Spent lots of time with Gnome 2.
In Dec 2024 I got hooked in Hyprland on Arch and have a cool rice for it. But I’ve tried KDE on desktop now with Parrot OS since Plasma is popular. Still need to find some cool dot files or rice it myself.
I’ve noticed SwayFX getting lots of love lately. I might use that as an option with Plasma but am afraid of conflicts. I’m excited about it since Linux has now officially replaced windows on my gaming rig, which is the very last MS computer left in my house.
KDE Plasma because I’m basic and I wanna get stuff done 👍
That’s why I just started using Plasma.
based
Xfce, specifically because I like the Chicago95 theme.
KDE Plasma, as it’s most Windows-like and it has lots of cool widgets to add to your desktop Windows 7-style.
I’ve also tried Gnome, but I found it confusing and honestly a bit annoying. Not being able to properly minimise like I’m used to just really throws me off. I do think the visual style is well-designed, though.
I’ve tried Cinnamon as well. I thought it looked a bit too cheap for my taste, at least by default on Mint.
It blows my mind that everyone says KDE is windows-like. I don’t think so at all. At least not what came with Parrot OS.
KDE (on CachyOS)
KDE Plasma. It’s clean, fast, and just works.
I use KDE. I like how easy it is to customize pretty much everything. Like, if I want everything to be green, I can make everything green and no one can stop me.
KDE Plasma. It’s the most feature rich “just works” DE there is. GNOME doesn’t even have fucking maximize and minimize buttons by default without adding them via GNOME Tweaks.
I used to be a Cinnamon/Linux Mint lover, but their slow implementation of Wayland, Window Scaling, and certain other annoyances like their split NetworkManager GUI between GNOME’s UI and the native NetworkManager UI made me switch.
KDE Plasma all the way, on the desktop, the laptops and the two set top boxes.
KDE. I don’t even do much to customize it. I think it looks pretty good out of the box.
The only thing I customize is to turn off the floating panel, I just can’t stand the small gap on the bottom and the sides. It just looks off to me.
I’d like to compliment on it changing that when you open a full screen app. Yet, these tiny pixels look so little difference that it looks very much off to me indeed. And I’d prefer to have no dock at all. So I use Sway for myself. It’s that I interact with KDE sometimes.
Been on i3wm for 3 4 years now I guess. Also work with sway on some systems.
you can actually see and use my config
I wish I could give multiple upvotes for both posting dots and using Codeberg rather than Github.
Looks good!
Haha thanks <3
Mate 👍
Used it for years back in 2012-2014. Was writing my Master’s thesis in LaTeX. Simple and absolutely no issues. It certainly wasn’t eye candy back then though.
It still isn’t. It doesn’t even have fractional scaling
I didn’t mind since I couldn’t afford better hardware. It certainly got the job done.
Yeah, I think lots of DEs are built with 720p in mind. I switched to 1080p recently and I’m pretty bummed
Enlightenment DE
Very underrated IMO. It has been a while since I last used it but I recall it was super light and snappy - even compared to other more well-known lightweight alternatives. It was definitely a pleasant experience. Happy to see it still going strong.
Infact it is selected for GSoC under NetBSD for porting to pkgsrc
https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/programs/2026/projects/mifwPqCq
Nice one, thanks for sharing!
Sway
hyprland
I use Cinnamon, it’s not much, but it just works.
I was on Mate back in the day since I did not have good enough computer to upgrade to Cinnamon. Used it for several years to finish Master’s thesis. It certainly gets the job done.
