this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2025
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After trying out Cosmic, Gnome,KDE Plasma, and Hyprland, I feel like plasma is the most usable for me coming from Windows. It solves the gripes I had about lack of customizability while still starting me off with a familiar homebar. I will be going back and forth with gnome for a while.

I really like gnome and the sliding desktops, and all the extensions seem to make it very customizable as well, but not directly like plasma, instead you mix and match (or make) extensions to get the look you want. (correct me if im wrong, I used it for a day)

Hyprland seems very nice for multitasking but the keyboard focus of the presets ive tried doesn't really appeal to me, I like being able to just use my mouse sometimes.

Cosmic, is definitely an alpha and im interested to see what it becomes, wont be using it now.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (7 children)

Never used hyprland but Sway you can use the mouse to move stuff around, resize windows, etc. just hold down you mod key, usually super/windows key. If you have a bar setup correctly you can even click between workspaces or have a task list like on windows that you can click on. Alt Tab needs some re-imagining as its now three dimensional, but that's easy to tweak to how you want it with something like swayr. You can even add a start button equivalent if you wish.

I use Sway on Tumbleweed, before that Sway on Ubuntu. I have six main workspaces defined, odd numbered workspaces on my left monitor and evens on my right monitor. Both monitors are 32"@4k so a ton of real estate, I can easy fit in four large tiles per monitor, eight is a stretch but if you use the option to make windows full screen then you can run stuff in the background and then flip between things that are running in the background.

I use the layman add on to predefined layouts for my different workspaces, then bind apps on start up using my config to a particular workspace. I can still move them around, but automating as much as possible with a tiling windows manager is the secret IMO. Having everything just work and appear where I want with zero faffing around speeds up my workflow enormously. On Windows I use power-toys to provide a noddy version of tiling, but everything has to be done manually and its a complete PITA over a work day where I am opening and closing stuff.

As an example, I have my third workspace as my main coding workspace. Its divided into 3/4 and 1/4. The larger part I lock VS Code to it, the smaller part is usually a Firefox tab for reviewing documentation. My second workspace is my social workspace, that's divided into four long quarters, one for music, one for discord, one for signal, one for mail. All of this, including binding the apps to the workspace, are fully automatic.

I use the keyboard for most things. I use QMK based keyboards (configured using Vial), so I can bind multi modifier shortcuts to just two keys either on a separate layer (activating the layer is one of the two keys) or a chord. Reducing the number of keys you press really helps the ergonomics of activating them, especially if you move them to the home row and away from the pinky finger hell hole that is where the modifiers are on most standard keyboards.

I think the biggest problem is that it requires work to get the right add ons and make it work the way you want to work, but get it right and the WM becomes transparent to how you work.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

After many years of tiling wms I recently settled on Plasma. I found that tiling causes more issues than it solves (window rules much?!). For me tiling only is useful for terminals but there are other solutions for that (tmux for example).

I had to get used to not being able to do workspace per monitor anymore but now I am using Activities which works really well actually. I am a dev and have a 3 monitor setup, one for logging (bunch of terminals), one for coding and one for the output of the project I am working on (browser).

I also play games for which Plasma is perfect, its xwayland implementation is flawless, even on HiDPI which cannot be said of Hyprland for example.

Tl;dr I like Plasma.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I am not using DE i am using hyprland With arch Linux btw

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

I keep forgetting tiling managers arent des

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Cinnamon. I feel like it's a nice middle ground between the minimalism of Gnome and the maximalism of KDE Plasma

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

Cinnamon is a long time favorite of mine; it has a certain practical mindedness that I like. Gnome irritates the absolute shit out of me and Cinnamon inherits just a little too much from Gnome. I'm using KDE on my main computer at the moment, which I still think is my second choice. Doesn't really help that my move to KDE also came with a move to Wayland, which killed a few tools I still miss.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

I like Cinnamon, stacked on the right (vertical bar) with the third party cinnamenu start menu. Simple, and it works.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

I have been liking river lately after switching to it from hyprland. River is much more similar to my previous one which was xmonad.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago

I started out on Cinnamon (via Mint). Although I have used Ubuntu many moons ago but despised Gnome and never touched it since. After Mint In went to Arch where I DE hopped for many years. I tried XFCE (didn't like the visual inconsistences); Openbox - liked and loved for quite a while as a minimalist setup; Mate - too old looking so didn't last; Deepin - lasted a very long time because I loved it so much but eventually stopped because they changed the design too much to be link Windows; Budgie which lasted a little while and was the next closest to what Deep in provided. Was too immature at the time to be enjoyed long term; Pantheon - I still love Pantheon. It's consistent, polished and cohesive. To me a perfect blend of nice looking, minimal and functional. Stopped using because I got tired of having to fix it on Arch; Finally KDE. It's what I've been using for several years now because it just works, it looks nice, it's very customisable (I can make my desktop look similar to Pantheon), I like the integration and ecosystem of apps, it has great support and devs that listen.... I'm yet to have a DE tempt me away from it. Not even Cosmic lol.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago
[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Xfce for speed, consistency, and reliability. For most of my workflow I began avoiding configuring a DE as much as possible by relying on AutoKey, Input Remapper, and simple terminal commands, because I can import those to fresh installs way easier.

I moved away from Plasma due to too many small yet annoying bugs.


PS all the software I use: https://www.arscyni.cc/file/software.html

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 days ago

I really like the gnome workflow plus a couple of extensions. Notably I ran across a tiling extension called “grid” that scratched my tiling window needs on my desktop, and gnome is amazing on my laptop trackpad. I zing through desktops quick! Anything it can’t do out of the box, you can find an extension for.

I like the feel of something different than windows.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 days ago

Bluefin and GNOME.

I do want to use KDE plasma but everytime I use KDE my ADHD starts kicking in and I make the most cursed UI ever then my notification panel stops working

All I to is use Firefox and at night use krita

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 days ago

Debian and xfce, generally. I'm happy to wait for features when they arrive, and xfce works fine.

However, Debian with gnome on my surface pro 6. Xorg just doesn't handle rotation and touchscreen things very well.

On the other hand, several apps still behave very poorly under Wayland, so it's a bit of a catch 22 at the moment.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

Krunner on Meta And a lot of alt + tab

That's pretty much it 😅

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 days ago (2 children)

I've jumped over the years, Gnome, Cinnamon, KDE, XFCE, Unity, AwesomeWM, QTile, XMonad, Hyprland.

For the last couple of years I've completely settled on KDE for my Desktop, and Gnome on my Laptops.

I love the customisability of KDE and being able to turn it into whatever the hell I want lol. But Gnomes gestures on a laptop are unmatched in the Linux space imo, and finally at a point that I firmly believe Gnome gestures are now on par with MacOS gestures.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 days ago

I love the customisability of KDE

I read this often but found KDE so difficult to customise. XFCE or Cinnamon is what I'd consider extremely customisable, KDE doesn't even consistently listen to what theme colour I set :-(

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

For the touchpad? I basically use my laptop like a desktop with a mouse, pluggedin to power. (it was more for easy transportation from college to back home, didn't have a desktop and gaming laptops get insane deals if you keep track, got mine $2,000 off at like $1100 and it was the best all amd alienware config at the time (still handles everything), just preemptively explaining because im used to redditors giving me shit for using a laptop as a desktop)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

Lol dw, you won't get shot here for using your hardware how you intend to use it... Why would anyone get mad about that??

Well if you don't use your trackpad then obviously Gnome gestures won't be a big point for you. I never really used to either back when I used tiling Window managers, I solely relied on a purely keyboard driven workflow, until I got a new job and they use MacBook Pros as our work laptops, there I got super into the trackpad gestures. For example, three finger swipe left or right to change workspace, three finger swipe up for an application/workspace overview.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 days ago

I love plasma. I used to be into cinnamon, but since the steamdeck, I’ve changed my preference.

Now, I have fedoranplasma spin on my thinkpad.

I really like the windows style DE.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Actually I like Cinnamom the best. For VMs without video accelertion, XFCE. For media center and my laptop I stayed with Ubuntu/Gnome.

Work flow. Any desktop will do, that is more about Apps. For me Firefox, LibreOffice esp Calc, Python, Bash, Thunderbird, ssh, Zim, Geany are what I use most.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I yearn for the day Debian gets proper DWL support

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

didn’t realize debian does not have dwm support. been thinking about putting it on my deb based laptop bc it feels so nice on my desktop. what do you run?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Sway right now, setup was super straightforward. I just wish it had some dynamic tiling functionality. Plus I really like the suckless mentality of starting with basic functionality and patching in features as needed.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Same. Check out breadonpenguins on the yew tube, some real cool tweaks on their GitHub. their vids inspired me to use dwm.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Love breadonpenguins, she def inspired me too, I’m talking about DWL tho, like the Wayland fork of DWM. I had some issues w the dependencies they had listed.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I still do not understand Wayland. It’s an alternative to X?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

It's to be the replacement for Xorg/X11.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I use emptty and herbsluft.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Keep in mind that cosmic is still in an alpha build. It’s missing a lot of features and his buggy here are there. I’m sure it will be pretty awesome and once it releases it 1.0 version.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

i was impressed with cosmic when i gave it a spin here.. it has a lot of potential... just still very 'incomplete' currently.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (3 children)

I started using Windows as a young lad, but when I tried using Linux I easily transitioned to KDE. Then I tried Gnome and loved it, used it for a few years before moving over to Hyprland a couple of months ago and I can confidently say that I won't be going back.

EDIT:
Forgot to mention that the main reason I love Hyprland is because of the crazy level of customization. I use it primarily on my laptop and can navigate easily with keyboard shortcuts, clicking, and even trackpad gestures.

Don't let somebody else's idea of how to use a DE limit you, just configure whatever you want!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I do like hyprland, I think itll take some time to get a config right but it feels fun to use and thats why I swapped to linux, windows felt boring with its ui and on top of that had constant random so it wasnt the good type of boring. Most shocking part has been having 100s of tabs open and swapping without issue, on windows it did not matter which browser I used my computer would tweak after 20 tabs

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

Wow trackpad gestures? I'm on gnome and their gestures are really good, if hyperland's is just as good I might try it out.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 days ago (3 children)

My preference is the opposite of yours. I just recently set up Hyprland and I love it for the focus on keyboard and the ease of customizing the keybinds.

The other thing I love is the tiling. I almost always have two windows side by side and in every other DE I've used (haven't used cosmic), I always had to faff about to get my windows half and half or into the quarters. So pair that with the keyboard focus and hyprland is the winner for me.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I often dont use my keyboard when casually browsing, reaching for it constantly is annoying in those cases, I'm assuming yall that use linux more are more used to the opposite and not using a graphical interface.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

plasmas had no issues going half and half or quarters, better than windows at least, but yeah my monitors are relatively small compared to what other ppl have, so i never want to divide by more than 4

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 days ago (3 children)

yeah i don’t know what the use case is for hiding or partially hiding windows as if they’re papers on a desk other than sheer skeuomorphism.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I tried working with tiling and while it felt kinda cool, in the end it didn't solve any problem I have. At most I'm working in 2 different windows 99% of the time and I have a second monitor for that. So it's not that hiding windows is a use case, it's that tiling them isn't one.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

Hyprland is kinda cool since you can still have windows over windows if you need/want it, I was worried since the width can be off and its easy to just open a window and scale iy manually to see text properly, it doesnt solve any problem I have tho, just forces me to use the keyboard more than I want to.
I definitely want to spend a sunday just customizing and tinkering with it tho, sounds fun.

Rnow plasma works super well for me, love that you can right click windows and have them always stay on top or always be below, useful when using the transparent terminal. Hyprland has a top popdown terminal (at least the config I used) which is kinda sick, but not really necessary lol.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago

I can have multiple windows open at large size, arrange them to overlap so I can peek at the important part and click to bring one to the front. Like in a file browser, I can have multiple directories in multiple windows and switch back and forth without losing sight of the other one entirely.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

Agree. It's a windowing behaviour I've hated forever. Before jumping to linux I used macOS for a long time and the only thing that made it tolerable was a toolbar app that let me create custom keybindings for splitting windows. When inwent Linux I went gnome initially as it gave pretty close to the same functionality built in with super+arrow keys, but there is some stuff about GNOME that just does not work for me. So for me, Hyprland is great

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