After 2y on Linux I can say with full confidence that switching from GNOME to KDE (for me) is a bigger barrier than switching from Windows to Linux ever was.
I’ve tried a lot to like KDE but I just can’t. I usually see people discussing distros but I feel like picking the right DE makes much bigger impact. I’m yet to try Hyprland though.
Considering the fact that I’m itching to get Steam Frame and VR on GNOME will likely be broken indefinitely, idk what to do.
Very important.
At this stage, I see no reason to use anything other than KDE.
I currently use KDE Plasma, Cinnamon and LXQt on three different computers. On most DEs I can manage myself just well. I never liked GNOME post 2. I have recently used MATE, LXDE and Xfce
i’ve tried gnome, cinnamon, hyprland, lxqt and whatnot… but everything i have settles on KDE
Distro is more an alignment of philosophy between you and the distro. Something slowly updated but really stable? Debian. Something cutting edge, but with lots of guides? Arch, etc. etc.
Any of them can pretty much run any shell, DE or WM, and as that’s what you spend the most of the time interacting with, that’s a more personal touch point. The distro is really just the package manager that you regularly interact with, and thats easy enough to hide behind something like topgrade.
I have only used Sway for a few years and anything else feels bloated and slow to use to me now. I spent a long time tweaking to get it how I wanted both in terms of add ons and config, then setting the keyboard shortcuts that work for me. I even have a bunch of them configured on my actual keyboard on layers to make them even easier to activate.
Its worth the investment for me as its now transparent to my workflow. I run the same config across all my machines and its been a stable config for the longest time. Long term stability is the key for me.
I’ve changed DE multiple times, most of them are fine. KDE is a bit obtuse but it’s ultimately what I settled on because I want good built-in themes. If KDE didn’t exist I’d go with Xfce, followed by LXQt (never tried LXQt though).
In terms of how important a DE is, I think picking the right distro is more important. This basically means staying away from anything Ubuntu or Ubuntu-based because in my experience those are the least stable.
For me it’s pretty important because I want my computer to feel good to use, so I’ll spend quite a lot of time making sure everything’s set up the way I like it. In terms of GNOME vs KDE, I’m definitely a KDE person. Not that I hate GNOME or think there’s anything wrong with other people using it, I just don’t get along with it personally. For me it feels like there’s too much stuff in GNOME that should be part of the core DE that relies on extensions, which tend to break with updates so there’s always something that’s not quite working.
I’ve also tried Gnome very briefly before going back to KDE. I never went deep enough to try extensions, as I’d also agree that most of that stuff should be built in to the DE, and I was annoyed by it missing these features that KDE just had out of the box. Hearing that extensions exist kinda reminds me of what I’ve heard about MacOS, where features that have existed on Windows for over a decade and Linux for years still require third party applications.
I only use one extention “Dash to Dock” and I had no issue of it breaking from Fedora 38 to now Fedora 43.
On the contrary, I had to use so many widgets and addons on KDE to get a somewhat passable experience that it took me over 5h of customising and still felt not enough… also no “Latte Dock” on KDE 6 :(
Yeah I do miss Latte Dock. I’ve managed to get my docks pretty much back to where I had them using Panel Colorizer though.
I haven’t seen this one yet, looks definitely nicer than what you can do with the dock by default
I’ve used several iterations of Gnome, several iterations of KDE, Mate, Cinnamon, Hyprland, XFCE, LXDE, Fluxbox, and several other things I can’t be bothered to remember. I can be productive on any of them given some time to set them up.
I do have preferences though, and I like KDE on a laptop/desktop and Gnome on a tablet. I just wish Gnome would do something about its horrid onscreen keyboard.
Pretty?
In my mind, I equate Gnome with OS X, while KDE is more like Windows.
I can use both competently, but I prefer KDE. Back when I used Ubuntu, I’d always use Kubuntu.
I prefer KDE. It works well out of the box and offers a good amount of customization. I tried gnome for a bit and didn’t like it.
What I like about Linux is that it’s easy to switch between DE. Just try out a few ones until you find something you like. I can recommend looking into Cinnamon (the DE of Mint).
Every decade since 1999 (the year of the Linux desktop—for me) I spend a few weeks trying out all the hot new shit in terms of desktop environments. I’ll switch to Gnome for a few days, get disappointed at how much I miss from KDE, and then try one of the newer ones like Cosmic. Then I’ll play with the latest versions of the classics (xfce) and marvel that they still make you configure everything in a single file or they still lack basic shit that normal people want like a clipboard manager.
All the actually useful or just plain really, really nice/handy stuff is built into KDE Plasma. I’ve been using so many of those features for so long, I can’t fathom having to go back to a world without say, being able to navigate the filesystems on all my other PCs via
ssh://(and other KIO workers).I remember when KDE 2.0 came out and it added support for kioslaves (now called KIO Workers) and it completely changed how I viewed desktops. That was in the year 2000. How is it that literally nothing else (not other FOSS desktops nor Windows or Macs) has implemented the same feature?
It’s not just the file manager, either. I can access
ssh://(or any other KIO worker) from any file dialog! The closest thing is shared drives in Windows but even that isn’t nearly as flexible or feature rich (or efficient, haha).Then there’s the clipboard manager (klipper), Activities, and a control panel that lets you customize everything to extreme degrees. It even supports fractional scaling and has supported that since forever. I remember when they introduced that feature over a decade ago and it still blows my mind to this day just how forward thinking the devs were.
Monitors since forever have had a different X DPI than the Y DPI. Yet only the KDE devs bothered to both query the monitor’s DDC info to figure that out and set it correctly when the desktop starts.
There’s other features that drive me nuts when I don’t have them! For example, the ability to disable global shortcuts on specific windows. So if I’ve got a remote desktop open to my work I can send Super-. (Win-.) and that’ll open the Windows emoji picker in the remote desktop instead of the KDE one (locally). And it will remember this setting for that application!
I can make any window I want stay above others temporarily to take notes, enter values into the calculator, or just turn any window into something like a HUD (you can control any window’s transparency on the fly!).
It even supports window tiling! A feature most people aren’t aware of. Like, if you’re already running KDE, why bother with a tiling window manager? You’ve already got it (though the keyboard shortcuts to manage the tiling layout in real time are lacking).
TL;DR: KDE Plasma is the best desktop in existence across all platforms and this is easy to prove with empircal evidence.
Functionally, not really. I can get my work done on anything from FVWM to GNOME without a hitch.
Aesthetically, very much. The Chicago95 theme sparks joy and makes work just a bit more enjoyable. KDE and GNOME might have more creature comforts, but I will happily tolerate XFCE because it works well with Chicago95. I don’t even do fresh installs anymore because of the time it takes for me to configure the visual style just right. I’ll instead image from an install I’ve prepared on a VM.
Chicago95 definitely taps into the nostalgia for us old heads.
I hate a fee things about Gnome, like how hacky it is to get any screen shot app other than Gnome’s to work. Having said that, I tried KDE for a few days, then I tried to customize it to simulate my workflow I think it Gnome as much as possible. Both experiences were a complete fail. It’s very hard for me to move from Gnome. Let’s see what Cosmic brings to the table in 2026. It’s way closer to Gnome in many ways.
As for tour question, to me the DE is 80% of the experience.
I’ve been using Linux for considerably longer, and I started off with things like BB4Win (meant to mimic the Blackbox window manager but on Windows) before I switched, so I was constantly trying different UI experiences and seeking out more customization options even before moving to Linux. Part of the Winamp, “skin all the things,” generation. Switching DEs is a non-issue these days but I have my preferences. I loved old Gnome 2 so I found Cinnamon nice enough. xfce too. I don’t dislike current Gnome but I’ve settled in to KDE these day. I lived in Xmonad for a while so I’ll also happily take any TWM that preferably isn’t it’s own hobby project to configure and maintain.
Gnome get’s up and out of my way. 9/10.
I have seen people already say similar, but felt like chiming in.
The underlying djstro chosen matters less than the desktop environment or lack thereof. Well, sure you want to pick a district that aligns with your ideals and philosophies. However, as a lot of windows users delve into using Linux they see the distro as what decides the look (and feel) of their new OS.
While many learn about different DEs through different distros, I do think that the DE matters more for workflow for average users.
That being said, I jumped from windows to Arch. I didn’t want to be behind on updates. I also am a tinkerer by nature. And I am in the IT industry, have been for more than a decade. So Arch felt right ti me. So I have tried many DE and always go back to KDE. I want war over any being “better.” That’s a personal choice sincerely.
Hyprland was fun to tinker with, and it can be pretty. But I dont care about ricing as much as many of the stereotypical Arch users.