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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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XFCE + Compiz
The unholy combination of accelerated 3D graphics and performance, all without the stupid drawbacks of wayland.
Runs much lighter than KDE even with all the 3D cube and windows stuff enabled.
Extremely customizable as well. XFCE already does a great job of UI/UX, it just lacks a compositor to add flare (xfwm4 has no animations, only some blur effects).
Cosmic, just trying it out because i liked the extensions system76 made for gnome, and cosmic DE is more native experience of that.
My desktop environment of choice would be XFCE. It's simply easy to configure while not giving me choice fatigue like KDE does. Also I don't like Qt for some reason.
GNOME is great but I find their extensions to be super clunky sometimes. Some of them even break in between updates. The main selling point of gnome (for me) is the minimal look and feel, extensions kind of ruin that a little bit.
Don't get me wrong plasma and Gnome are wonderful DEs but XFCE provides a simple and balanced desktop IMO. The only thing that's missing is full Wayland support.
P.S : Anyways most of the time I would be running a window manager instead of a DE, my current favourite Wayland window-manager is Labwc because it gives me openbox vibes.
KDE all the way, it's incredible especially since 6
It's been great almost since I started using it.
I started using it exactly when 4.0 came out, because that's when I started using Linux and I thought learning 3 didn't make sense. But 4 only got stable around 4.4 I think. The problem was that 4.0 wasn't intended to be for end users yet, but distributions didn't realize that and packaged it right away.
KDE didn't repeat that mistake. 5.0 was almost completely smooth sailing (some applications took a long time to port and looked ugly, that's it), and 6.0 was completely seamless.
I love KDE. It's got easy to use power user features and is very robust.
I have gnome installed and setup as a backup, plus I use its greeter, but I am another who does not really want a full DE and instead using Sway as my WM day to day.
I have two 32"@4k monitors so normal manual floating window management just annoys me, I greatly prefer tiling window management to auto sort my windows for me. Its extremely rare that I need to full screen anything on monitors this large to fit everything I want in width wise so I want multiple apps per monitor.
If all of this is managed dynamically for me, and I am not manually sizing or overlapping stuff, all the better. Couple that with easy use of multiple workspaces for different tasks (I typically use three per monitor), rarely do I have a need to manually resize anything. I have it setup to open my common apps on the right workspace for me, and each workspace set to the right layout for that set of apps, so much less faffing.
My (40%) keyboard(s) run QMK and are setup to enable most of my common combos, such as switching workspace, moving apps around are never more than two keys. The more I can do without moving my hands from the keyboard, the better for me.
Final thing is that Sway is wayland and for me extremely stable.
I use DWM in place of a window manager because I love the lightweight, minimalist base, and i like to customise my setup very finely. (I use Arch btw)
Gnome with dash to dock and the app indicator extensions.
GNOME, because I started with Red Hat 6 and I'm used to it, on Fedora Silverblue, because I have a long history of fucking up my PC and that makes it harder. For remote machines XFCE because the mouse is cute.
i3. Superb for keyboard-driven environment. Ultra fast, so responsive and configurable. The best.
KDE Plasma. It came on my steam deck which was my first intro to it, it blew me away and installed it on my laptop and finally ditched Windows shortly after. Works great for me.
Kde because i want customization and standard is also ok. I tried gnome but did not like that extensions were required for tray icons etc. Gnome is otherwise good.
I3 and hyperland i dont get. Some windows should not be very large no matter how much free screen space you have. Example is calculator or old school chat applications like pidgin. No native standard set of applications. Everything must manually be added and custom, like everything in kde settings(sound output, network settings, screen size etc). Waiting for when applications can recommend its screen size to the window manager.
You can use i3 with xfce to have a menu and an icon bar if you want one.
You can set specific applications as floating windows in i3 so that they take their original size
XFCE. I also like tiling WMs, but I often have to share computers and they are too unintuitive for the rest of the family.
You can use i3 inside xfce. I think (not sure) you can do this on a per user basis.
Typically I don’t use a DE. I’ll go for dmenu + dwm usually if I only want a WM. I find the default bindings and behaviour for the tiling is the most ergonomic when comparing it to other WMs like i3.
When I do have to get a DE setup then I’ll use XFCE because I like how it stays out of the way and I find it easy to customise.
I also user dwm and I can't recommend it highly enough.
trinity because it's lighter than almost everything else while having more features than almost everything else
Last update 27th Oct 2024? Trinity is still kicking around? I have so many questions...
Will there be Wayland support?
What is the purpose of it?
Does it even use later versions of Qt?
How lightweight is it (how much RAM and CPU does it use on a cold boot?)?
kde plasma, it's fast, it's pretty, it's handy, it has all the keyboard shortcuts.
I dont use a DE, I use a WM.
Semantics aside I’m on Hyprland, been using it for 6 months now and absolutely love it
Gnome, be it PC or Laptop. It just remains out of my way with it's minimalism. Tried KDE for a while, and I seriously can't stand it, personally.
GNOME