For me its KDE.
KDE sets a really high bar with all the packages and extensibility. Almost everything (not including the lesser known and used packages) is feature-packed and
just works
. I really don’t know any other software that constantly amazes me like KDE.In addition to that, they make nice FOSS apps that are great for any DE (see Krita, Kdenlive)
Also it looks like Windows, and that to me is a huge plus for anyone using my computer.
Came to say KDE/Plasma. Glad it was already on top
Seems like I’m the outlier here that prefers Gnome over KDE. Gnome feels more polished than KDE for me. Granted KDE comes with more features out of the box, but I don’t find anything lacking in Gnome for me.
Tried KDE long time ago to compare it to Gnome 3, went back to Gnome. Tried KDE again a few months ago to compare to Gnome 42, came back to Gnome again.
I also can’t stand having all my programs’ name starting with K.
I like Gnome the best too. In my experience, it’s the desktop environment that focuses the most on making sure that no little bugs slip in. Like normally when you’re using a desktop environment, it will be good except for a few bugs here and there where you have to remember weird things like not backing out of the settings menu in a certain way in order to not trigger a bug. Gnome seems to have the least amount of weird little bugs like that.
It’s not very configurable out of the box, but I prefer that too. I’m getting a bit old and set in my ways, and don’t really want to mess around with too much configuration anymore.
I also can’t stand having all my programs’ name starting with K.
Like Okular, Spectacle, Dolphin, …
Maybe I shouldn’t have said all, but it’s annoying to me when the they put a “k” in the name in a very awkward way just because it’s an KDE app.
KDE was the first one I used after getting more comfortable with Linux and leaving Unity behind. KDE was very customizable and extensible, but when you actually started customizing it quickly became unreliable. I stuck with it for a few years then I tried Elementary next and it was pretty polished but it was limited to a specific distribution. After that I went to GNOME and I’ve been using it for 7 years now. It does need a few extensions, but otherwise I’ve found that it works quite well. I think I’ve also changed, I’m not as interested in things like wobbly windows anymore. I just want the desktop environment to stay out of my way, but I also don’t want it to be too bare bones.
KDE has a lot of customization and plenty of neat features, but it suffers a death of a thousand papercuts. There’s just so many small “non-severe” issues that adds up to making it end up feeling clunky and unpolished compared to GNOME’s general polish.
Vanilla Gnome. It’s simple/boring, and I like that. It seems like most people that like Gnome don’t care that it’s not a poweruser DE, and aren’t excited to talk about it either.
I use gnome, but it’s basically the worst DE, except all of the other ones that have been tried
It has the least features, so by default the least bugs.
GNOME, for sure. It works out of the box, and it’s kind of pretty out of the box.
I also tried it on a touch screen PX and it works surprisingly well.
i3. I mean, it’s fast, customizable, and you can make it look good. That’s all i need.
XFCE, tried cinnamon a couple times it was okay but I just prefer the simplicity and stability of xfce
xfce for a very long time. I really like tiling WMs but always come back to xfce
Xfce is the best!
See I don’t really get the appeal of xfce, I kinda see it as the minimal DE you use if you’ve got low powered hardware or if you need a DE on a system that isn’t a personal computer and just need the bare minimum to run a graphical application or two
it’s the quickest fully featured de, and as an added bonus, it’s the least buggy of them all, it’s also very simple in it’s functioning, fairly close to a diy desktop + wm config, so tweaking random stuff like the compositor is easy to do and doesn’t break everything
I like Gnome with Pop OS’s tiling
Default GNOME (Wayland), it just works
For aesthetics: Budgie, with Cinnamon a close second For simplicity and speed: XFCE
GNOME, with a little bit of extension customisability!
i3 / Sway with Albert or dmenu or rofi
I just love keeping my hands on the keyboard
I’m a simple person. I see KDE, I upvote.
KDE. Because it’s mostly a complete package and has tons of knobs and dials to tune for anyone’s needs edited
Not even mentioning the DE, what a Chad move
I meant KDE. Was replying to OP
They might be referencing the fact that technically the DE’s name is Plasma, not KDE.
Must be xfce