Which distro has the best GUI in your opinion?
Which distro has the best GUI in your opinion?
I've dabbled with Linux over the years, first with Ubuntu in the early 2010s, then Elementary OS when that dropped, and a few years ago I really enjoyed how customizable the gui was with Xubuntu. I was able to make it look just like WIndows 2000 which was really cool.
Which current distro has the best GUI, in your opinion? I find modern Ubuntu to feel a little basic and cheap. I guess I don't really like modern Gnome. I'm currently using Windows 10 LTSC which is probably the best possible version of Windows, but I'd jump to linux if I could find a distro with a gui that feels at least as polished and feature rich as Windows 10 LTSC.
Distro is irrelevant. DE/WM choice is all that matters as far as GUI goes. Also, if you want a GUI that looks or feels like windows then KDE probably has you covered in that you could probably customise it to mimic windows.
I quite like the Desktop Environment in elementaryOS. I think it's called Pantheon Desktop? It's very polished. Or InstantWM from InstantOS is also interesting and has some nice animations and effects.
Personally, I use simple and minimal Openbox
You can use most desktop environments on most distros.
If a distro has its own GUI and it doesn't exist on other distros, usually that means either it isn't free software or it's not good enough that anyone has bothered to package it for other distros.
The real question is what Window Manager has the best GUI... you can run any window manager on any distro - it just takes a little work.
If you're talking about out-of-the-box without any user customization, I'll make a couple suggestions that I think work for new Linux users - not that I'm saying you're green, but most power users know they can fully design the OS from the ground up if needed.
PopOS - In between - GNOME-like with some PopOS customizations under the hood.
ElementaryOS - MacOS-like WM thats clean fresh and easy to understand
Mint - Cinnamon DM, Windows-like with some customization possible
Distro? Probably Debian, because it has all the desktop environments. If you want, you can have Plasma, Gnome, Xfce, Cinnamon, and MATE all installed at the same time and switch between them at will. Most distros seem focused on one specific DE, which if I'm not mistaken means switching to another involves reinstalling the whole operating system.
The big downside of Debian is that the software in it tends to be very out of date. You'll get security updates and the occasional bug fix between Debian releases, but that's about all you'll get.
You can get a rolling-release experience by running the “unstable” version, but as the name implies, upgrades will sometimes fail or break something, and you need to know your way around the system in order to recover from that. Not a problem if you want to learn to be a Linux sysadmin anyway, but if you want your system to Just Work™, then unstable Debian is unfortunately not for you. It's a trade-off, as with most things in life.
I don't see why distros should be married to a specific GUIs. Any distro can support any number of GUIs. It just seems like a huge waste of effort to make a distro just to support one GUI.
I would encourage people who want to implement their unique vision for a GUI to make their effort easily packagable by any distro and to work with an existing community distro to make their work available widely.
I just switched to Fedora 38 with KDE and it's been great! It's using Wayland now too, so it's been really smooth and stable. My last distro was Manjaro with KDE, but I started having issues with the lastet round of updates and wanted to switch to something more stable. I really don't like gnome as it feels to "basic". Sure it looks nice, but for me it feels like it's missing some important features that are just there with the default KDE layout.
Feodora and Debian have a GNOME experience that has not been ruined to make less innovative in favor of making the UX more similar (and therefore familiar) to that of the worst desktop operating system available (windows).
If you've seen but never really used GNOME in a daily workflow it looks and feels alien. Thats becausethey devs are trying to make something that is friendly to the people who actually use it and intuitive to the people who are new to desktop computing, and they are making no attemt to appease thoes who believe that it is impossible to do better than Microsoft has with Windows.
If you've never really used it (and have used ms windows), Vanilla GNOME is alien to you. If you have really used it, nothing else is yet on its level.
Imo, I really like linux mint's cinnamon, its so clean and pretty.
You can change the DE (desktop environment) as you like but I really like Budgie from Solus. My daily driver is Plasma and find myself on openSUSE Tumbleweed. It's by far the most crash-free and freeze-free experience I've had while using Plasma. Note: Installing Nvidia Drivers is at your own risk, though.
Desktop environments are a pretty subjective topic. You probably gonna like KDE plasma or cinnamon..if it's just about looks and feel you're good to go..just find a distro with one of them and test it.
I like to use good ol' stable Debian with i3-gaps as a window manager.
Any distro where I can easily replace the default with sway.
Ubuntu Budgie
- I like the aesthetics
- I'm just to used to windows start menu/taskbar.
- decently sized community and support
Note: a lot of people seem to use the Mac inspired app dock and that seems to be the default. It's customizable though so you can get a taskbar if you prefer that.
I think the whole point of Budgie is to make the interface a little more welcoming if you are coming from Windows or Mac.
I tried many but for me, Linux mint cinnamon worked. It was traditional, but still had pkeyof customisation options. Also, to top it all off, it's light enough and works on a 13 year old pc I've got here.
Fedora with Gnome
I really like the GUI in Pop!_OS. It's a custom GNOME installation with some sort of window tiling manager I don't know what it's called. I really like it, and I like their system themes, too. It's very macOS-like. Simple, clean, and functional with a lot of little custom tweaks put in by system76 to cover some gaps in GNOME's basic configuration and things that are missing from Ubuntu (Pop!_OS is an Ubuntu variant).
Others have mentioned Linus Mint with Cinnamon. I haven't used it in several years, but I recall it being very nice and simple. It's very Windows-like, which I'm not a fan of, but the interface was quite pretty, as I recall.
I love the versatility of KDE and you can make it look amazing but at the end of the day I always end up with a Gnome-based distro for some reason. The simplicity is just so beautiful. Fedora has been my distro of choice for a few years and I don't see that changing any time soon...it just works! With gaming via Steam/Proton I don't see myself ever returning to Windows.
Im honestly a GNOME person. Part of that is due to me needing magnification and a screen reader to use a computer for sure, but its also very keyboard driven and that is how i use computers
@bigbox with ZorinOS you won't feel the difference when coming from spydows. As soon as I made the switch to Linux I tested over 15 distros and I ended up with ZorinOS Core.
I like GNOME a lot (currently using Fedora GNOME with a bunch of extensions), but I'm eagerly awaiting the release of System76's COSMIC since it seems like it's basically GNOME with all the customisations I end up making anyway, and will be far more modular and customisable.
I use KDE Plasma on RebornOS (an arch spin).
Distro doesn't really matter nowadays. You can get all desktop environments to work on most distros. Especially the big players like KDE, Gnome, Xfce have hundred distros they are shipped with by default. Most big distros have versions for each of the most popular desktop environments. Therefore, I would suggest that you look for the distro which fits your needs best and then install the desktop environment you want to work with afterwards, if there isn't a flavor of your distro that ships with it already.
I've been enjoying Gnome using !pop_os@lemmy.ml. It's not perfect, but good enough. The preinstalled tiling extension also makes using a full DE bearable without spending hours customizing a WM.
I'm looking forward to trying out Cosmic, which I have high hopes for.
I'm going to hop in here and suggest you try out Linux Mint. This is a distro designed for people who are coming over from Windows or Mac. It "just works". The UI doesn't throw away thrity years of convention simply to be "linux". Everything is exactly where you expect it to be and most of what you need is already installed.
Mint offers a choice of different desktop environments which are all laid out exactly the same, but have differing degrees of polish. If you're using a very old PC, you may want to choose XFCE because it is very lean, but lacks some of the nice graphical touches. Most people just use the Cinnamon desktop environment, which is highly customizable and polished.
I fully switched to Mint many years ago and never looked back.I've been using linux on and off since my first experiments with zipslack back in 2000-2001, and full time since 2006. I've bounced around distros, tried countless DEs and WMs, and I have to say, Mint Cinnamon was the first where I didn't have to immediately change the theme/icons/color schemes/etc. to make it look decent (in my opinion). And add to that a more traditional desktop paradigm at a time when others (unity, gnome 3) were trying something else, and I was a convert, and still use it to this day, some 8+ years later.
GNOME with Dash to Panel is my favorite GUI, but I've been warming up to KDE since their Wayland VRR implementation is complete and working while GNOME keeps waffling over something as stupid as "omg what if we have to show a VRR toggle in the settings??? our users will be CONFUSED!!!!". While GNOME is very smooth and functional with extensions, this stupid limited mindset of the core developers prevents it from being a good choice for gaming. Mutter-VRR fixes it and actually works very well, but they keep breaking it with updates.
Good old Debian stable with JWM, IceWM or Trinity Desktop for me. Its very efficient, clean and gets out of the users way. Will probably move to LabWC on Wayland when its ready.
You might be looking for a KDE desktop. Many of Windows's better more modern desktop features are copied from it, and KDE is very customizable out of the box without needing to install a bunch of extensions like you do with Gnome. KDE can be customized to fit many different desktop paradigms, with the default being like Windows 10.
I liked zorin os
I recently started using KDE with i3 as the window manager - I've long been looking for a full-fleged DE with good window tiling, and KDE + i3 does that so well and is so easy to set up it's like they were made to work together. So I just use Kubuntu and add i3 on top of that, easy peazy
Kubuntu or KDE Neon 100%
Ultimately they both use the KDE Plasma desktop environment, which is the only DE I've ever seen that has a proper modern look by default (others IMO look like either the 2000's or an OS 4 Kidz), as well as being pretty featurful for multi monitor productivity
Arch+KDE Plasma is what I personally am gonna switch to this summer
I'm not aware of any distro that ships this by default yet, but Hyprland is my favorite visually so far. Excited for it to continue to develop. I'm sticking with Sway for now, Hyperland's grouping isn't nearly as extensive as Sway's tabbing and stacking, hopefully that will come eventually, but Hyprland sure does look amazing.
I've been using i3 for the past 8 years or so, and can wholeheartedly recommend it (or it's cousin Sway if you're in Wayland-land) if you're into tiling window managers (there are dozens of us!). I find them invaluable for their keyboard-centric operation, and also massively sweet on ultrawide monitors. Light on resources and minimalistic too.
As far as distributions go, I've been on Arch for the past several years. I think there are some (unofficial) spins for most Linux flavours with i3 out-of-the-box.
I used XFCE for a long long time before I went to tiles, which is a decent more traditional Window Manager, with a more lean focus than some of the others. Fairly customizable. I still use some of the system apps from there from old habit.
I wouldn't get too tied up into what window manager is default in any given distribution. At least for me, part of the joy is finding a combination of software (including the desktop environment/Window Manager) that works for you specifically. And there are plenty of live CDs (or usb images now I guess) with various WMs that can be used to take things out for a spin without commiting to installing it. :) Here are various Ubuntu flavors for instance.
Pop yea? Yeah?!
I'm more of a window manager person myself (Qtile to be precise), and I imagine that's not really what you're looking for here, but DE-wise from what I've tried I like KDE and XFCE the most
Yeah, this may not be helpful for you but the best GUI is a tiling window manager (compositor?). Using it for 2.5 years, never looked back. I really recommend Hyprland for everyone to try, it's the perfect thing we've ever needed.
Fedora or OpenSUSE with Gnome. Stable, GUI friendly, and simple.
I think i3 looks really pretty
Fedora. It ships vanilla GNOME which is just a very pleasant experience. Vanilla GNOME is just something else man.
I am into KDE Plasma, it works quite well on my distro (Fedora by the way) and one thing that I like about is is that I can make it truly mine. Defaults are nice, however sometimes I think I don't need that or need something else, and quite often I manage to do it to be the most comfortable for me. It's also very customisable and with enough learning you could rice it into quite a lot of stuff, even though I myself don't really know a lot how people do it.
Currently using Fedora as my daily driver, stock GNOME + the "Dash to Dock" extension with the dock on the left is the perfect setup for me.
Nitrux, it's a Debian distro with KDE, a rather classic pair indeed, but their Maui Kit is what makes it really stand out IMO... Well worth a look 😁
Deepin is great too. Unfortunately it is not fully translated so that you come across Chinese quite often.
When I switched over permanently at the release of proton, I went with Cinnamon since it was the most familiar to me. Before that I tried Ubuntu in the past.
After 2 years on Cinnamon I switched over to KDE Plasma since I want more tweakability and customization and Cinnamon and Gnome in general is just severely lacking in that regard.
And it was a good choice as well since KDE has a lot of options to tweak and I can make it look how I want. I also love fluid animations and KDE has that in spades together with early and now very stable Wayland support.
I could not be happier and I don't see any reason to ever switch to another GUI.
Just trying out OpenSuse microOS currently, as an alternative to Fedora Kinoite, and the installer doesnt even load.
I dont like Ubuntus variant of Gnome. I think GNOME can look good but its apps are often horrible. Mint has a better set of simple but powerful tools.
But I would stay with anything rocking KDE. I recommend fedora Kinoite fro ublue.it (better video previews and working RPM firefox basically), its a really great distro.
I probably switch what I'm using every few months. The thing I cannot live without though is tiling support, whether just inherent to the window manager I'm using or an extension, I find it painful to use a computer for anything serious without one now.
Currently using KDE with the Bismuth extension (Fedora Kinoite) which isn't perfect but not bad. I'm eyeing Hyprland up from afar but as an Nvidia user I have too many issues on Wayland at the moment.
Any with MATE or Xfce as an option (which tbh is basically all major distros). I just use a specific theme to give me the glossy, frutiger aero look and I'm happy. Currently on EndeavourOS using MATE as my DE.
XFCE
All of them. Every distro can run any desktop, so all of them.
Currently I am using Cinnamon with Debian and quite like it. Previouly I enjoyed XFCE, espacially on slower laptops. Never really liked GNOME or KDE Plasma though. GNOME has too many animations and feels slow. At the same time its not very customizable. KDE on the other hand feels slow as well and though it is kind of fancy it seems not to be my taste and I did not like the way you customize either. That is not so important to me anymore. So please don't read from this that Cinnamon or XFCE would be great for customization. I would not know it.
I haven't been on Linux for a while, but I tried out Ubuntu many years ago. I remember there was an update on GNOME that I really liked, before Ubuntu decided to replace it with its own UI? I'd have to dig into what happened because I completely forgot even the year when it happened.
Anyway, I remember liking that new GNOME look. Not sure if it has changed again or not.
Honestly Opensuse with gnome or kde is really amazing!
I'm an arch kde user, but I gotta say Elementary / pantheon is / was incredibly beautiful. They took a lot of the simplistic design principles from iOS, and made something even prettier.
If best GUI means configurable and pretty, I have not yet found an alternative that can compete with good old Xfce. It is the only modern desktop environment for which I can still modify the theme of the window decorations to my liking. It is fast and stays out of the way. Using it both on Ubuntu and MX Linux, both based on Debian.
The last “beautiful” out the box distro I tried was a small one based on arch called XeroLinux that was just a customised KDE Plasma.
KDE and Ubuntu
I fell in love with xubuntu ten years ago. I wouldn't change it for anything.
I love me some good old MATE desktop. Especially with how Linux Mint customizes it, it's pretty good
I like qtile because it's configured in python. I used archlinux as os. It's hard to move to another distro after using archlinux for 15 years.
If you like Xubuntu then you like XFCE, which in my opinion is an excellent DE and WM, light on resources while being highly customisable.
What I run is MX Linux, which is Debian based with a few tweaks, like not relying on SystemD, has both APT and flatpak, and has a few custom tools that honestly makes using linux soooo much easier. The repository manager and gui package mabager is very good.
MX customizes XFCE with simple theming and most importantly puts the panel to the left side, maximizing vertical space. It really gets out of your way.
I run tiny core linux for the UI personally
Pop OS on my main laptop. Fedora 38 on the second. I like gnome
I'm most comfortable using Manjaro Cinnamon right now. It was familiar enough coming from Windows.
I kept wanting to try the new GNOME, but it kept failing me on fundamentals - I.e, refusing to rebind certain keys, constantly failing plugins (such as the one to merge window title bars with the topbar), and bugs gallore.
So for years, I was a GNOME 2->KDE refugees, with only minimal complaints. KDE is nice.
But now it seems GNOME has finally stabilized and conceded enough to user wishes that it's useful again. And with those things done, I'm now quite enjoying it.
Honestly KDE on Fedora is my go-to. It's super customizable on a very reliable system and up-to-date packages. Everything I want in a distro 👍
You find the windows gui to be polished?
Maybe it's just that it's familiar, but Zorin OS has always had the most "it just works" GUI to me. It's clean, stable, and provides many sensible presets if you prefer windows environments, mac environments, old school gnome, etc.
Aside from being very pretty it also has great UX and linux beginner onboarding features. For example if you try to open an exe file for the first time, it explains that this is a Windows-specific file and sets up Wine for you.
A lot of people recommend Fedora and PopOS for people getting into Linux but honestly Zorin Core has always been my #1.
XFCE on all systems where a desktop is nessesary. With all 3D effects disabled.
I’m not experienced in all the options, but am quite happy with Cinnamon on Mint. I tried ElementaryOS first, 18 months ago, but it wasn’t quite right. Cinnamon had given me a few points to tweak, but not too many that I’ll be sucked into it. I can do what I want on my computer and don’t feel like the OS ui layer is in my way.
For some reason I find stock GNOME UIs appealing
i hate to say this but ubuntu gnome looks sexiest to me (if were speaking out of the box). too bad they make questionable decisions
i use fedora, but any gnome distro with this guy's themes https://github.com/Fausto-Korpsvart/Gruvbox-GTK-Theme looks great, bunch of other variants as well outside of just gruvbox