What makes Linux appealing to me is the extent of customizability, but I didn’t find many answers when looking up with desktop environment is them most customizable. Some say KDE is most customizable than say, Gnome, but doesn’t Gnome support CSS customization while KDE doesn’t?
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Gnome by default isn’t customizable, you have to install and turn extensions on, but its as simple as toggling on chrome addons, you goto the extension store and grab what you want, the store could be better usability wise, hate the ui, flathub is like the only usable ui for a store on linux, insane how its all stuck 20 years backwards. (tho I kinda like it lol)
I think gnome just feels good and is the most usable, but thats because I feel the constant need to tinker with plasma, while with gnome I just set my extensions on, tweak them a little maybe once if they have settings and don’t think about it again. It only takes a few to get gnome feeling personalized and it just works well. Plasma feels better swapping from windows, but gnome feels more like a different modern os on par with windows/mac but more minimalist.
I wish plasma was slightly less buggy, anytime I mess with a panel I have to clone a backup just in case it tweaks out and I need to delete it.
Hyprland is technically more customizable, id check out the preconfigs, its more annoying to customize but some of those preconfigs have a lot of different options to start off
No added extensions, just default, id go with plasma, with extensions right now daily use Gnome (but without extensions its bland af, it really needs them and I wish it had more)
No desktop environment. Get a compositor, a runner/menu/app-grid, maybe a panel or dock, set some shortcuts, done desktop environment. It’s how most of wayland outside KDE/Gnome currently works.
If infinite customization is what you’re after you shouldn’t use a DE. A WM like i3 och hyprland is much better suited for that
Agreed. Using X11/DK as the WM, sxhkd for keybinds, polybar, and bemenu with frequency as an app launcher. 100% keyboard driven.
I used Sway on wayland for a bit but I couldn’t deal with the way screen sharing worked.
Sometimes I’ll be on Zoom keys and see a co-worker struggling to resize/move windows around and I just want to scream.
Agreed, but use sway instead of i3 for Wayland support.
Yeah roll your own everything even greeter is the way forward if you want to customise.
KDE has the most options out of the box. You can make it look like Gnome, or act like a tiling window manager, or like Windows 7, 10 or 11, just with the options it contains from the start.
Gnome comes with almost no options. If you add extensions, or know enough to make your own, the sky is the limit. But I wouldn’t call that “customizable”, you can write your own themes for Plasma, too.
Xfce is another one that’s very flexible. But it’s very hard to get it to look and feel modern, it will always be an old school desktop, no matter what theming and added docks you throw at it.Uhm, XFCE literally looks like Android with a sidebar on my touchscreen-notebook.
Can you make a screenshot?
EndeavourOS’s default XFCE theme looks very modern to me ! I mean sure it looks more like old school windows era, but that doesn’t bother me at all. I like simplicity and customizability.
What’s cool about XFCE, its only about config files to customize your whole DE.
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Probably Emacs. /j
Great operating system, that. Shame it lacks a text editor.
KDE if you want to just configure stuff. Gnome if you want to code or manually style stuff.
Doesn’t gnome change their APIs all the time between minor versions, so themes and plugins have to be constantly rewritten?
Yes, that too. I should have said want to code stuff…and continue to maintain it…
I used to use gnome and I am heavily into customization. I gave up using gnome as they would constantly change things often for no real reason that whimsy, breaking previously working scripts, extensions and so on so I stopped using it. Its fine if you want to customize the basics like wall paper but I really wouldn’t bother for in-depth customization. Not because it isn’t possible, but because maintenance of it is a PITA.
This. Or a window manager to code the whole thing.
I customised Xfce a lot, only with menu settings. I removed the window tabs from the status bar, the focused window title is written on the status bar. The window manager was removed for bspwm. The result is an optimized screen space while keeping the convenience of a DE.
Btw, every.single.one of those one-icon plugins, like battery-indicator or pulseaudio-plugin, should at least have a icon-size chooser in their settings. Always needs debugger and some custom CSS.
xfce indeed.
KDE fs
Or roll your own via a compositor and various tools a la Hyprland
Yeah, I second this. You may want to look in to DEs/WMs like DWM ©, Xmonad (Haskell), and AwesomeWM (lua) that let you customize them through programming.
They’re all exactly as customizable as you are willing to alter them.
Some make it easier, though.
Subjective. If you’re talking about functionality, then GNOME wins. If you’re talking about UI, then KDE might have the upper hand.
If you want to fundamentally change the way something operates, then it’s neither of those.
If you don’t mind me asking, what makes gnome more adaptable in terms of functionality than KDE?
Gnome is very functional, it’s just meant to function one very specific way.
And please don’t theme it.
edit: don’t remember writing that wtf
I would say XFCE and Cinnamon; no two XFCE’s look alike and Cinnamon can easily be molded into something very different as well.
I see a lot of people recommending KDE and Gnome; I’ve found those surprisingly rigid, although there are more guides on how to “rice” KDE into the most non-KDE things so there’s that.
