it that much. I like the simple design, but KDEs customisability is much better. However, their virtual desktops are kinda ass, but I dont really use them on my desktop PC anyways.

Gnome devs have a clear vision of what Gnome is supposed to be:
simplistic, designed for touchpad and keyboard, not mousy-clicky, and staying out of your way.

People install it, miss stuff they are used to from traditional desktops like Windows or Plasma, and bolt that back on using extensions from third parties.
They install those extensions from a different source than Gnome itself (Gnome from their distro repos, extensions from the website).

And then they complain when those third party add-ons from a different source aren't perfectly integrated or in sync after an update.

And blame the Gnome devs.

I dont understand why so many people are saying KDE is so much better than GNOME.
GNOME is by far my favorite DE
When leaving windows, i didnt want my computer to be almost the same, with a couple extra settings and different icons. GNOME does something different, and something i like

Honestly I can't imagine why anyone would use either of these when there are lightweight DEs like XFCE and Cinnamon that are not only easier on the system resources, but also more stable, customizeable, user-friendly and more pleasant to look at. I stopped taking gnome seriously ever since they came up with GTK3. They had a chance to fix it with GTK4 but instead they somehow made it even worse (as if client-side decorations wasn't bad enough, now theyre doing clientside shadows? Seriously!?!?). KDE is allegedly better because it gives the user more options, but anyone who's actually used it will tell you that it suffers from the same kind of bloat and braindead design decisions as gnome.

I wish KDE worked well on Touch screens. It seems to really fail at that. Don't tell me it's X11. X11 on Gnome doesn't think my touches are a mouse. KDE thinks it is though.

Gnome was the main obstacle in Wayland adoption, by not implementing "server-side decorations".

I install Fedora Workstation and change nothing. I'm pretty happy with GNOME in that case. KDE has been too fiddley for me the last few times I tried it. It's there a distro that has a default KDE setup that feels minimal and out of the way?

afaik KDE still doesn't have any tolerable way to tile windows on wayland

if i need to open a menu to set up zones you are doing it wrong. if i have to pick from premade layouts you are doing it wrong. pop shell on gnome would be perfect if it wasn't married to gnome and slowly rotting over time: i can pick up a window, drag it to where i want to put it in the binary tiling tree, and it goes there.

Meanwhile openbox: black screen

I like a BeOS style vertical taskbar with window names. Neither of them do it well.