KDE Plasma on all my computers and also as desktop mode on Steam Deck. because it supports the latest technologies especially when it comes to graphics (HDR, VRR) also has best support for Wayland and multi-monitors. It looks great out of the box and it has a lot of features out of the box and I do not need to battle with adding some extensions that break with almost every update. KDE Plasma is also the most flexible desktop and I can set the workflow really to fit my desires and I can actually set many options and settings. And despite all these built-in features and configurability it still uses very few system resources and is very fast and smooth. Oh and the KDE community is one of the most welcoming I have met in FOSS world, and they listen to their users instead of the our way or the high way mentality I have so often encountered in GNOME for example. So yeah TLDR KDE Plasma is the one I like the most of all in the industry, even when compared to proprietary closed alternatives.
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I'm on Hyprland mostly because of all the tiling window managers out there these days, it feels like the most usable default config and the ecosystem (e.g. hyprlock, hyprbar etc) feels pretty complete.
these days Hyprland but previously i3.
i basically live in the terminal unless i'm playing games or in the browser. these days i use most apps full screen and switch between desktops, and i launch apps using wofi/rofi. this has all become very specialized over the past decade, and it almost has a “security by obscurity” effect where it’s not obvious how to do anything on my machines unless you have my muscle memory.
not that i necessarily recommend this approach generally, but i find value in mostly using a keyboard to control my machines and minimizing visual clutter. i don’t even have desktop icons or a wallpaper.
I'm still on i3 as it's been convenient, but this:
this has all become very specialized over the past decade
resonates. I keep incrementally adding personal tweaks and hotkeys to my setup, and I have all my dotfiles in a repo so it's persistent across installations.
One example was I made my headphone button pause/play videos with i3's config:
bindsym XF86AudioPlay exec playerctl play-pause
But then I adopted a script to toggle mic mute on work Zoom meetings, so I combined it with the above - if I'm in a meeting it toggles mute, otherwise it play-pauses any current video. The script, for now:
#!/bin/bash
#
# Handler script for hitting mute on the headphone.
#
CURRENT=$(xdotool getwindowfocus)
ZOOM=$(xdotool search --limit 1 --name "Zoom Meeting")
if [[ -n "$ZOOM" ]]; then
# if zoom is active, toggle mic mute
xdotool windowactivate --sync ${ZOOM}
xdotool key --clearmodifiers "alt+a"
xdotool windowactivate --sync ${CURRENT}
else
# otherwise do play/pause
playerctl play-pause # will fail if no player found
fi
and of course I altered the i3 config to launch that script rather than playerctl directly.
KDE on my main laptop, Cinnamon on the TV-connected mini-PC in my living room. I like the customization options of KDE, and with Cinnamon I just wanted to test out Linux Mint, no big reason other than that. I used GNOME for some time with Pop_OS!, and it was not fully my thing. I plan to test out more DEs when I can free up an older laptop to do some more experimentation - for my main laptop I require stability, so I don't mess around with it too much.
I am extremely basic and I'm using the XFCE that came with Linux mint. I don't need anything fancy.
Traditionally I've been running lighter desktops like opebox, xfce, or lmde. Last couple of years I've been using MATE with good results.
KDE, because I'm too lazy to switch back to XFCE, which offered every feature I already use in KDE except without the stuttering, the bugs, and the update cycle that breaks things way, way too often on a rolling release distro.
Or openbox. My old laptop has openbox, but that's more for screwing around with EWW than doing day-to-day things.
KDE, because it has all the features I need and also because I love theming and while QT apps can be themed pretty easily, GTK theming is somewhere between being absolutely horrible and non-existance.
The guys at catppuccin who made a gtk theme said it was a pain to maintain which makes sense.
KDE Plasma on my PC, just use i3 on my laptop. prefer using the mouse on a pc, prefer not using it on a laptop.
Usually KDE, but I'm messing around with qtile atm.
xfce4. Stable as hell. X11. Can move windows around using just some keypresses.
I have numerous machines and use several. On my main, KDE because of all the customization. Widgets, window styles, colors, themes etc. It's really like exactly how I want for maximum efficiency and productivity.
I've got gnome on my hybrid notebook and my transformer pad because gnome with Wayland is amazingly compatible with touchscreen.
I have one machine running Elementary which has the Pantheon DE it's kinda like Gnome with modifications.
And finally, I have an older system so just for efficiency, LXQt.
I do enjoy trying out different ones and especially more esoteric ones that I occasionally come across.
I use KDE, no bugs for me (I found one but it's already fixed in the latest update) and it's feels like my second home
Plasma, because I want things to Just Work(TM) and the customizability and modernity are neat. I like right click --> pin to top/bottom as well.
Gnome because it came with ubuntu and I'm too scared to change it to kde incase everything breaks. Really don't want to reinstall something else again either
Gnome. It just works out of the box and I can fly through it using the keyboard and touchpad without having to configure it first.
I've done the whole song and dance with tiling WMs, or going through all of KDE's settings until it was perfect, but I just can't be bothered anymore.
I use gnome on my main machines, but looking to migrate to cosmic, and I use xfce on more limited devices.
I like the kde project, but I tend not to use it, because I find it a bit overwhelming, even after customizing it, it's hard to explain. I have issues with too many elements in front of me.
"Overwhelming", that's the word I was looking for to define KDE. Thank you.
Cinnamon. Desktop environment peaked in the Windows XP/Gnome 2 days and everything else is just change for the shake of change. :C
My only annoyance is lack of Wayland support. Tried out cosmic, but it doesn't have the Windows XP/Gnome 2 style window list.
Screenshot for anyone interested:
Me too, and it sorta has Wayland support, but it's not real good. I also like Cosmic, I think it has a good future ahead of it.
Sway. Very customiseable and extremely snappy
Same.
I dont do much customization, but the endevorOS community edition has decent defaults.
Just working cleanly with tiling feels so good. You dont have to use the mouse to move all the windows around. But if you hold the super key, you can just drag windows around to make a perfect layout. But often than not, i just want 2 windows side by side, with no wasted space. Done.
i use zorin os's gnome with forge, once cosmic comes out ill switch to that
I'm really looking forward to the release version of Cosmic. Used to be a fan of Gnome-based Cosmic on PopOS, but Pop just kept on "popping" so I moved to Fedora Workstation. I have never looked back.
GNOME because of PaperWM
Enlightenment. It's pretty and really fast. Of course you can't complete with the speed of tile wm. But their development speed is so slow....
I've been experimenting with DEs on a low end machine (celeron n3010, 2gb ram), and so far, I'm still on xfce, but I forgot to test Enlightenment. Gonna give it a try.
I gave an original Surface Pro tablet and I use Ubuntu's Gnome on it. It's perfect for tablets I find. Not so great for desktop PCs.