XFCE
this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2025
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Linux
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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
KDE, it's the swiss army knife of DEs.
Probably KDE, it's the most 'complete' feeling to me with settings and GUI for most things.
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KDE. Been upgrading the same environment for 5 years just keeps getting better.
I started around maybe KDE 3?
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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.
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.
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.
Definitely Gnome here. Though I have a long list of notes, it mostly just works exactly like I expect with little friction or guessing. I donate $100/year to both Gnome and KDE since they are both good pieces of software, and I love that I get to chose mine. Further, I think KDE is the logical choice for something like the SteamDeck where it's going to have a lot of gamers that expect computers to work like Windows. (even if I don't like it, >_<)
KDE the customization is off the charts
KDE plasma, unless it's on a tablet, then Gnome
KDE Plasma.
It has been great for gaming, adopting Wayland protocols at a faster rate than other DEs due in part thanks to Valve's contributions.
I freaking love GNOME & Adwaita, but I'll switch back when I deem it better than Plasma.
KDE Plasma for ease of use if using Nvidia Otherwise Hyprland or exwm
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.
Cinnamon for 2 reasons
-
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
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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.
Gnome.
Cinnamon by and far.
I've used so many distros and DEs I don't even know where to begin, but Cinnamon got me hooked for the long run. It's legitimately the most polished and "ready to run" DE I've ever used, yet still allowing for far more customization than Windows ever offered.
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I keep coming back to KDE time and time again. It's so easy to mess with, I can set it up exactly how I like it without much effort, and it always looks good because someone else did all the work making themes and widgets I use.
That said, I love XFCE, I'm just trash with CSS so it takes me forever to get it how I like, and on my Surface I can't get the scaling to work so everything is beyond tiny.
My computer doesn't really break, I'm Ship of Theseus-ing it regularly.
Apart from that, the only one among the normal window based ones that has felt like it respects my will to configure stuff in ways that feel right to me has been KDE Plasma.
Always wanted to like gnome but never could, and xfce is fine but I much prefer KDE, it is verry likely that I'll actually keep it till my pc breaks.
That's the beauty of gnome: they don't give a single fuck if you like it. You can return the favor.
Gnome has the apple philosophy that the user conforms to technology, not the other way around.
Apple actually had good visionaries and design decisions, sometimes.
Never been a fan of apple's hardware decisions, but their software is routinely state-of-the-art even to this day.
They value treating the user like a human instead of a programmer. GNOME values removing as many features as possible to make their jobs easier.
No shade to Gnome, because there is a place for them in the ecosystem, but this is why I moved from Gnome 2 to KDE (with a few stops along the way). One size will not fit all.
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XFCE would be my choice too
I'd say Gnome, since I'm so used to it that I feel it doesn't get in the way of the things I'm doing.
Because that would be my aim: something that doesn't interfere with the work I am doing.
There is nothing better than Xfce, if you dont like the desktop, at least Xfce allows you to customize. KDE seems interesting, but the last time i tried it, 10 years ago more or less, it was a bit buggy.
You owe KDE a second look if it's been that long.
Agreed. I used to be a diehard XFCE fan and hated KDE. Then I saw their resource usage came pretty close to each other but KDE had way more development behind it so they could add Wayland support (which I actually don't even use.)
KDE used to be buggy and bloated. They've been improving stability for years and their efforts really show. I used to think it was bloated, but it really isn't if you only use the parts you need. I use it pretty similarly to XFCE, it just has more dev support.
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KDE.
I'm a cog in the machine and use KDE, but xfce is awesome, I would use xfce if I couldn't use KDE.
i3
best tiling on X
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.
fair
xfce+i3 i guess
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.
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
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.
KDE Plasma, I can't go back to SDR
gnome head all the way!!!
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