I’ve been using Fedora for a couple of months now, and have been loving it. Very soon after I jumped into this community (among other Linux communities) and started laughing at all the people saying “KDE rules, GNOME drools,” and “GNOME is better, KDE is for babies.” But then I thought, “Why not give KDE a try? The worst that happens is I go back to using GNOME.”
Now I get it. The level of customization is incredible, it’s way faster than GNOME, and looks beautiful too. At this point, I’m not going back.
I’ll happily contribute to the playground fight over desktop environments. KDE rules, GNOME drools.
+1 Plasma. However, I don’t dislike gnome. Gnome just doesn’t fit my personal taste of workflow and customizability. Other that that, gnome did a pretty good job on the look and feel department. I feel at home on Plasma (and almost at home on xfce)
Welcome to the KDE gang.
I appreciate KDE for being a comprehensive toolbox that will let just about anyone craft the mouse-driven GUI of their dreams given enough time and effort. I appreciate GNOME for its bold and unified vision, which isn’t afraid to cull features or embrace innovation.
In what sense do you mean “faster” though? If you mean more performant, I haven’t experienced that – both desktops are extremely responsive.
I can respect GNOME, it’s just not for me. There are a lot of other DE’s I really don’t get, for example: Xfce, Mate, Budgie, LXQt, any pure WM desktop in existence, the list goes on… But if people still develop them, I guess there is a market.
Well, for example, Xfce is very lightweight, so it works better for old hardware.
Xfce works better everywhere and with everything, however it falls to the same pitfall that KDE has, eventually you’ll require some libadwaita application, flatpak and whatnot and then you’ll end up with a Frankenstein system half Xfce half GNOME components and themes that don’t apply to all apps equally. :(
it’s way faster than GNOME
Real question, are you on modern hardware? Only time I’ve noticed anything slow on gnome is on a pretty under powered laptop
Same. I have zero performance issues with Gnome, but I’m using a badass $3000 custom gaming computer.
Sokath, his eyes open.
Both DE have different targets. Gnome takes a bit more time for development. They are both great projects.
You’re not entirely incorrect. But, KDE is better.
In your opinion.
I’d take Gnome anyday.
Gnome and KDE are both great for different reasons. One of the things that’s great about Linux as a whole is it gives people the ability to choose the stack they like most
Yes! I wholeheartedly agree with you. There are pieces of GNOME I wish I could bring into KDE, and vice versa.
I think having options is the best part of Linux. I’ve used XFCE for years, but if I ever get tired of it there are plenty of great options.
I essentially did the same. Used GNOME for almost 10 years, then got my first try of KDE last year and don’t plan on going back either. GNOME has some really good points, I wouldn’t have used it so long if it didn’t, but I can actually use an honest to goodness theme on my desktop and customize without having extensions break on every update. Also, the UI in GTK is just too big and chunky for me, it’s like every window is designed for tablets or something. I don’t need a title bar that’s practically an entire inch tall. If you like GNOME, awesome, I will likely never say GNOME is bad, but I’m a KDE guy now.
EDIT: apparently I need to specify that the “entire inch tall” comment is exaggeration, because internet. My point being that GNOME’s UI is too big for my tastes.
title bar that’s practically an entire inch tall
… I think this is quite an exaggeration
I tried GNOME for all but three minutes until I found out that you could be scrolling along with your mouse wheel and oop, a slider suddenly appears under your cursor, steals focus, and now your mouse wheel is moving the slider before you can notice where it used to be.
What an awful default choice for UI/UX behavior.
That has never happened to me in the many years I’ve been using Gnome.
I used Gnome for half an hour when I noticed I can three-finger-swipe left/right to switch workspaces and swipe up/down to open and close the overview. I’ll never use anything else on my laptop!
That is not a UX choice, not default behaviour, and has not happened to me ever, after a decade+ of use.
I don’t like GNOME for it’s poor theming support and it’s toxic dev community (ahem, talking about senior devs, especially Ebassi’s hostility towards newbies), but I think that it has some well-designed defaults. I love the workflow - everything is fast and snappy, shortcuts are pretty nice, aligning window is quick, and if there’s a lack of space, I can just drop the app in another workspace. Yes, I am using GNOME 45 at the movement, and I think it’s quite nice. But I also love the roadmap of GNUStep, and maybe if I can in the future, I would love to assist Gregory Casamento.
