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mapletree ,

Xfce. It’s lightweight and looks great with a little bit of customisation. For me it’s the perfect balance between performance, usability and looks

pete_the_cat ,

KDE, I’ve been using it since the late 90s. I’ve tried other DEs but nothing comes close IMO.

AnokLola ,

I’m running Plasma with Arch, but I like Gnome to, it’s simple and easier to use, but I also think that plasma is more customizable.

raven ,

Sway is really impressively stable if you’re willing to learn it and set it up. It’s a tiling WM.

I’ve been running the same arch install with roughly the same sway config for 3 years. My computer has never been so boring!

oscardejarjayes ,
@oscardejarjayes@hexbear.net avatar

I love Sway with Arch, been running it for about two years across a few devices. Sway has yet to freeze, crash, or otherwise act unstable. It’s wonderful.

TeryVeneno ,

Gnome, KDE is also nice but the default doesn’t function in a way that makes sense to my brain anymore after using gnome

kudzu ,
@kudzu@tilde.zone avatar

I like Xfce and Plasma, it's pretty hard to decide between the two

HouseWolf ,

KDE is what finally got me to switch from Windows.

Out of the box I found it a better user experience than Windows 10s desktop, but having it be stupid easy to customize and theme on top of that has made me never wanna go back.

Xenanthropy ,

I love cinnamon a lot

Thwompthwomp ,

Plasma. It’s the most customizable and you can dive in and shape it. It feels much more natural for me to jump into.

I put xfce on older hardware.

Distro wise I tend to go with Ubuntu flavors most because they seem to have better compatibility for various software and stuff I need, but I haven’t really shopped around too hard in years. Work is RHEL (and clones) and they make me sad.

governorkeagan OP ,

I’m thinking of settling on Ubuntu for the same reason. It’s easy enough to get a VM setup and test other distros if needed

MeaCulpa ,

Cinnamon LMDE

merthyr1831 ,

I started with Zorin, then GNOME via Pop!OS, then KDE, vanilla GNOME, then KDE again.

Who knows cos they all have good features.

Rentlar ,

For VMs I use IceWM. I like MATE (Gnome 2.0 feel) for daily driving.

withoutclass ,
@withoutclass@mastodon.sdf.org avatar

@governorkeagan Hyprland

christos ,
@christos@lemmy.world avatar

I have used xfce and cinnamon without any problems, I think I like xfce a little more.

pixelscript , (edited )

My university Linux cluster was my first introduction to Linux in general, and they ran MATE of all things.

A few years later, when I decided I was done with Window’s bullshit and wanted to jump my daily driver to Linux, I installed Ubuntu MATE so I’d have the best familiarity edge I could to minimize friction.

MATE is alright. Despite being rather barebones and dated (being a life support fork of GNOME 2, I understand that is indeed kind of the point), it served me well for about 5 years.

I got a real urge to switch, though, due to just how little support or documentation there is for anything in MATE. I was also getting fed up with Ubuntu’s Snap crap as well. So I decided to dump both for something else.

I wanted to stay on Debian’s architecture for now, but no longer had need for Ubuntu’s handholding, so raw Debian it was. As for the DE, I personally like the rich, full-fat ones more than the lean ones, and I wanted something modern, popular, and with highly proliferous support resources. That basically meant GNOME 3 or KDE Plasma. And I guess maybe Cinnamon, but I always see it marketed as the “newly ex-Windows user training wheels” DE, and that isn’t my need.

GNOME 3 strikes me as the “MacOS” of Linux DEs. It wants to swim against the current to introduce its own paradigm. Everything designed to work in its ecosystem is buttery smooth and sexy, yes, but since it’s also a counterparadigm, that tends to relegate you to the pack-in software and a handful of big vendors. Most other software has to rely on clumsy shims to fit in. I’m not about it, tbh. I’m sure it’s fine, I just don’t think higher highs are worth the lower lows, and I generally wasn’t in the mood for a drastic paradigm shift.

So, KDE Plasma for me. It was unfortunate I made the leap just as they decided, “Wayland is stable and supported enough for everyone now!” (it isn’t, lol), so it’s a bit rockier than I was hoping, but whatever. Stability and support can only improve with time. And I expect faster adoption of Wayland than I do the GNOME 3 paradigm since Wayland is currently the only ship of its kind in the water that isn’t sinking.

Aaaaall that said, KDE treats me pretty well, minus the Wayland issues. Upgrading to it from MATE was like trading up from a cheap, dingy hostel to a clean 4-star hotel. Should’ve leapt years ago.

governorkeagan OP ,

Thank you for that very detailed response!

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