this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2026
65 points (92.2% liked)

Linux

66228 readers
504 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 7 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Spent lots of time with Gnome 2.

In Dec 2024 I got hooked in Hyprland on Arch and have a cool rice for it. But I've tried KDE on desktop now with Parrot OS since Plasma is popular. Still need to find some cool dot files or rice it myself.

I've noticed SwayFX getting lots of love lately. I might use that as an option with Plasma but am afraid of conflicts. I'm excited about it since Linux has now officially replaced windows on my gaming rig, which is the very last MS computer left in my house.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S@anarchist.nexus 50 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

KDE Plasma because I'm basic and I wanna get stuff done 👍

[–] Veraxis@lemmy.world 47 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

KDE. I don't even do much to customize it. I think it looks pretty good out of the box.

[–] comrade_twisty@feddit.org 13 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

The only thing I customize is to turn off the floating panel, I just can't stand the small gap on the bottom and the sides. It just looks off to me.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Telorand@reddthat.com 28 points 4 weeks ago (5 children)

Niri + Noctalia shell. I find the scrolling tiles to be excellent for my workflow, and the desktop shell feels nice and polished. Plus, Niri supports the Wayland zwlr_layer_shell, which means I can finally use Wallpaper Engine; there's even a Noctalia plugin for it.

Niri has been great for gaming and streaming, so be sure to check it out if you haven't.

I would be hesitant to use anything but KWin with Plasma. They were designed together as a set (like Mutter and Gnome), and I suspect replacing the WM would be no small task.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] Somecall_metim@lemmy.dbzer0.com 23 points 4 weeks ago

KDE Plasma. It's clean, fast, and just works.

[–] ClipperDefiance@piefed.social 21 points 4 weeks ago

I use KDE. I like how easy it is to customize pretty much everything. Like, if I want everything to be green, I can make everything green and no one can stop me.

[–] frosty@pawb.social 18 points 4 weeks ago

KDE Plasma all the way, on the desktop, the laptops and the two set top boxes.

[–] chronicledmonocle@lemmy.world 16 points 4 weeks ago

KDE Plasma. It's the most feature rich "just works" DE there is. GNOME doesn't even have fucking maximize and minimize buttons by default without adding them via GNOME Tweaks.

I used to be a Cinnamon/Linux Mint lover, but their slow implementation of Wayland, Window Scaling, and certain other annoyances like their split NetworkManager GUI between GNOME's UI and the native NetworkManager UI made me switch.

[–] DonAntonioMagino@feddit.nl 16 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (2 children)

KDE Plasma, as it’s most Windows-like and it has lots of cool widgets to add to your desktop Windows 7-style.

I’ve also tried Gnome, but I found it confusing and honestly a bit annoying. Not being able to properly minimise like I’m used to just really throws me off. I do think the visual style is well-designed, though.

I’ve tried Cinnamon as well. I thought it looked a bit too cheap for my taste, at least by default on Mint.

[–] doctorflynt@feddit.org 5 points 4 weeks ago

Gnome Vanilla is really not that good. But with Extensions and Gnome Tweaks its usable.

Gnome Tweaks enables the minimize button and Extensions enable pretty much everything one could ask for.

I prefer the simplified UI of Gnome to the thousands of options that KDE offers out of the box. But KDE is a really good DE and i used it without problems over a year.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] shrek_is_love@lemmy.ml 15 points 4 weeks ago

Xfce, specifically because I like the Chicago95 theme.

[–] Asfalttikyntaja@sopuli.xyz 14 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

I use Cinnamon, it’s not much, but it just works.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] timmytbt@sh.itjust.works 13 points 4 weeks ago
[–] verdare@piefed.blahaj.zone 13 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 5 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

For me: Gnome + extensions.

The default Gnome feels way too locked down to me, and I don't like some of the choices. But, with the right extensions "locked down" becomes "simplified enough to get out of your way".

[–] doctorflynt@feddit.org 4 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

same. also its the only DE i know of thats useable with touchscreens. KDE would work too, buts its too overloaded for my taste and the OSK (On Screen Keyboard) is far inferior to the options of Gnome Extensions.

i wish Cosmic DE would be usable with touchscreens tho.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] verdare@piefed.blahaj.zone 4 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (2 children)

Yeah, I’ve got a couple extensions as well. I tried out Bazzite and liked some of the changes they made, but wanted something closer to stock Gnome. Ended up just installing Silverblue and adding a few of those extensions back, to taste.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] netvor@lemmy.world 10 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

i3

With alacritty, qutebrowser, neovim and LibreWolf. I use my custom dmenu-based utilities for things like launching apps, locking (with slock), controlling (ie. postponing :D) redshift and music player and opening bookmarks, links and searches. Thunar is the most DE-like app I use but being comfortable with Bash i use Thunar just for certain tasks like organizing files like photos. For quick text edits, I sometimes prefer Mousepad. For screenshots it's slop+maim.

I don't "rice", I just set some color schemes years ago and use simple wallpaper (which I rarely see.) And keep everything as minimal and out of way as possible.

(I don't care about Wayland unless I'm somehow forced to. I mean, some of my utils depend on X11 for things like clipboard access but I suppose it could be fixed easily nowadays. However X11 works fine for me so if it ain't broken...)

[–] Maerman@lemmy.world 10 points 4 weeks ago

I'm on Mango, and it's amazing for me. It's well documented, as well as extremely flexible. I love it.

[–] determinist@kbin.earth 8 points 4 weeks ago

KDE (on CachyOS)

[–] MrKoyun@lemmy.world 8 points 4 weeks ago

Lightly customized KDE plasma, it truly is just the best de out there. However when I'm feeling a bit playful and not looking to do actual work or using my laptop without a mouse I do switch over to hyprland sometimes.

[–] nisby44@lemmy.world 8 points 4 weeks ago
[–] somegeek@programming.dev 7 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (2 children)

Been on i3wm for 3 4 years now I guess. Also work with sway on some systems.

you can actually see and use my config

https://codeberg.org/alirezaalavi/dotfiles

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] dihutenosa@piefed.social 7 points 4 weeks ago

sway. I tried hyprland, but it was unable to switch between different maximized windows (monocle layout). There was a way, but it triggered a resize on every window switch, which was slow and annoying. I don't know if it's perhaps been fixed since then.

[–] Yoddel_Hickory@piefed.ca 6 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

Sway, it's fast, pretty, easy to customize, and can do headless displays to stream with Sunshine.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] chronotron@lemmy.world 6 points 4 weeks ago
[–] HeyLow@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 4 weeks ago

KDE + Wayland, only changes I made were moving the bar to the left side, changing the applications menue icon, and changing the color of breeze dark to pink

[–] bradboimler@lemmy.world 6 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Stock GNOME. No extensions.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] appauled@sh.itjust.works 6 points 4 weeks ago

People tend to dislike this, but I LOVE gnome. It runs a lil heavy, but damn it's clean, smooth, fast, easy & decluttered.

No dot files, no config, and it's intuitive

[–] Comrade_Squid@lemmy.ml 5 points 4 weeks ago

I'm using gnome.

Really enjoyed sway but lacked the integration I wanted, KDE before plasma 6 would break all the time and I liked but again lacked integration niri (a scrolling window manager)

[–] nsh@lemmy.nz 5 points 4 weeks ago

Sway and Gnome

The latter is mostly for other family members. But I like both.

[–] jaypatelani@lemmy.ml 5 points 4 weeks ago (3 children)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 5 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (5 children)

KDE, but only with an extension called kröhnkite for auto tiling. To me a manual stacked window management system is almost unusable. As someone who used tiling window managers for years and lots of KDE based applications, and as KDE was one of the first who worked well in Wayland, I thought to give it a shot. I like it and since then (years by now) stayed on KDE.

For reference, I used Gnome 2 on Ubuntu, made the switch to Unity desktop, then Gnome 3 (and I think Gnome 4 too?, don't remember). Then started experimenting with Regolith, auto tiling for Gnome, and tried out real tiling window managers, until I landed on qtile. Then experimented with Xfce, before finally making the switch to KDE (because of Wayland). Rest is history.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] jpv2390@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 4 weeks ago

kde + wayland on tumbleweed. Wanted to try other things, went for swaywm. NowI found out that krunner and kdeconnect are like 90% of what i need an OS (DE) to do.

[–] PushButton@lemmy.world 5 points 4 weeks ago

Sway, me like simple.

[–] SocialistVibes01@lemmy.ml 4 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] master_of_unlocking@piefed.zip 4 points 4 weeks ago

Gnome with the Forge extension for window tiling

[–] bluesquid0741b@aussie.zone 4 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Cosmic.

Openbox was my favourite, but there's not a really good Wayland alternative yet so I've stuck with KDE for years.

I wanted to try Cosmic so I went to the source with popos and it's really a good time. I haven't used a Deb/Ubuntu base since the Crunchbang days but this is good and it seems there is a Cosmic update pushed through every week.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] garbage_world@lemmy.world 4 points 4 weeks ago

GNOME. I love the workspace management and simplicity

[–] rhubarbe@tarte.nuage-libre.fr 4 points 4 weeks ago

KDE Plasma with default settings as well.

[–] dlsolo@lemmy.world 4 points 4 weeks ago

Running mangowm on AerynOS.

[–] Bogus007@lemmy.zip 4 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

WM: i3, sway, also playing around with dwm

DE: Xfce

I just need basic functionality, and most tiling WMs are fairly similar. i3 vs. Sway is basically the Xorg vs. Wayland question. I like dwm for its absolute minimalism and the fact that you configure it by editing or patching C and recompiling.

[–] HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.org 3 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (2 children)

I use mainly StumpWM, a tiling window manager which uses concepts very similar to Emacs. For example, one can define key chords, bind keys to lisp functions, and auto-generate input for a program window.

If it isn't available, I use i3, or occasionally GNOME.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›