Looking at new Linux DE's

Software & Operating Systems Linux
,
1

Hello all!

Currently looking at installing Manjaro for my Linux OS as my current Kubuntu 18.04 has some unwanted side-effects that I can hopefully start negating. I’ve been using KDE but kinda might want to try a different DE?

Questions:
What are your favourite DE(s) that you like to use? What do you like/dislike about it? What was a major selling point for you when choosing your DE?

I’m currently using KDE and have not really had much experience with others outside of Cinnamon(?) for simple home server that I setup and never look at.
KDE Likes:

  • I find it suits the aesthetic that I quite appreciate (dark themes ftw).
  • I like the application launcher window popup which is one of the few things that I appreciate in Windows as I use it to quick find/launch applications with the search function.
  • Apart from some GTK applications everything else seems to be behaving fairly well - windows are snappy.
  • I really like the window icons (maximise, minimise, close, etc.) in the breeze-dark theme.

KDE Dislikes:

  • I do find it a little finicky with the keyboard shortcuts for window management - I would love to be able to get it to do window snapping like in Windows 10 but have not really found a way to do this with KWin.
  • Running applications with the icons in the corner of the system tray have blurry icons. Not sure why. It doesn’t happen with the system icons that are nice and crisp. Applications: PIA VPN, Slack.
  • The dark-themed windows with the same background colour blend into each other (mostly because I’m lazy and I haven’t looked into a way for window borders to be a thing).
  • Holy shit those settings menus…

KDE Selling Points:

  • It has a lot of flexibility in the overall aesthetic.
  • It has a lot of features that I like in Windows 10 without being super windows-y.
  • It runs nicely on my hardware.
  • I got recommended it by a friend a number of years ago before I ran Linux, and so gravitated towards it when I started using Linux for the sense of familiarity.
2

check out deepin if you are not spooked by china
https://www.deepin.org/en/dde/

it has both a windows feel and mac feel

i run deepin fully native and not just the de but deepin de works on a plethora of distros

https://www.deepin.org/en/dde/desktop-transplantation/
for more information for each distro supported so far

3

You don’t have to install Manjaro/a new OS to replace your desktop; you can actually install multiple desktops on top of your current install.

Personally I like Gnome 3, but there are good points to all the major DEs.

4

What are your favourite DE(s) that you like to use?

In order:

  • Cinnamon
  • Plasma
  • i3 / sway

What do you like/dislike about it?

I have two major complaints with Cinnamon.

  • Notifications are cleared when viewed, not when cleared. Keeping a queue of them, like KDE does, would be preferable.

  • Nemo (file manager) is unstable and crashes a lot. There’s a bajillion alternatives I could use, but I still like Nemo best, even with all of the crashes.

What was a major selling point for you when choosing your DE?

It gets out of my way and lets me do work.

Qt apps seem to be the worst offenders here. They tend not to have sane, consistent defaults. I feel that I have to learn and customize each app, rather than use a coherent desktop.

GTK apps tend to do that better, as long as you either use Gnome or avoid Gnome-specific GTK apps.

I do find it a little finicky with the keyboard shortcuts for window management

Kubuntu and Sabayon handle KDE placement really well. It can be done in KDE, but configuring KDE is kind of a nightmare.

Running applications with the icons in the corner of the system tray have blurry icons.

Usually it’s because the application itself specifies an icon, rather than defaulting to your system theme settings.

Holy shit those settings menus

A lot of people hold the position that to be a powerful desktop, you need to confuse the user with options. I disagree, and think this is KDE’s single biggest flaw.

Effort needs to go into that.

Plasma 5.11 added a new Systems Settings control panel, which is a huge improvement, but they didn’t remove the older, less organized ways to change the same settings.

5

@THEkitchenSINK yes I have heard some good things about Deepin! I will look further into it. Does the standalone DE have much telemetry going on that you are aware of? Or would that be more of the Deepin distro issue?

@astra yup, I’m aware of this. But I have other issues with my Kubuntu install that didn’t go away with a complete reformat and reinstall, so am looking to see if a different distro solves the issue or if there’s other problems with my home setup.

@imhigh.today

This actually would not bother me at all! I never did find a “Clear all notifications” button for KDE so pretty much keep them hidden all the time.

Why did they not remove the old way?? That almost makes it more confusing than just leaving the original! UX design gets overlooked far too often imo.

6

all telemetry was removed from the distro over peoples fears.
was as much as using chrome has telemetry and was only in the deepin store
nothing i can see heading out

1 Like
7

Why did they not remove the old way?

Two major reasons, one being acceptable, and one being problematic.

The acceptable one is that, in some cases, they used the older application’s functionality to actually make the changes. This creates a migration path that allows users to do things the old way without losing settings.

The more problematic aspect of KDE’s development is that there isn’t an overall direction of the project.

“This is how we do things, and apps that don’t comply will be dropped” is something KDE doesn’t say very often.

8

Manjaro KDE is the best distro/DE combination I’ve used to date (been using Linux for about 6+ years now and have tried a lot of different distros/DE’s).

It’s also the most stable, efficient (low resource use), fastest and most capable distro/DE I’ve used. It’s done everything I’ve asked of it while requiring the least amount of troubleshooting and work-arounds. Super-easy to swap or update GPU drivers/Kernels and the hardware detection is stellar.

Needless to say; I’m not going to be using anything else for a long time and it will take one hell of an amazing distro/DE to pull me away from it. :wink:

That being said, I do play around with and test other distros/DE’s all the time in VM’s for fun and curiosity. That is, after all, how I came across Manjaro in the first place. :slight_smile:

1 Like
9

You mean like this?

Screenshot_20190528_215236
Screenshot_20190528_215236.jpg1600×900 307 KB

It has window snapping by default.

1 Like
10

I totally get what you mean by KDE being finicky.

I can recommend Budige. It’s been the only GTK base DE that i was really comfortable with. More modern than XFCE and much better performance than Gnome3.

If non float your boat, i would recommend rolling your own with a WM and Compositor of your choice. Openbox is incredible for a floating option, plus there are easy GUI configuration utilitys for it. I’m currently running AwesomeWM, but that’s a lot more involved. Add compton to that and some applications of your choice and it might be more stable and more custom than most DE’s could be.

11

Every DE basically has it pro’s and con’s really.
When it comes to KDE in particular it often also depends allot on the Distro’s,
specific implementation of it.
Till now the best experience i ever had with KDE plasma is in Open Suse.
This is one of the distributions that does a really decent job on,
the kde desktop implementation.

But i also experienced distributions that were a pain to use with the KDE plasma desktop,
so yeah although you could say KDE = / KDE, but depending on distro implementation of it your experience could vary.

Now to me personally:
I do like KDE desktop, but it’s currently not my number one desktop to go to.
Because aside from Open Suse, KDE on other distro’s really overwhelm you with settings and options.
And you can get lost pretty quickly and mess things up.
I do think doe that the KDE plasma desktop has been improved significantly wen it comes to stability.
But to me its too cluttered with functions and options, that you might get lost at quickly.
I mean something easy as applying a theme in kde you have to go like 3 different,
places to finaly get it applied in all area’s.
That to me just makes the DE a little bit inefficient to setup.

For me it kinda depends on the occasion of use.

On laptops i currently prefer to use the Mate desktop.
Because it pretty feature rich easy to setup and lightweight.
Caja is also a pretty nice file manager aswell.

XFCE is one of my all time favourites, and i’m really looking forward to see the improvements on the new upcoming release.
Strong point for XFCE is generally no matter on which particular distro you use it,
it generally never really sucks.
Yes i know that the looks are a bit dated, however you can do allot with themes and
an icon pack.
However that is also kinda a negative aspect of XFCE, you can do all things crazy with it.
But you have to dig deep to accomplish that.
The Mate desktop in that regards is allot more accessible,
but very similar in day to day use as XFCE is.
Still i really love the Whisker menu doe, would be nice seeing that,
available in more DE’s.

Cinnamon:
I personally really like Cinnamon allot.
This DE for me is the perfect balance between modern, easy to use, tweak ability,
and getting out of the way for my workflow.
And pretty much ready to go out of the box.
Downsides of Cinnamon are not an easy way to switch wm’s,
and its a little bit heavy on system resources.

Other DE’s i don’t really care much for those really.

So yeah currently:

1 Cinnamon.
2 Mate.
3 XFCE.
4 KDE.

DE i hate the most is Gnome3.
The Gnome team stripped soo much features out of it,
that it cannot even be considered being a usable desktop anymore.
Of course you can install the Gnome tweak tool to get most of the features back,
and next to that you can install plugins via browser.
But that is just totally ridiculous in my opinion.

@PhaseLockedLoop likely has a different opinion on the matter haha :wink:

1 Like
12

I all ways loved the ubuntu MATE environment, never really had any problems unless i get cocky and install the regular ubuntu gnome desktop, they have some grievance going those two and it’s either one or the other.
But for me ubuntu MATE has all ways worked for gaming, and desktop overall, coding, and is fairly configurable.
And sorta light weight as well.

1 Like
13

I have been using Cinnamon for work and home PCs for a few years now and absolutely love it.

Default dark theme, can change colours of just about anything easily. All the tools and options menus are loaded into it. Xrandr Display configuration is super easy in Cinnamon.

Tons of widgets and applets for toolbars and desktop. As the user above mentioned, Nemo is amazing. Personally I have never had any problems with it other than getting used to network attachments.

It works flawlessly out of the box with windows networks for me as well. The only problems I’ve ever had out of it were display related but those eventually turned out to be either the display or a docking station.

Also having a DE that actually takes advantage of the Home key and just being able to type in the app name and have it search is something I didn’t realize I would miss from windows.

image
image.jpg5440×1080 868 KB

1 Like
14

image

this was a big point for deepin i personally love its spin

gnome acts too funky for everyday use and cinnamon has a wonky way it places windows and not having my wallpaper span all monitors on cinnamon and just repeat. nice touch from deepin .

15

I hated it when I first saw/encountered it - immediately reminded me of unity (which might be my least favourite ever). I wouldn’t have fooled with it at all except I was looking for something feature rich (in terms of graphics/presentation) yet very simple in terms of basic controls/use - for my mother - who I talked into switching to linux b/c she was having an issue on a windows machine (she wasn’t 100% thrilled about the idea, but was basically like "if you can fix it, sure I’ll give it a shot, lol). Anywho, I found that while it was a bit bloated and dumbed down on the surface, it actually worked really well for what I wanted it to do. So I decided to use it on a few workstations in the office (another example of getting to twist ppls’ arms into linux if I’m willing to fix :smiley: ), and that worked out well too. Along the way of course I found gnome tweaks and extensions, and realized it didn’t take much work at all to get it to a degree of usability and a state of utilitarian cleanliness I found I really liked. I guess I get to some extent why gnome is configured for the very basic user, and don’t think it’s “ridiculous” to have to get tweaks/enable extensions - 30 seconds-1 min of work? Of course I still get why a lot of folx don’t like it for various reasons. But atm I’m pretty content, at least on my laptops. May consider KDE again when I get my tower together.

16

So tbch to the OP Mistery is pretty on point with her opinion. However I would say that unless your an old Gnome 2 user like the both of us have been in times past your unlikely to have a major gripe with Gnome 3. Its a rather simple interface and lacks the user power productivity of others but since I do most of my work in the terminal and not the GUI I have begun to enjoy its clean simplicity.

My first alternative goes both ways. If you liked Gnome 2 like me and do not mind what is a dated interface choose MATE or its more stable simpler cousin XFCE. If you want the visual beauty of Gnome and GTK3 themes choose cinnamon.

Thats actually not to difficult
More precisely:

  1. System Settings -> Shortcuts and Gestures -> Global Keyboard Shortcuts
  2. KDE component: KWin ▼
  3. Quick Tile Window to the Left etc.

Thats how I always did it back when KWin5 first came out. Here … uhmm not sure which version of KDE your running
here: the meta key is the name for the MS Windows start key.

KDE Plasma Version 5.9.6-

KDE Plasma Version: 5.9.10+

ze3yr.png1346×540

Change your GTK conversion theme. Those are GTK applications and they dont translate well to Qt

This and the next bullet you are ALWAYS going to find with theming unless you do some hard work yourself. its linux your in control. Given that your in control why not take the reigns on a theme. Oh use a prebuilt if you can but work from it upward towards your goal.

Dont change distros over a look. you can get the Desktop environment… Also be very WARY of image Ina… LOL

Everyones giving you great alternatives… Try gnome 3 first… See how you like it… If you dont like it and want a gnome 3 like alternative go to cinnamon then go from there

1 Like
18

:smiley: Gnome 2 was my first and most beloved linux desktop; used from 2010-2016 or maybe 17 on Lucid Lynx.

19

Totally agree with you on KDE being almost too feature-rich. The level of customisation is through the roof. And although that is one of the reasons I like it, it’s also one of the reasons I do not recommend it for beginners. That goes to Cinnamon, which is my 2nd fav DE.

Gnome amazes me how limited it is out of the box, and yet how resource heavy it is (gobbles nearly 1GB of ram or more). This I don’t understand. Manjaro KDE, on the other hand, with all it’s endless tweaks available right from the get-go, only uses roughly 300-500MB of ram. A testament to the Manjaro team and how they’ve done a fantastic job with their implementation of KDE. :wink:

But yes, all DE’s have their pros and cons and for the most part, it boils down to personal preference.

2 Likes
20

Ah yup, I use the mouse to do those window snappings, particularly the fullscreen snap. I just never found a particularly nice way to do this with keyboard input with the meta key. Although apparently I glossed over this setting??

EDIT: Turns out I actually do have this setting enabled but the behaviour differs to what happens in Windows 10 slightly so I never really got used to it.

I have actually highly considered this! I tried it in a VM once and it had a lot of things standard that I really liked. Can’t remember why I didn’t go for it in the end…

Seems a little difficult imo haha. I may look into it if I’m struggling with the plethora of other DE’s to find one that suits.

I think I might avoid XFCE because I like things to be pretty… But Cinnamon and Mate I might look more into. They both look a little nicer. I may look into the themes that they offer and see.

Yeah… I looked into it yesterday and it seems… not for me. Gnome Tweaks seems to add a lot more flexibility but I’m not sure their choice of the Desktop Paradigm works for me.

Sounds like something I can get behind!

I have actually never considered this! I used to tinker with MacOS stuff back in high school but haven’t done much recently. I might look into theming with whatever DE I switch to (or stay with).

I think I’m going to look into (in no particular order):

  • Budgie
  • Cinnamon
  • Tweaking the KDE settings
  • Maybe Mate

Thanks for all of your input :slight_smile:

21

Im glad we can all agree that GNOME 3 is a flaming dumpster pile. Gnome classic is great though

2 Likes