this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2025
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I know Gnome is the default on popular distros: Fedora, Ubuntu, Rhel, Pop OS (it's Cosmic Desktop yes but it is still based on Gnome)...etc. But Gnome just doesnt work for me. I would pick XFCE - stable and no BS.

Before Manjaro and their cetificate shenanigan, I used to use their XFCE version. At the time, it was marketed as the "Flagship Manjaro version". I went 4 years without any problems and I did tinker a lot, just couldnt get their XFCE to break.

After a tough Arch or Gentoo installs, I just want to put XFCE on and call it a day.

What about you guys?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

KDE. I've been using it as my daily driver for roughly 10 years now, and barring any unforeseen excitement, it'll stay that way indefinitely. Proably until I stop using Linux, anyhow.

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

I'm a long time supporter of Xfce, but I have to say Cinnamon these days. It's light on resources while being feature rich. Also it's the default on Mint and it just works.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

I use XFCE, but I like Cinnamon too. I use Nemo and Xed instead of Thunar and...whatever.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

Switched from i3 to sway to hyland. I like the virtual desktop setup and noiseless facing interaction.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 weeks ago

KDE, always

Used it since I switched to the Linux Desktop 25 years ago. Quickly tried gnome, and others, and hated it.

KDE is fast, efficient, looks awesome, is ready to work with, and highly customizable

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

True people only use i3 or the-other-i3-for-wayland

/s, of course. But still my personal choice

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago

KDE plasma, unless it's on a tablet, then Gnome

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago
[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago

KDE Plasma for ease of use if using Nvidia Otherwise Hyprland or exwm

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago

KDE plasma. Coming from 30 years of running exclusively windows it's just the most comfortable and easy for me to use (way more than Gnome). Easily configurable, works. Can't ask for more.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

The amount of not KDE answers here surprises me. Y'all a bunch of nerds [endearing]

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I am absolutely with you about i3. Simply great (there is also dwm or qtile)! But it is a WM, not a DE, what OP asked about.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

You mean switching between the DE xfce and the WM i3wm, right? Yep, this works and it can indeed make life sometimes easier to have a DE and a WM aside each other.

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

yeah, basically just running xfce but replacing xfwm4 with i3
i was kinda surprised how well it worked tbh, i had been using i3 on it's own for like a year before i tried it

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

Oh, I did not know about the possibility of replacing xfwm4 with i3. I too am using i3 for some years and like a lot to have a clean surface which facilitates focussing on my tasks. However, never thought about integrating it in a DE.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago

MATE has been on most of my machines, except the BSD ones.

But past year or so, I have grown a fondness towards ctwm, and gradually migrated my machines to it, Linux and BSD alike.

It is not a DE, but the fact that I have to assemble my suite of software myself on my machines, makes the point of using DEs moot.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago

Cinnamon for 2 reasons

  1. KDE is missing a lot of features which still only works in Gnome. Like the taskbar Calendar app syncing events with services like Google Calendar

  2. cinnamon is extremely stable and doesn’t move your icons around when you connect to an external display with your laptop and the display has a different resolution.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

Sway for a laptop, Plasma for desktop.

Had you have asked me a few weeks ago, I probably would have said Sway for both,.or maybe Gnome for the desktop... But I decided to check out KDE again for the first time in like 20 years, and while it's still kind of a hot mess it has come a long way.

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

KDE for the desktop and xfce for the laptop

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

I'd imagine lower power laptop? Though I'm using KDE on a laptop from 2012 and it works fine

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