this post was submitted on 16 Apr 2026
700 points (93.4% liked)
linuxmemes
31107 readers
45 users here now
Hint: :q!
Sister communities:
Community rules (click to expand)
1. Follow the site-wide rules
- Instance-wide TOS: https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/
- Lemmy code of conduct: https://join-lemmy.org/docs/code_of_conduct.html
2. Be civil
- Understand the difference between a joke and an insult.
- Do not harrass or attack users for any reason. This includes using blanket terms, like "every user of thing".
- Don't get baited into back-and-forth insults. We are not animals.
- Leave remarks of "peasantry" to the PCMR community. If you dislike an OS/service/application, attack the thing you dislike, not the individuals who use it. Some people may not have a choice.
- Bigotry will not be tolerated.
3. Post Linux-related content
- Including Unix and BSD.
- Non-Linux content is acceptable as long as it makes a reference to Linux. For example, the poorly made mockery of
sudoin Windows. - No porn, no politics, no trolling or ragebaiting.
- Don't come looking for advice, this is not the right community.
4. No recent reposts
- Everybody uses Arch btw, can't quit Vim, <loves/tolerates/hates> systemd, and wants to interject for a moment. You can stop now.
5. π¬π§ Language/ΡΠ·ΡΠΊ/Sprache
- This is primarily an English-speaking community. π¬π§π¦πΊπΊπΈ
- Comments written in other languages are allowed.
- The substance of a post should be comprehensible for people who only speak English.
- Titles and post bodies written in other languages will be allowed, but only as long as the above rule is observed.
6. (NEW!) Regarding public figures
We all have our opinions, and certain public figures can be divisive. Keep in mind that this is a community for memes and light-hearted fun, not for airing grievances or leveling accusations. - Keep discussions polite and free of disparagement.
- We are never in possession of all of the facts. Defamatory comments will not be tolerated.
- Discussions that get too heated will be locked and offending comments removed. Β
Please report posts and comments that break these rules!
Important: never execute code or follow advice that you don't understand or can't verify, especially here. The word of the day is credibility. This is a meme community -- even the most helpful comments might just be shitposts that can damage your system. Be aware, be smart, don't remove France.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
People love gnome unironically? #kdeftw
I don't really get it either. I used gnome once and needed multiple extensions to get functionality that is the default of KDE
Same. However, if you don't need that functionality it's solid. Just definitely not for me.
Even with several random extensions, gnome runs for 6 months for me before having the instability problems I had on KDE in 6 minutes
Last time KDE gave me issue was when they switched to Wayland by default I think. And even then that was mostly on me. π€·ββοΈ
KDE for me was death by 1000 cuts. I'd get a notification that I need to reboot my system but clicking the X doesn't close it. The settings GUI pretty abysmal, but ig when you compare it to Windows it still looks golden. Randomly can't wake up from sleep sometimes until i restart my display manager from a TTY. The "task manager" didn't let me see all running tasks... It's somehow so polished while also being janky.
Gnome alternatively is all polish, but you have to fight tooth and nail to go beyond defaults. I'm sure it's more bloated too.
Now im on Niri with plenty of other problems but at least they're my fault!
edit: I feel the need to extol the virtues of KDE plasma as I still do return to it when i've had enough of niri's BS for the day
I used to get that as well but that was largely due to NVIDIA drivers. Either have to get a tty on the local machine or SSH into it and do a reset. But I haven't had so much as a peep out of that machine since the Nvsync or Ntsync or whatever it was got merged. I had it happen outside of KDE as well.
I remember when KDE first rolled out plasma and the shit show it started out as. That's when GNOME really blew up. But since the late 5.X and especially 6.5-6 its been solid. They broke off with a lot of those old abandoned themes etc with the 6.X series as well. That would often fail to function and shit the desktop. I haven't encountered anything like that in the 6.X repos. My biggest gripe with any of them currently is the deskbar macos style that's poorly exposed and configured. But comes by default from a few distro like garuda. And predictably isn't consistent. When it works it's nice. When it doesn't it's confusing.
I tried to customize the UI and had the DE crash like 5 times in 5 minutes. Took it as a sign. It's ugly as can be but I was willing to put in some time to fix it but it seems luck was not on my side.
GNOME is not meant to be customized. Don't even try. If your concept of customization goes beyond adding a panel in a different spot. It's truly asking for grief. Their add-ons/plugins are fairly neat with all the different languages they can be written in etc. But with all the breaking changes that are constantly being done to the API you never know if they'll be functioning in the next week. It's part of why pop started Cosmic in the first place. The GNOME team would regularly roll breaking changes with minor point releases.
You are saying this to someone with 5 years of routinely changing major UI elements on GNOME and who has rarely had any issues with extensions breaking. Less than once a year.
I think the difference of experience is from how much we think the UI "needs" customizing. If I wanted GNOME to look like windows, I'd probably have had that experience. But that's absolutely the furthest thing from what I'd ever want.
And before you claim I only use one or two extensions. Nope I've used 3-7 at all times.
I tried gnome when I first tried Linux, because everyone said how much like macOS it is.
It is not, in fact, anything like macOS. I very quickly got pissed off with having to install extensions to match what I was used to, so gave up and left Linux alone for a few years. Now I use KDE on everything and I couldn't be happier.
I use gnome on my laptop and KDE on my desktop. I think gnome really shines when it comes to basic "business" productivity: using the internet, office suite, etc. And KDE is better for my normal use of a computer: gaming, media management, software development, etc. Obviously ymmv, but that's how it's been for me
There are dozens of us
My first distro was Debian and I loved Gnome so much that I've never gotten around to trying anything else despite being on my 3rd distro hop.
I'm an old head and a firm believer in keyboard first computing. And I think an OS's job is to be invisible until I need it. Gnome get's out of my way until I summon whatever I need from it with the keyboard. For someone who's labored under Windows for so long, Gnome is like escaping Plato's cave.
Try KDE sometime if you are keyboard first. I've found it has more keybinding opportunities than gnome had (~5 years ago, so things might be better. Knowing gnome though, I wouldn't hold my breath π )
They are the same kind of people that use tablets for work
KDE has a really beauty of a big screen. The tablet mode on my 2 in 1 works well enough but I can't compare with gnome for obv reasons (I don't use gnome)
For a media PC GNOME is goated, specifically their overview! One button on the "magic remote" mouse to easily switch between desktops, windows, control basic settings, and launch other applications is awesome. Generally prefer KDE and did choose it this time when reinstalling the media/coach-gaming machine, but really wish there was anything like GNOMEs overview on KDE.
(Yes, the Plasma overview is awesome, but you can't launch new apps from it without typing).
The Plasma overview thing or whatever isn't for launching, the launcher in that workflow is kRunner. Almost certain you can pin apps to that but not sitting in front of the PC currently
I like Gnome because it's very tablet-y by default. Sure, I could make KDE look like that, but who has the time for that?! Plus, not having a desktop is the most effective way to stop me from filling the desktop with unsorted garbage
That's my biggest gripe with GNOME. They constantly compromise or even remove features to be more touch friendly.
That's what the people who use it want. They love shit like that because they think it looks cool (fine with me, none of my business what DE people use)
I do. But, I recognize that preference is personal so I try not to shame people for the desktop environment they prefer.
Iβve tried KDE, and others, multiple times in the last 20 years or so and itβs just never felt as polished to me as Gnome does. When Gnome 3 came out I spent quite a bit of time with Mate because I didnβt like the new Gnome. But eventually I got used to it and it got better.
Typically, for new Linux users, I recommend Gnome for Mac people and KDE for Windows people.
Gnome being more polished was definitely true a while ago. I was mostly put off gnome because it felt that they are against DE being customisable (need to install gnome tweaks for stuff that should be built in)
I used to like Gnome before 1.1. It was a while ago though.