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?

  • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
    8·
    2 days 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

  • potemkinhr@lemmy.ml
    7·
    2 days 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.

  • AusatKeyboardPremi@lemmy.world
    5·
    2 days 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.

    • toastal@lemmy.ml
      2·
      2 days ago

      I would say the same & I don’t even use it—but I would trust it being around the longest & is better than GNOME IMO.

  • the16bitgamer@programming.dev
    51·
    2 days 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.

  • Vegetvs@feddit.orgEnglish
    1·
    1 day ago

    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.

  • AugustWest@lemm.eeEnglish
    21·
    3 days ago

    KDE. Been upgrading the same environment for 5 years just keeps getting better.

    I started around maybe KDE 3?

    • InvertedParallax@lemm.ee
      5·
      3 days ago

      Was on KDE 2, KDE 3 was absolutely incredible, ran it on Mac when it was supported on xquartz.

      4 was a mess, but got better, 5 & 6 are fine, but it’s overall far better than any other DE, it’s just so customizable, the only other thing that comes close is xmonad or something.

    • Bogus007@lemm.ee
      2·
      22 hours ago

      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.

        • Bogus007@lemm.ee
          2·
          17 hours ago

          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.

          • Horse {they/them}@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
            2·
            17 hours ago

            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

            • Bogus007@lemm.ee
              2·
              17 hours 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.

  • nafzib@lemmy.world
    12·
    3 days ago

    KDE for sure. The modern versions look exactly like how I want a desktop environment to look out of the box, and they keep the full range of customizability that a desktop should, IMO, allow it’s users to have. Which is something Windows just kept slowly getting rid of over the years.

    I also prefer to have a taskbar that is ever present with a traditional start menu that’s cleanly organized by category rather than the current full screen pop up “activities” search thing gnome does nowadays.

  • lengau@midwest.social
    14·
    3 days ago

    This isn’t even hard. KDE without a second thought.

    I regularly try other desktops, and I regularly come back to the only desktop with any sort of reasonable thought put into it.