Really?
I've installed KDE Neon before, and at first boot it's just the default white panel at the bottom as it is for a lot of other distros.
The menu system is different.
So its the same thing as plasma but with some preconfigurationg done for you by the distro.
You can have three different kinds of menus, the Application Launcher, Application Dashboard, and Application Menu. Just right click on your the KDE icon, click alternatives, and you can change it at will.
Same DE, but configured differently by the distro. That's why I love KDE, it's very customizable.
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I've rolled my own desktop using Openbox as the base for years.
I always like knowing how it all comes together.
It's usually Openbox, Tint2, PCManFM, Nitrogen, Parcellite, and LXTerminal.
I don't use a display manager. Instead, it's started through the bashrc file on login.
It's a little different every time I setup it up though.
To me, that's what makes it fun. The discoveries and improvements made each setup.
Deepin can be quite buggy at times and also fairly resource intensive, but it's so beautiful and completely worth it.
Yeah, to me KDE and Deepin are the 'complete' experience distros, at least on the traditional environment side of things.
KDE is by far the best made DE, it comes fully loaded with all features and even then succeeds in needing about the same resources as a basic bleeding edge Gnome Shell. With Gnome Shell, the basic out of the box experience is not full featured at all, by the time it's expanded with all the features KDE has as standard (well, those that even exist in Gnome), it's 400 MB more RAM and a whole lot less responsive. Not only that, but also the number of commits on KDE is astronomical in comparison to other DE's, it's constantly being worked on on all levels. KDE is often poorly implemented by distros, but it's a real work of art and precision at the same time. All things considered, Gnome is an Apple-like efficient workflow experience out of the box, but KDE can be configured just the same, and can do a lot more and better. There is no DE project as elaborate and high quality as KDE.
Also, KDE is a project that does KDE and the Calligra Suite, including the super popular Krita that is catching all the headlines in the graphics/illustration industry right now. In comparison, Gnome is a project entirely usurped by RedHat, and Gnome is completely focused on RedHat as far as product development goes. This leads to compromises with regards to privacy protection and security.
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This is what i´m very often experiance aswell indeed.
I have not tried KDE-Neon distro myself yet.
But KDE on Manjaro gave me Kwin crashes from time to time.
Same with Kubuntu and Maui.
kde on Open Suse works wel i guess.
KDE on OpenSuSE is traditionally one of the finest KDE implementations. They've returned to KDE as default DE after dabbling with Gnome Shell for a while. KDE4 was a bit of a hard sell, even to KDE veterans, because it took sooooo very long to get elementary things stable, because ever more stuff was added, and there was no general overview any more.
Kwin on Manjaro... let's just say that Manjaro doesn't consider Wayland a priority, as they are on XFCE as default DE. KWin in the KDE Plasma 5 universe is made for Wayland. There were driver problems at first, there were also a lot of Wayland problems, but since kernel 4.6, most of those are ironed out. KDE Neon is really nice, but not on all hardware. If you have newer Intel hardware for instance, or newer AMD GPU's with GCN, KDE Neon is not a good choice, because it's on kernel 4.4. If you really fancy a super slick fast bleeding edge KDE Plasma 5 experience, go for Fedora 25 KDE spin. Since about 3 weeks, the latest versions of KWin have worked like a charm, not only on Intel, but also with AMDGPU and OpenGL 4.
Currently I only run Linux on my laptop (Ubuntu w/Gnome). I'm not that familiar with linux yet. My netbook was really picky regarding the distros and DEs due to very limited hardware (Atom N570 w/ 1GB RAM and a whooping 1024x600 display).
I appreciate DEs that don't remind me of Windows too much.
You should really try SolusOS. It's fast on Intel, and it uses very low resources (Atom suffices, BTW that Atom is x64 so still very functional) and can deal with a 1024x600 desktop like a boss. Put an SSD in the thing, or an SSHD, and it will still serve you very well.
Budgie Desktop is so good. also that full disk encryption is amazing, though as much as it's missing a few customization features, more are getting added.
Because I have a 40" 4k monitor, the only thing I miss when I use budgie is quarter tiling, but that's a Gnome Mutter problem and not Budgie.
Overall, it really is a great DE.
I retired my netbook. The SSD I bought for it when the HDD died is now in my laptop. It was really a crappy little thing because after about a year after I bought it it kept overheating (55-65°C idle), no matter how often I opened it up for dusting, even after the thermal paste got replaced. I keep it around with a thumb drive that has Gparted on it. Not worth buying an SSD for it. Battery life is also terrible now (100% at home and when I arrived at university - powered off the whole time - I had ~40% left).
I only just found out Budgie is a thing because of this thread. It looks really promising, think I'll get in running in a VM. Anyone have any thoughts on stability and support? Is it a safe bet or a one hit wonder? And beyond Solus (which i know sod all about) is the Ubuntu remix any good?
On to topic question:
Mate - currently my no.1
I will admit it's a little bit boring and not 100% my cup of tea. Out of the box Ubuntu Mate is probably the most domesticated desktop I've used. That meaning it needs next to no tweaks and has almost everything I need from the get go. I think that particular distro has twisted my opinion though, when i tried Mate in the past i wasn't especially impressed.
XFCE - the rival
I put Mint XFCE on my mothers pc and my old mans laptop. I'm kind of envious. Sure it's a little basic maybe but damn it's good. It's one of those rare occasions I can say "it just works" without feeling like a pretentious prick. Maybe XFCE is what I need in my life but I just wont admit it.
Gnome - marmite
It's different. There's a lot I like and a lot I don't. In principle I don't mind how radically different it is but normally at some point i find something that's a step too much and I run away.
Past opinions:
Cinnamon - on paper it looked great, but when i got down to actually using it I found myself feeling lukewarm. Guess I agree with MisteryAngel, straightforward but a bit boring. Also some of the menus just never clicked with me.
KDE - Liked it, but also felt a bit overwhelmed by some aspects of tweaking and customisation. Plus it felt like wielding a toolbox when all I needed was a screw driver. On the other hand it's maybe the most accomplished DE I've tried. I will revisit it at some point.
LXDE - Big fan, but I'd only use it if I needed a lightweight environment.
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When I started to use Linux everyone used either kde or Gnome. There were other DE's but they were for special use cases or someone wanted to be odd. Then everything changed, first kde, then Gnome modernised and all of a sudden people in large numbers moved to the lesser known DE's. Projects started to make their own DE's and now we find ourselves with loads of choice.
Being an old fart with a particular dislike of large colourful icons, and more used to menus with lists I find myself using Mate as my default Desktop Environment.
KDE doesn't seem to work too well for me in Fedora, what's the best to use for Fedora? (I know it's subjective)
Fc25? It should work just fine OOTB
Fc24... meh was never good anyway lol
Yup 25, screen keeps messing up and it looks like my graphics card is dying, but I know its fine cos it works fine in windows!