Hi there, random question, I'm going to do a dual boot as I want to use ROCm, PyTorch et al with an AMD card and to install of the Stable Diffusion variants, just wondering if there is any particular Distro that is better suited to AI without being to ''mad scientist' in is particulars? Thanks buddy! ;D
I am a KDE dev and I think GNOME devs have done really well with their desktop environment. I just ended up with KDE plasma because I like the philosophy behind it, and contributing to KDE software was very easy to get into. Neither is better than the other, it's more like choosing between vanilla and chocolate cake. And I like both! I don't think it's a competition, we're just both doing our own thing.
As a sysadmin, I've used Linux at work for years, but not really at home. Windows 11's recent moves pushed me to look for a Linux gaming distro, and I quickly settled on Bazzite with KDE for my two HTPCs. I'm only a few weeks in, but it's been great so far. :) I did not even consider Gnome as they are hopping on the DEI bandwagon and that has become fatiguing for me.
I am using ubuntu with gnome but I like KDE plasma's beauty. I would love to learn and contribute to this project. Can you guide me how can I help maintain this project. Thanks for making KDE a beautiful reality. I think as long as the competition is fierce both the developments will prosper. Both distros should learn and copy useful things from each other but maintaining their originality.
One question, because, even though I like KDE and the philosophy, etc, can I ask if there is a plan to centralize a bit the config files and gather them under a specific directory? I, really, HATE that the .config folder becomes a cluttering mess with "rc" files when I install, even the basic plasma desktop. Very few folders, and mostly text files randomly lying around. In this regard, GNOME has done a very good job. I get it, some of these are not under the KDE project at all, but, for those which are, please, do something. Why did these change from KDE 3 and 4?
for me it's something like this: UI design - GNOME Compatibilty/Usability - KDE Staying out of my way - Xfce (thank you for your existance, you saved my chromebook)
Am stuck with Plasma. Somehow, all others do a lot of things not as I like it, and KDE is the only one that lets me configure it to be less of a nuisance.
@@TheLinuxEXP After now way over 20 years of using different desktops, from KDE 3.4/5, GNOME 2.8, Unity, Budgie, Xfce, Awesome, you eventually will end up with just something to tailor to your taste and be done with it, don't you? I think you are in a similar situation? :D
@gljames24 GNOME Extensions are a bit of a problem because they break every release, they sometimes have to be updated because of breaking changes to the GNOME Shell, and they aren't really official outside of Classic Mode, which is insane given Ubuntu literally has to enable and usd extensions just to make GNOME usable.
@@gljames24 I had more incompatible and breaking plugins than I can count. That is, more than four, I guess. And cinnamon is best left for the rolls, not as a desktop. Mate is also not so great, at least for my taste. Plasma is not perfect, but good enough to stick with it.
After KDE 5 became stable (after a lot of time of being inestable) for me there is no competition. KDE Plasma is far far ahead of any DE: - Stable / Reliable - Low memory footprint - Great hardware integration (monitors, drawing tablets among others). - Features of everything. - Customizable - Kwin: Great rendering performance, even with Nvidia. - Given the development of plasma mobile, there are many elements that can be used for non standard screens, and tablets, with or without touchscreen.
I feel like I'm in the minority but I love GNOME's no bullshit approach to UI. It's just really clean and enjoyable to use. Granted some extensions are a must for me, and I feel like recommending GNOME would be even easier if they made them more easily available.
I can understand liking the simplicity, but that is until I want to do something that the application just won't let me. Not wanting to feel that frustration for me overpowers the "clean design" aspect
For me, KDE is the only viable option for one reason: Multi-monitor setups and screen mirroring. I have 3 monitors + a TV hooked up to my computer, and I like to have my main screen mirrored to my TV whenever I feel like just hopping on the couch and watching movies or gaming. From what I have seen, KDE is the only DE that supports mirroring in a multi-monitor set up. Now, aside from that, I do love KDE and all the features it provides from customization to audio management, not to mention the programs. For beginners, I honestly think Cinnamon is the absolute best choice, and in my opinion deserves to be included in comparisons like this. While it's a bit more conservative compared to KDE and GNOME, it's a wonderful DE that works fantastic out of the box, providing great features and customizing options without overwhelming the user. Very underrated.
I agree. When I was first getting into Linux I installed Linux Mint on both my HTPC and my old laptop while still keeping Windows 11 for my main PC. I've since switched to a much faster HTPC (which also served as a testbed for whether I wanted to go Linux on everything) and I was running Fedora 40's KDE spin on that. Earlier in December I decided to switch to having my main PC running Fedora KDE as well for many of the reasons you listed (multi-monitor HiDPI support for fractional scaling was important to me) and I couldn't be happier. I still have a Windows 11 partition on my main PC for the edge cases where I want to use Windows for something, but I don't see myself booting into that all that often. Linux Mint w/ Cinnamon is great for some uses and that's why I have it as the distro of choice on my laptop, but for everything else, I've decided on KDE.
Basically, its between a Windows-like experience by default that can be made into pretty much anything you want, or a macOS like experience where everything is polished inside the walled garden, but not as good outside.
@@maxarendorff6521 No server-side window decoration, the attitude from some core GNOME devs may be off putting, like with their vision for GNOME, and the vanilla interface isn't very good for Windows users.
@@cameronbosch1213 Wayland is primarily client-side decoration by default, so all applications that support Wayland must support client-side decoration.
My only issue with Gnome is them actively going against the standards every other desktop has agreed upon (server-side decoration, accent color naming, svg icons, status icons, etc).
That, and their reliance on community plugins to make it usable, while breaking those same plugins every new release. Stylistically, there are things I like about gnome. Without plugins however, everything takes more clicks to get done than in any other de I’ve spent time on.
Just this, Gnome could be more stable, better compatibility, offers to send hookers and blow to my door every other night and I would never use it because every time there is a big blow-up about some integration that is needed, esp. for getting Wayland out the door, you can bet that Gnome is front and center in the drama.
I use KDE bc it has the wallpaper engine plugin. I've used it for years and now it's what I'm with. Haven't had anything bad happen so I'm happy with it
I'm a huge fan of KDE, but right now I'm using Cinnamon as a daily driver because Cinnamon's customizable enough while being more polished and stable in my experience.
@ismatovsanjarbek I don’t know how new the hardware has to be but I’m using Plasma 6.1(Wayland) on arch with a Ryzen 5 3600 and an RTX 4060ti and everything works great
My problems with KDE bugs is with distinctly old hardware: and it's not crashes, but inexplicable (by me) problems with installation. It feels like there's some kind of personal equation with KDE, and it just doesn't work for some folks (including me).
One thing worth mentioning is that Gnome is a pretty natural fit for touch screens. I used it for several months on a touch screen laptop and I thought it worked very well. I ultimately reverted to Xfce, but that was performance-related and had nothing to do with the interface. I don't think I'd ever use Gnome on a desktop machine though.
I started to work with computers in 1979. Since then I have worked (professionally) with a myriad of different operating systems and user interfaces. During the last 20 years I have worked on Linux primarily with Gnome and KDE. At the end I always reached my goals irrelevant of the desktop. But as someone who spends 12 hours per day on a PC/laptop KDE is clearly my favorite and winner in nearly every aspect - and it is getting better and better - especially for pros. Gnome apps are working fine when integrated in KDE. No complaints. As a challenging user I can't complain about bugs in the KDE apps or a lack of stability. Decisive for me is my productivity - and here Gnome can absolutely NOT compete with KDE (considering my workflows).
I started to work with computers in March 1969 :) Since then I have worked on OS design and Air Traffic Control systems. I designed an OS for Air Traffic Control. After retirement 1-1-11 I spend (as hobby) 12 hours per day behind my PC with Gnome; KDE and XFCE. I worked on ATC with the most critical customers in the world. Agreeing with my old customers, my main requirement is about reliability. That is the reason that I dumped KDE this year, I now concentrate on Gnome and XFCE. I keep an eye on Budgie and Unity and probably I will do the same for KDE again next year.
I use the Fedora KDE spin, and have to say that the devs have been doing an amazing job this year. KDE 6 now is nearly perfect, even on my desktop with an Nvidia card, on Wayland.
@@シミズルリthat is interesting. It's always been the opposite for me. It's always the best experience for me on Fedora. Maybe the hardware configuration is at play?
Same, when I first made the jump I distro hopped from Ubuntu (16.04 Unity?) -> Xubuntu (Forgot) -> Kubuntu (18.04?) -> Linux Mint -> Fedora -> KDE Neon -> Kubuntu (20.04) then finally settled on Arch KDE and haven't changed since. I think I liked the familiarity of KDE coming from Windows over the "overly simplistic" way that GNOME operates. Like, I'd rather not have to install extensions for basic functionality like editing the path by typing in the file explorer and - in my opinion - fundamental things like that. I still get frustrated when a program gives me the GNOME style file picker where I have to navigate from the root / to a folder mounted drive 12 direcories deep. I guess people like the other way but it's also okay to be wrong. /s
I've tried KDE Plasma multiple times and found that while I really like the customization options, there were too many glitches and annoyances. I consistently went back to GNOME. Folks who use Xfce or Mate? I can't even begin to understand that lot...
I am a happy GNOME user. I have used KDE for quite some time but GNOME just fits my workflow quite a bit better. But I don't see it as a competition. They are two completely different approaches on DEs and I love both of them as they are the best DEs out there.
Personally I love the Gnome workflow but was frustrated by the lack of options and need for many extensions, so since KDE added an "overview" plugin a few version ago I've replicated the Gnome workflow in KDE on my desktop and have been happy ever since. Gnome will always be the better choice on laptops for me though, their touchpad gestures are juste far superior, which is the one thing you (strangely) still can't customize on KDE. Beyond that, I also feel like Gnome's cleaner UI works better on smaller screens, while I prefer KDE on my desktop where I want most options to be accessible in a pinch.
GNOME looks beautiful, clean and simple, but hides away vital functionality. It's very hard to use without extensions, but with Dash to Panel it's a lot more amazing. I like GNOME very much on computers which I do not actively have to work on, like on servers or touch screen devices. But it's clearly not for real things like software development and other keyboard intensive activities, which require an easy way of keyboard shortcut configuration, a desktop which is able to do proper fractional scaling (still an unfixed problem), and a file manager which is actually really usable (Nautilus is not). I prefer KDE, Cinnamon or Xfce.
@@KeepMovingForward-24-365 I have two separate drives, so both OSs are sandboxed, and I switch between them using my BIOS, and I use systemd-boot for both of them, not GRUB
I'm KDE user since 2004. Switched to Gnome last year as my daily driver for 12 days. It's almost impossible to leave KDE when you customize workflow with keybinds, activities and yes KDE is way faster it compared within the same computer.
When I first wanted to try Linux, I went with the default choice, Ubuntu with GNOME. It felt actively hostile, like it had a secret idea of how a user should interact with the OS and wasn't going to allow anything outside of that to the detriment of the user. I gave up and went back to Windows 7. This inflexibility is not an insurmountable challenge (and something like it happened again when I moved to a dynamic tiler), but especially as a beginner, one expects an "it just works" system out of the box from the most popular distro without having to learn an entire new workflow . And that was BEFORE they took away the maximize button!
Same here. Currently running LMcinnamon 21.3 with Win7 styling as good as I could manage.. stability is similar (~7 days between reboots) but sophistication is lower now.. lots of little things that just worked don't and it's always a struggle to get something similar (which means at some point one just accepts what is). Am looking at KDE Plasma, but couldn't find the motivation (again) to switch everything to that.. _no idea where people take time for 'distro hopping' from?_
LOL, nick, i love the way u segue into ur sponsor bits. btw, even tho i usually skip the sponsor bits, thanks for that, you usually have the very best sponsors, and i'm actually grateful for them and my awareness of them thanks to you. and they're all sponsors i would be happy to support when my needs for them arise.
That's what I decided to go with as well. People can come up with a billion and one things to say about KDE or Gnome but I rarely hear bad things about Cinnamon besides "if you want your desktop to look just like mint why not just use mint?" The answer? Mint looks nice. :)
Every time I intall distro with KDE, I use Gnome again on the computer the same day in the evening. Gnome is much more intuitive, beautiful and easier to use for me. I don't want to spend a lot of time customizing my computer. Cosmic FTW. I just want to be comfortable using it - sayed windows user :D
My situation is directly opposite to yours. I have never used Gnome for one whole day. It's like no matter what I can't get it to work the way I make Plasma to work.
I THINK IM FIRST, HI, BIG FAN AND YOU HELPED ME SWITCH TO LINUX, and i just realized I had caps lock on, I'm not retyping that. Anyways, thank you. You are awesome. Edit: wasn't first
I prefer KDE and would recommend it to beginners. I think more options just have to be there; you might not use them but to know you can do things differently is a reassuring thing when you're introducing someone to linux.
Something it took me a while to learn to do, when customising a DE, is to make notes so that I can easily recreate those customisations on a fresh install. Eventually I put most of my notes in my public wiki in case others are interested. I moved over to KDE about two years ago, having used Xfce on my Linux boxes before, sometimes Gnome, and often used Windows as my main desktop OS. These days KDE is what I prefer out of the Linux DE's, Windows, and Macos (I have all three at home). The main customisations I do are keyboard shortcuts (a main theme is that all desktop/window management shortcuts use the meta key, so that any key combo not using meta is guaranteed to go through to the application, and then in Konsole, minimising the number of key combos, so that almost everything is passed through to the terminal app), and bringing back the idea that the window with focus has a different title bar colour. Likewise I have notes on what I do with a fresh Kubuntu install: so that it is pretty straightforward to get a new machine up and running. (I have collected quite a few old Thinkpads off eBay, most of which now run Kubuntu.)
I'm making my slow switch to Linux. I've installed Arch with Gnome on my laptop and it's been a pleasure to configure it. The interface is clean and you can install extensions to config it to your heart's content.
@deusexaethera Yeah, the fact that the AppIndicator extension took forever to be updated to GNOME 46 (it took at least a month for such a simple and vital feature) pissed me off greatly. Add that Dash to Dock took a similar amount of time because GNOME 46 broke it and I almost gave up on GNOME.
Imo I like GNOME better because it's just so refined and consistent. If I want to customize it more I have the option to do that with extensions, but as is, GNOME is perfectly usable and everything just has this level of polish and consistency that I miss when I switch to KDE. I love how much customization features KDE has, but my issue is that when you start to do that and you get a fully custom system, then things start to become inconsistent in terms of the UI (particularly if you use flatpaks). It also doesn't feel as polished as GNOME does, the UI is a little too cludgy imo; functional sure, but the form could do with a little more refinement so it looks more modern.
I can honestly say I love both. For work, I generally prefer Gnome, but have changed to KDE due to better fractional scaling in Wayland. I think it is great to have these two with different perspectives on what makes a good desktop environment.
i will have to go with KDE being better simply because GNOME doesn't support server side decorations, so on KDE beginners won't suddenly run into apps that don't have a header bar it also has a more similar layout to windows, which most people are used to
Shout out to addressing the existence of bugs. It's such a natural intuitive thought that the more complex a system is the more likely unintended behavior will crop up. That theory has always proven to be accurate in my experience. I even made my living finding and describing bugs for a few years. It's just annoying to me when people hold the belief that "If it isn't just working, you're just doing something wrong."
Me who uses Cinnamon because I want simple,stable and customization. I've always had a buggy (yet not gamebreaking) experience with KDE but I would take it over the oversimplification of GNOME.
I have a lot of respect for both. But here I am on Cinnamon. It works, I can costomize it enugh. Its all I need. Its a happy middle ground and I always give mint my friends new to Linux. They love it, and it's a smooth experiance for them.
While KDE and Gnome might seem equally matched, it's important to note how much Gnome alienated their users to the point that entire distros were created just to avoid it. Unity, Cinnamon, Mate, Budgie, Cosmic all these and more exist because people love to use GTK apps, but hate to use Gnome desktop.
Personally, my biggest issue with Gnome is LibAdwaita and its wide adoption. I've experienced the changes from GTK+3, to GTK 4, to LibAdwaita over the years, and I hate it. Ignoring my dislike for Adwaita's looks, the apps simply don't fit any desktop except for Gnome. On KDE, Cinnamon, XFCE, etc' all LibAdwaita apps with their CSD simply destroy any cohesion. The worst part is when I use a TWM on my laptop - CSD is useless and takes from the already limited screen space that I have. At this point, I uninstall every LibAdwaita app (except for Flatseal) as a form of protest. Far too many devs explicitly support only Gnome.
100% agree. Using GNOME applications on a non-GNOME desktop just sucks. It's kind of sad how one-sided GNOME is. I love Adwaita as a theme (as long as I can change the colour), but LibAdwaita really only works if you use GNOME.
@@TheLinuxEXP the issue is when you're not a Gnome user. I would love to use some of those apps, but their CSD just ruins it. Kirigami / Qt doesn't have this issue because they support server-side decorations. I won't start using only Adwaita theme / LibAdwaita apps, because they're quite unpleasant to my eyes and the widgets are far too large.
Not to mention one of the few ways of theming Libadwaita apps, Gradience, is currently unmaintained and not fully working. Heck, if GNOME wasn't so hellbent against server side decoration, maybe more users would use it!
Both GNOME and KDE use more RAM (tested immediately after login without any apps launched). That's why I use MATE. It's incredible that even XFCE uses now more RAM than MATE.
The sense I get is that GNOME is designed by and for people who spend a lot of time in the CLI and want to keep their fingers on the home keys as much as possible. In principle I approve of this, but whenever I've tried Gnaked GNOME I find I have to stop and think about how to do something. Decades of Windows and MacOS have left their scars, and obviously you can learn new ways of doing things, but I've never felt there was much payoff to me in doing that. OTOH, GNOME works. I know it's old news, and it might be me, but rather too often when I try to install a KDE distro, I get hung up in the installation. So I use neither desktop; but I do find the KDE apps I use fit me better than the GNOME alternatives. Obviously, a coherent desktop design doesn't matter to me.
@@xgui4-studios No, I wasn't thinking of that. It's not part of my long ago acquired habits, but I'm getting fond of it. I was thinking of keyboard shortcuts for a variety of operations; and I do like a dock. Apparently, with extensions, you can make Gnome what you like, but if I can find that ready made ....
Thanks for the video, Nick. I just tried KDE Plasma, after a couple years of using GNOME, then was quickly reminded of why I always switched back. KDE is just not for me, let alone the bugs, GNOME, while lacking a few things, feels way more polished for most people. Big follower of your content!
Personally, I prefer KDE just because they seem to be looking at things in various angles and are willing to accept that not everyone will be doing the same things as they are. GNOME, meanwhile, just thinks of itself and doesn’t consider the damage it’ll cause for non-GNOME environments. The client-side vs server-side decorations argument is just the main example I can think of, where GNOME refuses to support the latter. What GNOME did with the Adwaita icon theme didn’t help either.
@@NJ-wb1cz Honestly, I think this is mostly a habit on my end. I tend to use the trackpad of my laptop a lot and I just prefer the way Gnome works in this case.
Sorry Nick, I tried the KDE plasma over the cinnamon desktop which I use daily. to see if I can move to a pure debian+KDE environment (just seems it should present as a more uniform environment, which is supposed to simplify also privacy and security). What I experienced, was a pretty much similar experience as far as the UI goes, and therefore user experience, but It takes more resources, and is less stable than the Cinnamon (I discovered it here and there and it was not a REAL concern, but for a daily driver, I want as less hassle as possible). Please let me know what are your thoughts on the subject.
I use KDE on my desktop and GNOME on my laptop, but will probably switch both to GNOME fairly soon, the dynamic workspaces workflow is just the best. The only thing that could maybe defeat it is a tiling WM, but I'm not quite there yet. Although Hyprland is very sexy...
@Silverblue-se6iy I do enjoy configuring stuff to my liking, but a DE seems very different in scale compared to my 40 line Alacritty config or even stuff like my neovim config. And GNOME just works pretty much perfectly for the way I use it, so putting up with some extensions which should be native (clipboard history etc.) is worth it to me.
I love the Gnome way of doing things. Its very clean, beautiful and intuitive. The only change I make is to re-enable the minimize/maximize buttons. It also feels more coherent and new features tend to feel more polished on release.
Any time I tried KDE I get overwhelmed by the sheer number of choices (look at their settings app). But GNOME on the other hand is straight forward without any clutter. I like the simplicity of their UI. Few features which GNOME does not provide by default I get them by extensions. To me, GNOME is the better choice for its polished and minimal UI. {F40, GNOME 46.3}
@@BaardFigur Neither was GNOME 3.0. The amount of forks and loss of users like Linus Torvalds himself speaks volume to how bad early GNOME 3 was. You'd think they'd learn after the instability of KDE 4, but nope.
I recently switched from KDE to Gnome due to better support by Nixos declarative config (home manager's dconf). I've never been a Gnome fan before, but I am quickly starting to know it and love it. ...but yes, for a beginner, if they can't use a (polished) Kde, like the setups coming from mainstream distros, they basically can't use a computer 😅
@YadraVoat It was when it was based on XForms (XForms Common Environment). As of Xfce 3, it is based on GTK 1; as of Xfce 4.0, it is based off of GTK 2, and as of Xfce 4.12, it is being ported to GTK 3 (mostly done) and as of Xfce 4.20, Xfwm (the compositing Windows manager Xfce uses) should have Wayland support.
Very good comparison, it would've been great including a chapter dedicated to the best exclusive features of each (e.g. KRunner and GNOME Boxes for example).
GNOME = We decide how you do things. KDE = You decide how you want to do things. I'll take KDE 100% of the time, because it lets me be on the driver seat whilst GNOME refuses to let me do things I want.
That's my thought, too. It reminds me of the Mac GUI: "We have cognitive and design geniuses working here, and they have determined the best way for you to do your work."
I have some thoughts about stability when it comes to these two desktop environments. In my personal experience, with the current latest versions of each, on Arch, KDE has quite a few annoying bugs and even one that would consistently crash my entire system. On the other hand, I have yet to encounter a single bug with GNOME which I've been using as my daily driver for nearly 2 months now. Have not experienced a single bug. Though if it weren't for this I would absolutely prefer KDE. However I'm predicting that I'll be ditching both of them for COSMIC when it gets a stable release.
Given a choice of vanilla Gnome or vanilla KDE, I would choose KDE every time. Distros that customise their Gnome into something more beginner friendly - like Zorin, POP, Manjaro - attract me more to the Gnome side of things. Mostly though I tend to stick with Cinnamon. I recently installed Ultramarine Budgie as a DD and then added the Cinnamon DE to it... it's really nice :)
I've tried several distros now and kinda getting bored with Windows-style desktops, so when I tried Fedora with GNOME, I really like it. Clean and customizable, it become my favorite linux desktop.
I don't really know but I am using gnome for almost 4 years now.. I gave KDE try for 3 months but found I was much more comfortable with gnome. The design and elegance of gnome is unmatched. Sometimes KDE apps like calender suite which is merkuro and the icon they use or the calculator app which doesn't show calculation results feel like hack job. While some apps are really good like KDE Connect. But overall gnome's app ecosystem is much better it feels overall much more coherent in terms of design and theme
As a main Windows User, Gnome feels so sleek and easy to use! Everytime I use it with Fedora on my Laptop, I have trouble adjusting back to Windows again. The Gestures, Workflow, ease of understanding things is just unmatched in the whole PC world. Not even MacOS comes even close to Gnome.
I'm a minimalist, and I'm using Gnome as how it is intended to be used. No extensions whatsoever, using Fedora a year now ever since I both my Thinkpad. All works well, even LTE on my laptop works well. I've used the Fedora KDE spin when I started installing Linux but man, the online accounts syncing, the LTE issues, and the wallet manager keeps giving me troubles. Gnome does do the job.
I use both, and GNOME is miles ahead in terms of attention to detail - those little things which don't seem to matter much each on their own, but combined together they make or break the user experience. Just to name a few examples. When adjusting the volume both desktops play a sound to provide feedback of current volume level. But GNOME implements it in a smart way: they don't play the sound when something is already playing since in this case you already have all the feedback needed and any extra sounds will disturb more than help. KDE on the other hand just plays it every time, and so e.g. when I watch a quiet movie and want to adjust the volume, by the time movie sounds right, the sound KDE plays when adjusting the volume is already ear piercing. Then, let's look at window previews. KDE copied a Windows feature when hovering over preview popup hides all other windows. BUT Windows implemented it right triggering this only after a noticeable delay, while in KDE you can touch that popup with mouse pointer for a millisecond, and the whole desktop blinks as all other windows are hidden and then immediately shown back again. It was so annoying I had to disable the feature altogether! And guess what, some random guy who implemented Dash to Panel extension for GNOME with similar functionality, not even a GNOME developer, managed to do it right, while KDE providing this feature out of the box did not! And don't get me started on how awful notifications are in KDE. I wonder how one can implement such basic functionality so wrong: * Unlike in GNOME, notifications don't disappear from history after one reads the message (happens all the time with Discord), and so notifications indicator in the panel keeps showing that there are unread messages when there are none. * Unlike in GNOME, notifications are only clickable while they are still visible, but no longer clickable when viewing them from notifications center, so if you missed a notification you can no longer invoke its default action (e.g. open missed Discord message). * Unlike in GNOME, you can see missed notifications only once. After you close notifications center the indicator immediately disappears from the panel, and all the notifications you haven't read yet are gone. Apps often have their content cut off and without scrollbars (often seen in Settings app), sometimes content (like text labels) is rendered outside their container widget, scrollbars and other widgets don't behave consistently from one app to another and sometimes even within apps themselves (again, often seen in the Settings app), and so on. When it comes to features, KDE is a prime example of quantity over quality. They can have all the features in the world, and yet can't do window previews or notifications right.
Yes but why do I have to install another third-party app to change my wallpaper orientation or my font? And if gnome is so superior, why does it break extensions every minor release? I have grown tired of gnomes wishy washy approach to things, at least KDE is consistent.
@@themadoneplays7842 > Yes but why do I have to install another third-party app to change my wallpaper orientation or my font? Tweaks is not a 3rd-party app, it's an official GNOME app. And it comes preinstalled on some distributions like Debian. > And if gnome is so superior, why does it break extensions every minor release? How are these topics even connected?.. Anyway. Extensions may break because of what they are. Extensions are way more powerful than your regular KDE widgets because they are allowed to modify or even reimplement parts of the Shell itself. For example, they can turn GNOME into a scrolling WM. But this is a double-edged sword: since extensions are basically modifying Shell internals, when those internals change extensions which depend on those may break. So extensions are both extremely powerful, and also somewhat fragile. They are kinda similar to kernel modules in that regard. > KDE is consistent The only consistent thing about KDE is its inconsistency. Some apps have menubars, some don't; some dialogs are left aligned, some are centered; there are all sorts of margins and layouts, sometimes even within the same app. There's no common design language. While even 3rd-party apps on GNOME platform look and behave like official GNOME apps, official KDE apps often look like an incoherent collection of 3rd-party apps. ---------------- As I said earlier I use both; in fact, I had been an exclusively KDE user for 15 years. KDE certainly wins in overall out of the box configurability and familiar workflow for Windows users, so if that's what you're after then sure it's a better choice for you. Yet there also are areas in which GNOME does way better, namely polish, stability, consistency and attention to detail. And it's great that everyone can find an environment most suitable for their needs and use cases.
@@themadoneplays7842 it is true that extensions and gnome-tweaks carries the gnome de, but why does that matter? it's not minor updates that break extensions. going from one major version of gnome to the next will definitely break a couple, but those are either fixed, forked and updated, or remade for the next version in a couple weeks a lot of distros that come with gnome as the default de also have things like gnome-tweaks preinstalled at this point. from my experience, it's easier to just search for extensions through the extension manager than having to comb through hundreds of kde settings that I don't need to find the few I actually want i would hardly call gnome's approach to a DE wishy-washy. there's a reason that a lot of devs are able to cater their app designs to it and end users get a fluid UI out of it. it's simple
@@Casey2262 > But I still think Gnome looks uglier That is fine, everyone has their own subjective opinions and preferences. > It's also very bad for security, since it relies on web extensions WDYM by "web extensions"? It has nothing to do with WebExtensions format web browsers are using if that's what you meant. And regarding GNOME Shell extensions, let me quote their web site: "All extensions uploaded to this site are carefully reviewed for malicious behavior before they are made available for download." Which AFAIK is not the case for e.g. KDE Store which quite recently had a really bad incident with a theme removing all files in users' home directories.
I mostly use LxQT and XFCE on my ancient potato of a laptop, but both GNOME and KDE look great and fully featured. I wish I could afford a better PC to try them out.
While I totally recognize KDE as an outstanding product, it just doesn’t align as well with my way of doing things, nor with how I feel things should work. As a developer of a GNOME Circle application, I’m kinda pidgeon-holed in the GNOME-way anyway, but every time I give KDE a try I get reminded of why I don’t use it. It’s basically too much clutter and too many options that shouldn’t be there. Solving a design challenge with a toggle is typically a case of poor UI design imo. Having said that, KDE is a fantastic project and I totally see why people seem to love it. Especially in the FOSS world, where people often like having infinite choices. It’s just not for me personally, and that’s okay.
KDE is perfectly usable out of the box without going into settings. The start menu is clean, simple and much more functional than gnome. The taskbar is also clean simple and more functional. So are most of the kde apps, with some exceptions like gwenview. Simple by default, and complex by need is the philosophy every software should follow.
They are different for sure but they are both good, useful desktops used by many. You are right to say that. My personal preference/ bias? is for OpenSUSE Leap KDE. Using KDE takes a little more effort at the very begiining. However, IMHO, that small bit of effort pays the user back a great deal. Thanks for this comparison.
Gnome with extensions like dash to dock is the sweet spot for me. Unified look and feel, but enough customization to tailor it to my specific preferences in a desktop.
Late to the party but for me - KDE is a must for non-techie users. Three reasons: 1. Familiar Windows 9x legacy workflow by default. Non-techies do not like learning things especially workflows! 2. "System settings. Everything in KDE has a GUI system setting. If a user has a problem I can whatsapp the config setting to change in system settings. Any other DE... I run the risk of the config requiring editing a hidden text file - a non-starter for average users. 3. "Yes." User wants it, KDE has it. When a user asks "Can I do this in Linux?" (it happens!) I can point them to the config in system settings. "Yes." Another other DE, most especially GNOME... not so much. Note that NOT providing a feature found in Mac or Windows can often equal "Well, Linux is no good then! I'm going back to Mac/Windows!" That's enough for most non-techie users in my experience. I dare not risk non-KDE for starters!
I've used both over the last 11 years, among other DEs. I used a ton of KDE and customized it a lot several years ago, but now I prefer GNOME as it's simpler to use and IMO looks nicer. I appreciate KDE's philosophy but it's not what I like in a desktop these days, where I just want it to get out of the way so I can work rather than tinker with it.
Cinnamon isn't perfect though. It's been not as stable as KDE Plasma on Wayland (Cinnamon isn't finished with their port to Wayland yet, and because of XOrg's limitations of multiple monitors, I cannot use it for my desktop), LM has been making some questionable decisions regarding Flatpaks, and the whole distro feels like it's solely built off of a protest against Ubuntu and modern GNOME. I do think Cinnamon has a place, but given Mint's recent issues, I might wait until their Wayland session and GTK 3 forks are ready. That won't be until around 2026 though...
Cinnamon struggled with gaming on my computer, so it's not perfect either. I wanted to use it and generally like it, but I'm reluctantly using Gnome because it's the first DE I found that works consistently.
I found out that Gnome Extensions are officially supported by Gnome. It's improved my opinion of their design philosophy. This philosophy allows Gnome devs to focus on a purely simple and minimalist environment, while allowing 3rd parties to code specific functionalities via extensions. This reduces the overhead of maintenance for Gnome devs, while allowing 3rd parties to provide extremely advanced extensions. For example, consider how many options Dash to Dock and Dash to Panel (Gnome Extensions) have compared to KDE Plasma's built-in panel.
Speaking as a beginner: (a) Gnome tasted too much like Apple and I immediately spat it out. (b) I've been using KDE for a couple months and if you're looking to make your PC **Your PC,** it's definitely the best I've ever seen, though not without putting in some work. (c) But I recently popped back into Cinnamon, and it just might strike the perfect balance between customization and "it just works." I think I'd only recommend KDE after trying Cinnamon and deciding you want to go further.
been running cinnamon for a year now and want to go further.. but can't bring myself yet to switch my OS yet again and recreate all the stuff I already did in cinnamon.. but one fine day it will happen.
Tbh, I came from Windows and hated KDE for being so overloaded in the settings. I switched to Gnome and directly felt home. My mother and two of my browsers used Gnome and had a nice experience immediately.
I like KDE, but I *really* wish they'd hide a lot of the options behind an 'advanced settings' toggle. I tend to really only want a handful of basic options to poke through and stick to mostly default options.
Kde its not for me, I only like it for the scaling below 100%. It is simply too buggy, theming is not global even in global themes... Gnome theme is consistent not buggy and somewhat customizable. Im going for hyprland YIPPEE
I tried GNOME, and it's lack of several COMMON features like minimize and maximize buttons, appindicators, and lack of a persistent dock, all without GNOME Tweaks or extensions, makes it kind of a joke when KDE can make Plasma have all of that and still support modern things like Wayland.
@@cameronbosch1213 Yes, I don't disagree with you. Gnome has some features that are questionable.. like putting system tray on the control center. But KDE is just glitchy and buggy on the most cases. Mostly the bugs are crash related. When I've used KDE I literally made a shortcut just to restart KDE plasma shell, because every time I edit the desktop with widgets or panels, it's just crashes. Don't get me started on the ugliest theme plasma has by default, it's just eww. Although I am using the computer to be stable and reliable, I am staying on Gnome with some extensions and simple themes.
@@Dimitrys_af I do actually like Breeze, but it can be easily changed, unlike GNOME and Libadwaita. The only recent bug I had was something that I am about to report to KDE, when I drag a icon from Dolphin onto certain widgets on the desktop and the desktop restarts consistently.
@@cameronbosch1213 Many people have opposite opinions, that's why we have choices. Gnome is stable, reliable and consistent, and at the other hand KDE Plasma is very customizable, feature rich, and also somewhat consistent with other apps (according to the default theming), but it ain't stable enough for me. Can we have something in the middle as a DE, like to be feature rich (but not too much like KDE), stable enough, future proof (for future changes to be not too buggy) and consistent. But I am thinking it it's just impossible, you have to choose either 0 or 1, can't 0.5
13:15 And then there are some projects which close bug reports purely because a new version released, even if the parts of the code which the bug belongs to weren't even touched. And then there are some projects where this doesn't happen. So yeah, without knowing how and when bugs are closed, this is also hard to digest. Additionally, some projects use bugtrackers also as a place to plan new stuff while some projects use other tools for that.
KDE does not have touchscreen gestures, at least the ones like on GNOME. GNOME has a cohesive gesture that works both on touchpad and the screen, which makes it more suitable to use on a tablet or a convertible. With just two extra extensions (maximize new window, new workspace for maximized window) I even managed to create a quasi-mobile UX with near-zero compromises. GNOME is as complex as you want it to be and that's the beauty of it.
@cosmicbun11 What the heck are you talking about? KDE Plasma has had touchscreen gestures for at least the last 2-3 years. I've used KDE Plasma on my Surface Pro devices (SP4 and now SP8) for the last 5 years. Plasma has better touchscreen gestures than GNOME, and they are 1 to 1 gestures! It's 3 finger swipe up for Overview, 3 finger swipe down for the desktop pager, and you can swipe an app down while in Overview or the Pager or in Present Windows mode to close it (something you couldn't do in GNOME). You can also customize 1 finger swipe from the top, bottom, left, or right screen gestures in Plasma's system settings. I have mine set so that a 1 finger swipe down from the top of the screen presents (shows) all windows from all desktops and that a 1 finger swipe up from the bottom of the screen shows a full screen application menu.
I was a GNOME fanboy but now I use KDE because it just works, on GNOME some animations aren't smooth with fractional scaling and I have very powerful hardware, also GNOME doesn't support SSD(Server Side Decoration) so some windows looks terrible and are hard to control, I'm in love with KDE, and also GNOME devs have a clear vision of what should be a DE and they refuse to listen to other opinions while KDE devs are generally more open...
@@maxarendorff6521 MPV doesn't have CSD so it's broken the window can't be resized etc, and I agree with MPV devs, the DE/Compositor should handle the window decoration not the app. And because you never any problem with CSD doesn't mean everyone is in the same boat. :D Discord on Wayland doesn't have CSD, VSCode on Wayland doesn't have CSD by default you have so set TitleBar to custom instead of native, and a lot of other applications are broken because of that.
My DE adventure started with GNOME. I loved the overall feel and style of it. I spent a day tweaking it and adding themes. What I eventually discovered is that, yeah, GNOME is technically customizable BUT I generally suggest to avoid doing so (at least with theming) as GNOME will sometimes throw a fit. Yes, extensions are available but if you are still extremely limited and it feels like the DE is actively trying to fight you. After using GNOME for a bit, it feels like it was primarily designed for touchscreen/trackpad use. The Quick Settings feel very ChromeOS or Android to be which isnt a bad thing but I didn't much care for it. Once I get a linux laptop, I will for sure use GNOME. I switched to KDE and I dont fully love the way it lays things out but I have the ability to change it. Theming just works (minus the Flatpak theming being annoying to config) and is easy to configure via the GUI. I think the main differences is theming. If you want to have a better time theming, use KDE. If you want to keep the default theme and like the look, use GNOME.
That's not true. It all depends on the person who is using it. I have been using Vanilla Gnome for a couple of years, and I love it. Also, KDE was too buggy.
11:35 problem with kde is there are a number of apps that do pretty much the same thing. Such as konquer and kweb like there is just so many apps that similarly overlap. Why not merge or discontinue ones that are hardly maintained
The trouble with Tick Tock cadences, like KDE used to employ, is that developers usually enjoy building new features, but really don't much enjoy fixing bugs. So the Tock milestone is never as thoroughly engaged as the Tick milestone, leaving an ever growing backlog of bugs that never get fixed.
When I first tried KDE I spent way too much time going through the settings. I guess in that regard using gnome when beginning will let you focus on learning the important things. However the familiarity factor with KDE is unmatched.
@@joansparky4439 Well that's just the kind of person I am, when switching to a platform I'd like to see all the capabilities. As for the important things it's like the display servers, how the file system is structured, key ring daemons, and *actually* learning the terminal.
@ um8078 people who tell others to use the terminal usually don't apply this kind of mantra to other aspects of their lifes.. like knowing where all the products they consume come from and how they are made in detail. So yeah, I don't give a toss about that 'aspect' of linux. PS: Just had to revert 3 kernels back because the latest I updated to crashed Vbox and the one before that slowed down a WinServer VM.
@@joansparky4439 um I don't know what you are talking about, I simply find using zoxide faster than the file manager and using my terminal alias for my vpn faster than the gui. If you don't use the terminal for things you do 10 times a day then you are probably missing out. It's not terminal superiority, some things are just objectively faster in the terminal
Go to ground.news/TLE to to know where your news is coming from. Subscribe through my link for 40% off unlimited access this month.
Please don't yell, just talk at a normal level, it's hard to listen....🫤
Hi there, random question, I'm going to do a dual boot as I want to use ROCm, PyTorch et al with an AMD card and to install of the Stable Diffusion variants, just wondering if there is any particular Distro that is better suited to AI without being to ''mad scientist' in is particulars? Thanks buddy! ;D
I am a KDE dev and I think GNOME devs have done really well with their desktop environment. I just ended up with KDE plasma because I like the philosophy behind it, and contributing to KDE software was very easy to get into. Neither is better than the other, it's more like choosing between vanilla and chocolate cake. And I like both!
I don't think it's a competition, we're just both doing our own thing.
As a sysadmin, I've used Linux at work for years, but not really at home. Windows 11's recent moves pushed me to look for a Linux gaming distro, and I quickly settled on Bazzite with KDE for my two HTPCs. I'm only a few weeks in, but it's been great so far. :) I did not even consider Gnome as they are hopping on the DEI bandwagon and that has become fatiguing for me.
I am using ubuntu with gnome but I like KDE plasma's beauty. I would love to learn and contribute to this project. Can you guide me how can I help maintain this project. Thanks for making KDE a beautiful reality. I think as long as the competition is fierce both the developments will prosper. Both distros should learn and copy useful things from each other but maintaining their originality.
One question, because, even though I like KDE and the philosophy, etc, can I ask if there is a plan to centralize a bit the config files and gather them under a specific directory?
I, really, HATE that the .config folder becomes a cluttering mess with "rc" files when I install, even the basic plasma desktop. Very few folders, and mostly text files randomly lying around. In this regard, GNOME has done a very good job.
I get it, some of these are not under the KDE project at all, but, for those which are, please, do something. Why did these change from KDE 3 and 4?
@@lev3271oh no, diversity. just keep wailing at the wall man
Thank you for your service!! I love kde so much
for me it's something like this:
UI design - GNOME
Compatibilty/Usability - KDE
Staying out of my way - Xfce (thank you for your existance, you saved my chromebook)
I also start to like LXQt more
they also about finished their transition to Qt6 and are working on Wayland (but experimental)
thank you for this comment, it really simplified it for my tiny brain!
@@kuhluhOG LXQt is nice too :)
I'm a Cinnamon user myself. But yes, XFCE is good too.
Xfce is beautiful
Am stuck with Plasma. Somehow, all others do a lot of things not as I like it, and KDE is the only one that lets me configure it to be less of a nuisance.
Yeah, if you want configurations, Plasma is the only choice!
@@TheLinuxEXP After now way over 20 years of using different desktops, from KDE 3.4/5, GNOME 2.8, Unity, Budgie, Xfce, Awesome, you eventually will end up with just something to tailor to your taste and be done with it, don't you? I think you are in a similar situation? :D
@@TheLinuxEXPI'd argue Gnome extensions give you more config options. Also Cinnamon is pretty great for that too.
@gljames24 GNOME Extensions are a bit of a problem because they break every release, they sometimes have to be updated because of breaking changes to the GNOME Shell, and they aren't really official outside of Classic Mode, which is insane given Ubuntu literally has to enable and usd extensions just to make GNOME usable.
@@gljames24 I had more incompatible and breaking plugins than I can count. That is, more than four, I guess. And cinnamon is best left for the rolls, not as a desktop. Mate is also not so great, at least for my taste. Plasma is not perfect, but good enough to stick with it.
After KDE 5 became stable (after a lot of time of being inestable) for me there is no competition. KDE Plasma is far far ahead of any DE:
- Stable / Reliable
- Low memory footprint
- Great hardware integration (monitors, drawing tablets among others).
- Features of everything.
- Customizable
- Kwin: Great rendering performance, even with Nvidia.
- Given the development of plasma mobile, there are many elements that can be used for non standard screens, and tablets, with or without touchscreen.
I feel like I'm in the minority but I love GNOME's no bullshit approach to UI. It's just really clean and enjoyable to use. Granted some extensions are a must for me, and I feel like recommending GNOME would be even easier if they made them more easily available.
I can understand liking the simplicity, but that is until I want to do something that the application just won't let me. Not wanting to feel that frustration for me overpowers the "clean design" aspect
@@viridisspielt Gnome for the W bro i first used in kali and now i use it on any distro cuz i think it is superior
I also like Gnome. It's more modern looking. Yes, you can customize KDE but generally it's UI looks dated.
Gnome is great if you want to work. KDE is when you have lots of time to play around and customize things.
Why you must need extensions? at least for me you have a big contradiction. You need more bullshit then.
For me, KDE is the only viable option for one reason: Multi-monitor setups and screen mirroring. I have 3 monitors + a TV hooked up to my computer, and I like to have my main screen mirrored to my TV whenever I feel like just hopping on the couch and watching movies or gaming. From what I have seen, KDE is the only DE that supports mirroring in a multi-monitor set up. Now, aside from that, I do love KDE and all the features it provides from customization to audio management, not to mention the programs.
For beginners, I honestly think Cinnamon is the absolute best choice, and in my opinion deserves to be included in comparisons like this. While it's a bit more conservative compared to KDE and GNOME, it's a wonderful DE that works fantastic out of the box, providing great features and customizing options without overwhelming the user. Very underrated.
I agree. When I was first getting into Linux I installed Linux Mint on both my HTPC and my old laptop while still keeping Windows 11 for my main PC. I've since switched to a much faster HTPC (which also served as a testbed for whether I wanted to go Linux on everything) and I was running Fedora 40's KDE spin on that. Earlier in December I decided to switch to having my main PC running Fedora KDE as well for many of the reasons you listed (multi-monitor HiDPI support for fractional scaling was important to me) and I couldn't be happier. I still have a Windows 11 partition on my main PC for the edge cases where I want to use Windows for something, but I don't see myself booting into that all that often. Linux Mint w/ Cinnamon is great for some uses and that's why I have it as the distro of choice on my laptop, but for everything else, I've decided on KDE.
Basically, its between a Windows-like experience by default that can be made into pretty much anything you want, or a macOS like experience where everything is polished inside the walled garden, but not as good outside.
Exactly!
What walled garden? Gnome is FOSS, there is no walled garden.
@@maxarendorff6521 No server-side window decoration, the attitude from some core GNOME devs may be off putting, like with their vision for GNOME, and the vanilla interface isn't very good for Windows users.
If only they had the same global-menu principle, it would be a valid option, but without it, it feels too limiting and dumbed down for me.
@@cameronbosch1213 Wayland is primarily client-side decoration by default, so all applications that support Wayland must support client-side decoration.
My only issue with Gnome is them actively going against the standards every other desktop has agreed upon (server-side decoration, accent color naming, svg icons, status icons, etc).
thankfully, it seems like GNOME has adopted the XDG accent color standard, so we can peg one off the list
That, and their reliance on community plugins to make it usable, while breaking those same plugins every new release. Stylistically, there are things I like about gnome. Without plugins however, everything takes more clicks to get done than in any other de I’ve spent time on.
@@pcallycat9043 don't they not support plugins because they go against gnomes philosophy or something?
Just this, Gnome could be more stable, better compatibility, offers to send hookers and blow to my door every other night and I would never use it because every time there is a big blow-up about some integration that is needed, esp. for getting Wayland out the door, you can bet that Gnome is front and center in the drama.
windows icons it's a really huge drama... Gnome developers just ignore another part of the Linux community.
I use KDE bc it has the wallpaper engine plugin. I've used it for years and now it's what I'm with. Haven't had anything bad happen so I'm happy with it
I'm a huge fan of KDE, but right now I'm using Cinnamon as a daily driver because Cinnamon's customizable enough while being more polished and stable in my experience.
I've never crashed Plasma. What are you doing wrong?
@ismatovsanjarbek I don’t know how new the hardware has to be but I’m using Plasma 6.1(Wayland) on arch with a Ryzen 5 3600 and an RTX 4060ti and everything works great
My problems with KDE bugs is with distinctly old hardware: and it's not crashes, but inexplicable (by me) problems with installation. It feels like there's some kind of personal equation with KDE, and it just doesn't work for some folks (including me).
Same here. I've customised Cinnamon enough that it now looks like KDE, but with Windows 11 icons. I prefer it because it's less bloated.
@@deusexaethera if you've never crashed KDE you're using it wrong
One thing worth mentioning is that Gnome is a pretty natural fit for touch screens. I used it for several months on a touch screen laptop and I thought it worked very well. I ultimately reverted to Xfce, but that was performance-related and had nothing to do with the interface. I don't think I'd ever use Gnome on a desktop machine though.
I started to work with computers in 1979. Since then I have worked (professionally) with a myriad of different operating systems and user interfaces. During the last 20 years I have worked on Linux primarily with Gnome and KDE. At the end I always reached my goals irrelevant of the desktop. But as someone who spends 12 hours per day on a PC/laptop KDE is clearly my favorite and winner in nearly every aspect - and it is getting better and better - especially for pros. Gnome apps are working fine when integrated in KDE. No complaints. As a challenging user I can't complain about bugs in the KDE apps or a lack of stability. Decisive for me is my productivity - and here Gnome can absolutely NOT compete with KDE (considering my workflows).
I started to work with computers in March 1969 :) Since then I have worked on OS design and Air Traffic Control systems. I designed an OS for Air Traffic Control. After retirement 1-1-11 I spend (as hobby) 12 hours per day behind my PC with Gnome; KDE and XFCE. I worked on ATC with the most critical customers in the world. Agreeing with my old customers, my main requirement is about reliability. That is the reason that I dumped KDE this year, I now concentrate on Gnome and XFCE. I keep an eye on Budgie and Unity and probably I will do the same for KDE again next year.
I use the Fedora KDE spin, and have to say that the devs have been doing an amazing job this year. KDE 6 now is nearly perfect, even on my desktop with an Nvidia card, on Wayland.
Oh yeah, Plasma 6 was a fantastic release.c and 6.1 really brought everything together
@@TheLinuxEXP Plasma 6.1 has been so good, I couldn't go back to a distro that didn't have it (cough cough Kubuntu & Steam OS, cough cough).
Keep reporting bugs and we'll keep fixing them
Funny enough, for me personally Fedora KDE always was the worst KDE experience😆
@@シミズルリthat is interesting. It's always been the opposite for me. It's always the best experience for me on Fedora. Maybe the hardware configuration is at play?
I've tried Gnome couple of times and always went back to KDE. I'm currently really happy with KDE 6.1.2 and TuxedoOS :).
same here🤣, gnome is sh!t
tuxedo supoorts btrfs as default and snapper?
Same, when I first made the jump I distro hopped from Ubuntu (16.04 Unity?) -> Xubuntu (Forgot) -> Kubuntu (18.04?) -> Linux Mint -> Fedora -> KDE Neon -> Kubuntu (20.04) then finally settled on Arch KDE and haven't changed since. I think I liked the familiarity of KDE coming from Windows over the "overly simplistic" way that GNOME operates. Like, I'd rather not have to install extensions for basic functionality like editing the path by typing in the file explorer and - in my opinion - fundamental things like that. I still get frustrated when a program gives me the GNOME style file picker where I have to navigate from the root / to a folder mounted drive 12 direcories deep.
I guess people like the other way but it's also okay to be wrong. /s
I've tried KDE Plasma multiple times and found that while I really like the customization options, there were too many glitches and annoyances. I consistently went back to GNOME. Folks who use Xfce or Mate? I can't even begin to understand that lot...
I am a happy GNOME user. I have used KDE for quite some time but GNOME just fits my workflow quite a bit better. But I don't see it as a competition. They are two completely different approaches on DEs and I love both of them as they are the best DEs out there.
Personally I love the Gnome workflow but was frustrated by the lack of options and need for many extensions, so since KDE added an "overview" plugin a few version ago I've replicated the Gnome workflow in KDE on my desktop and have been happy ever since.
Gnome will always be the better choice on laptops for me though, their touchpad gestures are juste far superior, which is the one thing you (strangely) still can't customize on KDE. Beyond that, I also feel like Gnome's cleaner UI works better on smaller screens, while I prefer KDE on my desktop where I want most options to be accessible in a pinch.
this
GNOME looks beautiful, clean and simple, but hides away vital functionality.
It's very hard to use without extensions, but with Dash to Panel it's a lot more amazing.
I like GNOME very much on computers which I do not actively have to work on, like on servers or touch screen devices.
But it's clearly not for real things like software development and other keyboard intensive activities, which require an easy way of keyboard shortcut configuration, a desktop which is able to do proper fractional scaling (still an unfixed problem), and a file manager which is actually really usable (Nautilus is not).
I prefer KDE, Cinnamon or Xfce.
I'm using both on Arch, via dual-boot, and both are amazing, my personal favourite is KDE Plasma
are you dual booting with grub or systemd? (also dual booting linux distros has its own downsides - work with vms. )
@@KeepMovingForward-24-365 I have two separate drives, so both OSs are sandboxed, and I switch between them using my BIOS, and I use systemd-boot for both of them, not GRUB
I'm KDE user since 2004. Switched to Gnome last year as my daily driver for 12 days. It's almost impossible to leave KDE when you customize workflow with keybinds, activities and yes KDE is way faster it compared within the same computer.
When I first wanted to try Linux, I went with the default choice, Ubuntu with GNOME. It felt actively hostile, like it had a secret idea of how a user should interact with the OS and wasn't going to allow anything outside of that to the detriment of the user. I gave up and went back to Windows 7.
This inflexibility is not an insurmountable challenge (and something like it happened again when I moved to a dynamic tiler), but especially as a beginner, one expects an "it just works" system out of the box from the most popular distro without having to learn an entire new workflow
.
And that was BEFORE they took away the maximize button!
Same here!
Same here. Currently running LMcinnamon 21.3 with Win7 styling as good as I could manage.. stability is similar (~7 days between reboots) but sophistication is lower now.. lots of little things that just worked don't and it's always a struggle to get something similar (which means at some point one just accepts what is). Am looking at KDE Plasma, but couldn't find the motivation (again) to switch everything to that.. _no idea where people take time for 'distro hopping' from?_
LOL, nick, i love the way u segue into ur sponsor bits. btw, even tho i usually skip the sponsor bits, thanks for that, you usually have the very best sponsors, and i'm actually grateful for them and my awareness of them thanks to you. and they're all sponsors i would be happy to support when my needs for them arise.
Thanks for the thorough review. It's helped me make my decision... Cinnamon
That’s a good choice too!
That's what I decided to go with as well. People can come up with a billion and one things to say about KDE or Gnome but I rarely hear bad things about Cinnamon besides "if you want your desktop to look just like mint why not just use mint?"
The answer?
Mint looks nice. :)
KDE team here
Lmao fix your shit washed up devs can't even fix simple bugs
/s
gay windows users often ask: what goes in the *USB-Ahole?*
A: any linux distro!
^ Dude says "KDE team here" and gets 39 upvotes... (including mine). ❤
@@haydn-db8z why do call the likes upvotes you redditor!!!
(lol) :3
I preffer KDE over gnome, but men, KDE team really needs to reorganize their settings painel and cut redundance in the interface
They already do it.
Every time I intall distro with KDE, I use Gnome again on the computer the same day in the evening.
Gnome is much more intuitive, beautiful and easier to use for me.
I don't want to spend a lot of time customizing my computer. Cosmic FTW.
I just want to be comfortable using it - sayed windows user :D
My situation is directly opposite to yours. I have never used Gnome for one whole day. It's like no matter what I can't get it to work the way I make Plasma to work.
"...I don't want to spend a lot of time customizing my computer..."
Then GNOME is perfect there, as they forbid you from customizing it.
Really?.. I personally think Gnome looks ugly because it looks like Mac OS.
@@Casey2262 Maybe it's my opnion, but Gnome apps with LibAdwaita is very beautiful
I dont get your comment at all. Simply dont customize if you dont want to. Absurd to champion removing options for no reason.
I THINK IM FIRST, HI, BIG FAN AND YOU HELPED ME SWITCH TO LINUX, and i just realized I had caps lock on, I'm not retyping that. Anyways, thank you. You are awesome.
Edit: wasn't first
I prefer KDE and would recommend it to beginners. I think more options just have to be there; you might not use them but to know you can do things differently is a reassuring thing when you're introducing someone to linux.
I liked gnomes desktop but kde felt a lot less restrictive so I ended up switching over.
Something it took me a while to learn to do, when customising a DE, is to make notes so that I can easily recreate those customisations on a fresh install. Eventually I put most of my notes in my public wiki in case others are interested. I moved over to KDE about two years ago, having used Xfce on my Linux boxes before, sometimes Gnome, and often used Windows as my main desktop OS. These days KDE is what I prefer out of the Linux DE's, Windows, and Macos (I have all three at home). The main customisations I do are keyboard shortcuts (a main theme is that all desktop/window management shortcuts use the meta key, so that any key combo not using meta is guaranteed to go through to the application, and then in Konsole, minimising the number of key combos, so that almost everything is passed through to the terminal app), and bringing back the idea that the window with focus has a different title bar colour. Likewise I have notes on what I do with a fresh Kubuntu install: so that it is pretty straightforward to get a new machine up and running. (I have collected quite a few old Thinkpads off eBay, most of which now run Kubuntu.)
I'm making my slow switch to Linux. I've installed Arch with Gnome on my laptop and it's been a pleasure to configure it. The interface is clean and you can install extensions to config it to your heart's content.
Try KDE and then tell me how configurable GNOME is.
@deusexaethera Yeah, the fact that the AppIndicator extension took forever to be updated to GNOME 46 (it took at least a month for such a simple and vital feature) pissed me off greatly. Add that Dash to Dock took a similar amount of time because GNOME 46 broke it and I almost gave up on GNOME.
@@deusexaethera So true! Moving from Cinnamon to KDE for the wayland, I was very surprised at how configurable KDE was.
@@deusexaethera Try Gnome and then tell me how clean Plasma is
@@catto-from-heaven cleaner than GNOME.
Imo I like GNOME better because it's just so refined and consistent. If I want to customize it more I have the option to do that with extensions, but as is, GNOME is perfectly usable and everything just has this level of polish and consistency that I miss when I switch to KDE.
I love how much customization features KDE has, but my issue is that when you start to do that and you get a fully custom system, then things start to become inconsistent in terms of the UI (particularly if you use flatpaks). It also doesn't feel as polished as GNOME does, the UI is a little too cludgy imo; functional sure, but the form could do with a little more refinement so it looks more modern.
I personally think Gnome looks ugly. It's also very bad for security, since it relies on web extensions.
It's curious how Wayland support was avaliable first on Gnome but now Plasma is much ahead
I can honestly say I love both. For work, I generally prefer Gnome, but have changed to KDE due to better fractional scaling in Wayland. I think it is great to have these two with different perspectives on what makes a good desktop environment.
i will have to go with KDE being better simply because GNOME doesn't support server side decorations, so on KDE beginners won't suddenly run into apps that don't have a header bar
it also has a more similar layout to windows, which most people are used to
Shout out to addressing the existence of bugs.
It's such a natural intuitive thought that the more complex a system is the more likely unintended behavior will crop up.
That theory has always proven to be accurate in my experience. I even made my living finding and describing bugs for a few years.
It's just annoying to me when people hold the belief that "If it isn't just working, you're just doing something wrong."
Me who uses Cinnamon because I want simple,stable and customization. I've always had a buggy (yet not gamebreaking) experience with KDE but I would take it over the oversimplification of GNOME.
Team Cinnamon!
I have a lot of respect for both. But here I am on Cinnamon. It works, I can costomize it enugh. Its all I need. Its a happy middle ground and I always give mint my friends new to Linux. They love it, and it's a smooth experiance for them.
While KDE and Gnome might seem equally matched, it's important to note how much Gnome alienated their users to the point that entire distros were created just to avoid it.
Unity, Cinnamon, Mate, Budgie, Cosmic all these and more exist because people love to use GTK apps, but hate to use Gnome desktop.
Yeah, the apps are great, but the desktop is just so frustraing
This channel deserves atleast a million subs.
Again a high quality video.
Personally, my biggest issue with Gnome is LibAdwaita and its wide adoption. I've experienced the changes from GTK+3, to GTK 4, to LibAdwaita over the years, and I hate it.
Ignoring my dislike for Adwaita's looks, the apps simply don't fit any desktop except for Gnome. On KDE, Cinnamon, XFCE, etc' all LibAdwaita apps with their CSD simply destroy any cohesion. The worst part is when I use a TWM on my laptop - CSD is useless and takes from the already limited screen space that I have.
At this point, I uninstall every LibAdwaita app (except for Flatseal) as a form of protest. Far too many devs explicitly support only Gnome.
I personally really like libadwaita, it made all the GNOME apps look and feel awesome, and cohesive.everything was so messy previously
Yeah and guess what: I really dislike the "old" KDE/Qt look of applications, which doesn't fit in when you are mainly using Gnome and libadwaita
100% agree. Using GNOME applications on a non-GNOME desktop just sucks. It's kind of sad how one-sided GNOME is. I love Adwaita as a theme (as long as I can change the colour), but LibAdwaita really only works if you use GNOME.
@@TheLinuxEXP the issue is when you're not a Gnome user. I would love to use some of those apps, but their CSD just ruins it. Kirigami / Qt doesn't have this issue because they support server-side decorations.
I won't start using only Adwaita theme / LibAdwaita apps, because they're quite unpleasant to my eyes and the widgets are far too large.
Not to mention one of the few ways of theming Libadwaita apps, Gradience, is currently unmaintained and not fully working. Heck, if GNOME wasn't so hellbent against server side decoration, maybe more users would use it!
11:26 Empanada mentioned! Greetings from Argentina
2:07 🤣 Your "sponsor" outed itself!
Both GNOME and KDE use more RAM (tested immediately after login without any apps launched). That's why I use MATE. It's incredible that even XFCE uses now more RAM than MATE.
The sense I get is that GNOME is designed by and for people who spend a lot of time in the CLI and want to keep their fingers on the home keys as much as possible. In principle I approve of this, but whenever I've tried Gnaked GNOME I find I have to stop and think about how to do something. Decades of Windows and MacOS have left their scars, and obviously you can learn new ways of doing things, but I've never felt there was much payoff to me in doing that.
OTOH, GNOME works. I know it's old news, and it might be me, but rather too often when I try to install a KDE distro, I get hung up in the installation. So I use neither desktop; but I do find the KDE apps I use fit me better than the GNOME alternatives.
Obviously, a coherent desktop design doesn't matter to me.
do you mean the super key also know as the windows key
@@xgui4-studios No, I wasn't thinking of that. It's not part of my long ago acquired habits, but I'm getting fond of it. I was thinking of keyboard shortcuts for a variety of operations; and I do like a dock. Apparently, with extensions, you can make Gnome what you like, but if I can find that ready made ....
Thanks for the video, Nick. I just tried KDE Plasma, after a couple years of using GNOME, then was quickly reminded of why I always switched back. KDE is just not for me, let alone the bugs, GNOME, while lacking a few things, feels way more polished for most people. Big follower of your content!
Personally, I prefer KDE just because they seem to be looking at things in various angles and are willing to accept that not everyone will be doing the same things as they are. GNOME, meanwhile, just thinks of itself and doesn’t consider the damage it’ll cause for non-GNOME environments.
The client-side vs server-side decorations argument is just the main example I can think of, where GNOME refuses to support the latter.
What GNOME did with the Adwaita icon theme didn’t help either.
I'm using KDE for gaming and Gnome for productivity. Both are really good in their own ways. Great video !
... KDE for gaming , gnome for productivity and 100 % of time Windows ::)))))))))))))
What does Gnome provide for productivity that KDE doesn't have?
@@NJ-wb1cz Honestly, I think this is mostly a habit on my end. I tend to use the trackpad of my laptop a lot and I just prefer the way Gnome works in this case.
Gnome is tweakable in a similar way Windows is.
Hard and hidden, but surprisingly flexible if you know where (and know the right tools).
"... Gnome is tweakable in a similar way Windows is..."
As in not at all?
@@SenileOtaku you would be surprised at how much you can actually tweak Windows if you know how and where
As in broken frequently but unlike windows without the users needed to keep hacks working reliably?
Windows is crazy customizable actually. Just look at rectify11, start11, powertoys. I can't name all but you get the point 😊
Sorry Nick, I tried the KDE plasma over the cinnamon desktop which I use daily. to see if I can move to a pure debian+KDE environment (just seems it should present as a more uniform environment, which is supposed to simplify also privacy and security). What I experienced, was a pretty much similar experience as far as the UI goes, and therefore user experience, but It takes more resources, and is less stable than the Cinnamon (I discovered it here and there and it was not a REAL concern, but for a daily driver, I want as less hassle as possible). Please let me know what are your thoughts on the subject.
I use KDE on my desktop and GNOME on my laptop, but will probably switch both to GNOME fairly soon, the dynamic workspaces workflow is just the best. The only thing that could maybe defeat it is a tiling WM, but I'm not quite there yet. Although Hyprland is very sexy...
@Silverblue-se6iy I do enjoy configuring stuff to my liking, but a DE seems very different in scale compared to my 40 line Alacritty config or even stuff like my neovim config. And GNOME just works pretty much perfectly for the way I use it, so putting up with some extensions which should be native (clipboard history etc.) is worth it to me.
@Silverblue-se6iy Archcraft has done an amazing job with pre-configured TWMs. I'm currently using i3wm without having to configure much.
I love the Gnome way of doing things. Its very clean, beautiful and intuitive. The only change I make is to re-enable the minimize/maximize buttons. It also feels more coherent and new features tend to feel more polished on release.
u should also make video on other desktop environment comparision
Any time I tried KDE I get overwhelmed by the sheer number of choices (look at their settings app).
But GNOME on the other hand is straight forward without any clutter. I like the simplicity of their UI.
Few features which GNOME does not provide by default I get them by extensions.
To me, GNOME is the better choice for its polished and minimal UI.
{F40, GNOME 46.3}
Gnome just reminds me of Windows 8 too much for me to want to use it.
Windows 8 was way worse, and not fully thought through
@@BaardFigur Neither was GNOME 3.0. The amount of forks and loss of users like Linus Torvalds himself speaks volume to how bad early GNOME 3 was. You'd think they'd learn after the instability of KDE 4, but nope.
I recently switched from KDE to Gnome due to better support by Nixos declarative config (home manager's dconf). I've never been a Gnome fan before, but I am quickly starting to know it and love it.
...but yes, for a beginner, if they can't use a (polished) Kde, like the setups coming from mainstream distros, they basically can't use a computer 😅
Gnome with their gnome circle apps is a great experience for me
Started by using gnome, but then i found out about hyprland and tiling wms in general and its been amazing
Xfce.
+1 to this
Great for really low end hardware.
Agreed, but isn't it styled XFCE?
@YadraVoat It was when it was based on XForms (XForms Common Environment). As of Xfce 3, it is based on GTK 1; as of Xfce 4.0, it is based off of GTK 2, and as of Xfce 4.12, it is being ported to GTK 3 (mostly done) and as of Xfce 4.20, Xfwm (the compositing Windows manager Xfce uses) should have Wayland support.
Very good comparison, it would've been great including a chapter dedicated to the best exclusive features of each (e.g. KRunner and GNOME Boxes for example).
GNOME = We decide how you do things.
KDE = You decide how you want to do things.
I'll take KDE 100% of the time, because it lets me be on the driver seat whilst GNOME refuses to let me do things I want.
That's my thought, too. It reminds me of the Mac GUI: "We have cognitive and design geniuses working here, and they have determined the best way for you to do your work."
I have some thoughts about stability when it comes to these two desktop environments. In my personal experience, with the current latest versions of each, on Arch, KDE has quite a few annoying bugs and even one that would consistently crash my entire system. On the other hand, I have yet to encounter a single bug with GNOME which I've been using as my daily driver for nearly 2 months now. Have not experienced a single bug. Though if it weren't for this I would absolutely prefer KDE.
However I'm predicting that I'll be ditching both of them for COSMIC when it gets a stable release.
Given a choice of vanilla Gnome or vanilla KDE, I would choose KDE every time. Distros that customise their Gnome into something more beginner friendly - like Zorin, POP, Manjaro - attract me more to the Gnome side of things. Mostly though I tend to stick with Cinnamon. I recently installed Ultramarine Budgie as a DD and then added the Cinnamon DE to it... it's really nice :)
Great comparison. I'm using BusenLabs right now and enjoying Openbox. But I may try KDE next.
I've tried several distros now and kinda getting bored with Windows-style desktops, so when I tried Fedora with GNOME, I really like it. Clean and customizable, it become my favorite linux desktop.
I don't really know but I am using gnome for almost 4 years now.. I gave KDE try for 3 months but found I was much more comfortable with gnome. The design and elegance of gnome is unmatched. Sometimes KDE apps like calender suite which is merkuro and the icon they use or the calculator app which doesn't show calculation results feel like hack job. While some apps are really good like KDE Connect. But overall gnome's app ecosystem is much better it feels overall much more coherent in terms of design and theme
As a main Windows User, Gnome feels so sleek and easy to use! Everytime I use it with Fedora on my Laptop, I have trouble adjusting back to Windows again. The Gestures, Workflow, ease of understanding things is just unmatched in the whole PC world. Not even MacOS comes even close to Gnome.
I'm a minimalist, and I'm using Gnome as how it is intended to be used. No extensions whatsoever, using Fedora a year now ever since I both my Thinkpad. All works well, even LTE on my laptop works well. I've used the Fedora KDE spin when I started installing Linux but man, the online accounts syncing, the LTE issues, and the wallet manager keeps giving me troubles. Gnome does do the job.
I use both, and GNOME is miles ahead in terms of attention to detail - those little things which don't seem to matter much each on their own, but combined together they make or break the user experience.
Just to name a few examples.
When adjusting the volume both desktops play a sound to provide feedback of current volume level. But GNOME implements it in a smart way: they don't play the sound when something is already playing since in this case you already have all the feedback needed and any extra sounds will disturb more than help. KDE on the other hand just plays it every time, and so e.g. when I watch a quiet movie and want to adjust the volume, by the time movie sounds right, the sound KDE plays when adjusting the volume is already ear piercing.
Then, let's look at window previews. KDE copied a Windows feature when hovering over preview popup hides all other windows. BUT Windows implemented it right triggering this only after a noticeable delay, while in KDE you can touch that popup with mouse pointer for a millisecond, and the whole desktop blinks as all other windows are hidden and then immediately shown back again. It was so annoying I had to disable the feature altogether! And guess what, some random guy who implemented Dash to Panel extension for GNOME with similar functionality, not even a GNOME developer, managed to do it right, while KDE providing this feature out of the box did not!
And don't get me started on how awful notifications are in KDE. I wonder how one can implement such basic functionality so wrong:
* Unlike in GNOME, notifications don't disappear from history after one reads the message (happens all the time with Discord), and so notifications indicator in the panel keeps showing that there are unread messages when there are none.
* Unlike in GNOME, notifications are only clickable while they are still visible, but no longer clickable when viewing them from notifications center, so if you missed a notification you can no longer invoke its default action (e.g. open missed Discord message).
* Unlike in GNOME, you can see missed notifications only once. After you close notifications center the indicator immediately disappears from the panel, and all the notifications you haven't read yet are gone.
Apps often have their content cut off and without scrollbars (often seen in Settings app), sometimes content (like text labels) is rendered outside their container widget, scrollbars and other widgets don't behave consistently from one app to another and sometimes even within apps themselves (again, often seen in the Settings app), and so on.
When it comes to features, KDE is a prime example of quantity over quality. They can have all the features in the world, and yet can't do window previews or notifications right.
Yes but why do I have to install another third-party app to change my wallpaper orientation or my font? And if gnome is so superior, why does it break extensions every minor release?
I have grown tired of gnomes wishy washy approach to things, at least KDE is consistent.
@@themadoneplays7842
> Yes but why do I have to install another third-party app to change my wallpaper orientation or my font?
Tweaks is not a 3rd-party app, it's an official GNOME app. And it comes preinstalled on some distributions like Debian.
> And if gnome is so superior, why does it break extensions every minor release?
How are these topics even connected?.. Anyway.
Extensions may break because of what they are. Extensions are way more powerful than your regular KDE widgets because they are allowed to modify or even reimplement parts of the Shell itself. For example, they can turn GNOME into a scrolling WM.
But this is a double-edged sword: since extensions are basically modifying Shell internals, when those internals change extensions which depend on those may break. So extensions are both extremely powerful, and also somewhat fragile. They are kinda similar to kernel modules in that regard.
> KDE is consistent
The only consistent thing about KDE is its inconsistency. Some apps have menubars, some don't; some dialogs are left aligned, some are centered; there are all sorts of margins and layouts, sometimes even within the same app. There's no common design language.
While even 3rd-party apps on GNOME platform look and behave like official GNOME apps, official KDE apps often look like an incoherent collection of 3rd-party apps.
----------------
As I said earlier I use both; in fact, I had been an exclusively KDE user for 15 years. KDE certainly wins in overall out of the box configurability and familiar workflow for Windows users, so if that's what you're after then sure it's a better choice for you. Yet there also are areas in which GNOME does way better, namely polish, stability, consistency and attention to detail. And it's great that everyone can find an environment most suitable for their needs and use cases.
Both have flaws, I guess. But I still think Gnome looks uglier. It's also very bad for security, since it relies on web extensions.
@@themadoneplays7842 it is true that extensions and gnome-tweaks carries the gnome de, but why does that matter? it's not minor updates that break extensions. going from one major version of gnome to the next will definitely break a couple, but those are either fixed, forked and updated, or remade for the next version in a couple weeks
a lot of distros that come with gnome as the default de also have things like gnome-tweaks preinstalled at this point. from my experience, it's easier to just search for extensions through the extension manager than having to comb through hundreds of kde settings that I don't need to find the few I actually want
i would hardly call gnome's approach to a DE wishy-washy. there's a reason that a lot of devs are able to cater their app designs to it and end users get a fluid UI out of it. it's simple
@@Casey2262
> But I still think Gnome looks uglier
That is fine, everyone has their own subjective opinions and preferences.
> It's also very bad for security, since it relies on web extensions
WDYM by "web extensions"? It has nothing to do with WebExtensions format web browsers are using if that's what you meant.
And regarding GNOME Shell extensions, let me quote their web site: "All extensions uploaded to this site are carefully reviewed for malicious behavior before they are made available for download." Which AFAIK is not the case for e.g. KDE Store which quite recently had a really bad incident with a theme removing all files in users' home directories.
For me it always comes down to the customization aspect. I like having more options than simply changing the wallpaper.
I prefer to pronounce Gnome as Geenome because it really upsets the zealots and it is funny (mainly because of how easily they get upset).
I mostly use LxQT and XFCE on my ancient potato of a laptop, but both GNOME and KDE look great and fully featured. I wish I could afford a better PC to try them out.
GNOME it is for me ❤
I appreciate the philosophy behind KDE, but GNOME's UI and UX is so damn well designed.
Apart from the "save as" dialog..
Asking which one is better is kind of a dumb question, how do you quantify "better"? what is a beginner?
Let's create another DE using TCL/TK!
I mean CDE was based on motif
Dang, your KDE theme at 7:14 is nice. Breeze looks like Windows 98 next to that.
While I totally recognize KDE as an outstanding product, it just doesn’t align as well with my way of doing things, nor with how I feel things should work.
As a developer of a GNOME Circle application, I’m kinda pidgeon-holed in the GNOME-way anyway, but every time I give KDE a try I get reminded of why I don’t use it. It’s basically too much clutter and too many options that shouldn’t be there. Solving a design challenge with a toggle is typically a case of poor UI design imo.
Having said that, KDE is a fantastic project and I totally see why people seem to love it. Especially in the FOSS world, where people often like having infinite choices. It’s just not for me personally, and that’s okay.
KDE is perfectly usable out of the box without going into settings. The start menu is clean, simple and much more functional than gnome. The taskbar is also clean simple and more functional. So are most of the kde apps, with some exceptions like gwenview. Simple by default, and complex by need is the philosophy every software should follow.
*Pigeon
I usually run with just the defaults on KDE. I appreciate being able to find that one, really specific thing that I want to modify and have that work.
They are different for sure but they are both good, useful desktops used by many. You are right to say that. My personal preference/ bias? is for OpenSUSE Leap KDE. Using KDE takes a little more effort at the very begiining. However, IMHO, that small bit of effort pays the user back a great deal. Thanks for this comparison.
Gnome with extensions like dash to dock is the sweet spot for me. Unified look and feel, but enough customization to tailor it to my specific preferences in a desktop.
same, but with dash to panel .
haha typical gnome users, if u use kde, without any extensions you can customize KDE as gnome
What about the developers/community around each desktop? I think they are also relevant to new users.
Late to the party but for me - KDE is a must for non-techie users. Three reasons:
1. Familiar Windows 9x legacy workflow by default. Non-techies do not like learning things especially workflows!
2. "System settings. Everything in KDE has a GUI system setting. If a user has a problem I can whatsapp the config setting to change in system settings. Any other DE... I run the risk of the config requiring editing a hidden text file - a non-starter for average users.
3. "Yes." User wants it, KDE has it. When a user asks "Can I do this in Linux?" (it happens!) I can point them to the config in system settings. "Yes." Another other DE, most especially GNOME... not so much. Note that NOT providing a feature found in Mac or Windows can often equal "Well, Linux is no good then! I'm going back to Mac/Windows!"
That's enough for most non-techie users in my experience. I dare not risk non-KDE for starters!
I've used both over the last 11 years, among other DEs. I used a ton of KDE and customized it a lot several years ago, but now I prefer GNOME as it's simpler to use and IMO looks nicer. I appreciate KDE's philosophy but it's not what I like in a desktop these days, where I just want it to get out of the way so I can work rather than tinker with it.
None! Use Linux Mint with Cinnamon. Easy, most familiar with Windows, stable, clean, modern and has no community bullshit!
Cinnamon is pretty great too
For those who are not much into tech but just want to get rid of windows, Linux Mint is usually the first option that comes to mind
Cinnamon isn't perfect though. It's been not as stable as KDE Plasma on Wayland (Cinnamon isn't finished with their port to Wayland yet, and because of XOrg's limitations of multiple monitors, I cannot use it for my desktop), LM has been making some questionable decisions regarding Flatpaks, and the whole distro feels like it's solely built off of a protest against Ubuntu and modern GNOME. I do think Cinnamon has a place, but given Mint's recent issues, I might wait until their Wayland session and GTK 3 forks are ready. That won't be until around 2026 though...
Cinnamon struggled with gaming on my computer, so it's not perfect either. I wanted to use it and generally like it, but I'm reluctantly using Gnome because it's the first DE I found that works consistently.
Not sure if something close similarity is good as this might trick users into thinking that stuff works the same way when it does not.
I found out that Gnome Extensions are officially supported by Gnome. It's improved my opinion of their design philosophy. This philosophy allows Gnome devs to focus on a purely simple and minimalist environment, while allowing 3rd parties to code specific functionalities via extensions. This reduces the overhead of maintenance for Gnome devs, while allowing 3rd parties to provide extremely advanced extensions. For example, consider how many options Dash to Dock and Dash to Panel (Gnome Extensions) have compared to KDE Plasma's built-in panel.
Speaking as a beginner:
(a) Gnome tasted too much like Apple and I immediately spat it out.
(b) I've been using KDE for a couple months and if you're looking to make your PC **Your PC,** it's definitely the best I've ever seen, though not without putting in some work.
(c) But I recently popped back into Cinnamon, and it just might strike the perfect balance between customization and "it just works." I think I'd only recommend KDE after trying Cinnamon and deciding you want to go further.
been running cinnamon for a year now and want to go further.. but can't bring myself yet to switch my OS yet again and recreate all the stuff I already did in cinnamon.. but one fine day it will happen.
Tbh, I came from Windows and hated KDE for being so overloaded in the settings. I switched to Gnome and directly felt home. My mother and two of my browsers used Gnome and had a nice experience immediately.
XFCE users like here !!
I like KDE, but I *really* wish they'd hide a lot of the options behind an 'advanced settings' toggle. I tend to really only want a handful of basic options to poke through and stick to mostly default options.
Kde its not for me, I only like it for the scaling below 100%. It is simply too buggy, theming is not global even in global themes... Gnome theme is consistent not buggy and somewhat customizable. Im going for hyprland YIPPEE
I tried GNOME, and it's lack of several COMMON features like minimize and maximize buttons, appindicators, and lack of a persistent dock, all without GNOME Tweaks or extensions, makes it kind of a joke when KDE can make Plasma have all of that and still support modern things like Wayland.
@@cameronbosch1213 Yes, I don't disagree with you. Gnome has some features that are questionable.. like putting system tray on the control center. But KDE is just glitchy and buggy on the most cases. Mostly the bugs are crash related. When I've used KDE I literally made a shortcut just to restart KDE plasma shell, because every time I edit the desktop with widgets or panels, it's just crashes. Don't get me started on the ugliest theme plasma has by default, it's just eww. Although I am using the computer to be stable and reliable, I am staying on Gnome with some extensions and simple themes.
@@Dimitrys_af I do actually like Breeze, but it can be easily changed, unlike GNOME and Libadwaita. The only recent bug I had was something that I am about to report to KDE, when I drag a icon from Dolphin onto certain widgets on the desktop and the desktop restarts consistently.
@@cameronbosch1213 Many people have opposite opinions, that's why we have choices. Gnome is stable, reliable and consistent, and at the other hand KDE Plasma is very customizable, feature rich, and also somewhat consistent with other apps (according to the default theming), but it ain't stable enough for me. Can we have something in the middle as a DE, like to be feature rich (but not too much like KDE), stable enough, future proof (for future changes to be not too buggy) and consistent. But I am thinking it it's just impossible, you have to choose either 0 or 1, can't 0.5
13:15 And then there are some projects which close bug reports purely because a new version released, even if the parts of the code which the bug belongs to weren't even touched. And then there are some projects where this doesn't happen.
So yeah, without knowing how and when bugs are closed, this is also hard to digest.
Additionally, some projects use bugtrackers also as a place to plan new stuff while some projects use other tools for that.
KDE does not have touchscreen gestures, at least the ones like on GNOME. GNOME has a cohesive gesture that works both on touchpad and the screen, which makes it more suitable to use on a tablet or a convertible. With just two extra extensions (maximize new window, new workspace for maximized window) I even managed to create a quasi-mobile UX with near-zero compromises. GNOME is as complex as you want it to be and that's the beauty of it.
@cosmicbun11 What the heck are you talking about? KDE Plasma has had touchscreen gestures for at least the last 2-3 years. I've used KDE Plasma on my Surface Pro devices (SP4 and now SP8) for the last 5 years. Plasma has better touchscreen gestures than GNOME, and they are 1 to 1 gestures! It's 3 finger swipe up for Overview, 3 finger swipe down for the desktop pager, and you can swipe an app down while in Overview or the Pager or in Present Windows mode to close it (something you couldn't do in GNOME). You can also customize 1 finger swipe from the top, bottom, left, or right screen gestures in Plasma's system settings. I have mine set so that a 1 finger swipe down from the top of the screen presents (shows) all windows from all desktops and that a 1 finger swipe up from the bottom of the screen shows a full screen application menu.
I use Arch btw, and Cinnamon is my Desktop of choice, I do use KDE once in a while.
Someone needs to make a desktop with all the features of KDE but with the ecosystem and UI design of gnome
Yes, this
Out of the box I prefer Gnome mainly for consistency of apps and ease of use. But I learned to like KDE with my steam deck
I was a GNOME fanboy but now I use KDE because it just works, on GNOME some animations aren't smooth with fractional scaling and I have very powerful hardware, also GNOME doesn't support SSD(Server Side Decoration) so some windows looks terrible and are hard to control, I'm in love with KDE, and also GNOME devs have a clear vision of what should be a DE and they refuse to listen to other opinions while KDE devs are generally more open...
Literally never had a problem with Gnome using CSD, I don't even understand that argument...
@@maxarendorff6521Apps that expect SSD and don't draw their own decoration will simply have no title bar or close button on GNOME.
@@maxarendorff6521 MPV doesn't have CSD so it's broken the window can't be resized etc, and I agree with MPV devs, the DE/Compositor should handle the window decoration not the app.
And because you never any problem with CSD doesn't mean everyone is in the same boat. :D
Discord on Wayland doesn't have CSD, VSCode on Wayland doesn't have CSD by default you have so set TitleBar to custom instead of native, and a lot of other applications are broken because of that.
My DE adventure started with GNOME. I loved the overall feel and style of it. I spent a day tweaking it and adding themes. What I eventually discovered is that, yeah, GNOME is technically customizable BUT I generally suggest to avoid doing so (at least with theming) as GNOME will sometimes throw a fit. Yes, extensions are available but if you are still extremely limited and it feels like the DE is actively trying to fight you. After using GNOME for a bit, it feels like it was primarily designed for touchscreen/trackpad use. The Quick Settings feel very ChromeOS or Android to be which isnt a bad thing but I didn't much care for it. Once I get a linux laptop, I will for sure use GNOME.
I switched to KDE and I dont fully love the way it lays things out but I have the ability to change it. Theming just works (minus the Flatpak theming being annoying to config) and is easy to configure via the GUI.
I think the main differences is theming. If you want to have a better time theming, use KDE. If you want to keep the default theme and like the look, use GNOME.
I prefer GNOME, but I like the KDE devs' general attitude better
This 100%
My gf, a mac user, had no issue getting used to gnome on my laptop. My guess is that kde wasn't going to be an issue either, but theres that at least.
KDE is better than GNOME. GNOME requires extensions to be useable. While KDE is 100% usable from install.
So what? You don't have an internet connection? 🤣
That's not true. It all depends on the person who is using it. I have been using Vanilla Gnome for a couple of years, and I love it. Also, KDE was too buggy.
gnome has a different philosophy, thinking out of the box, you can still use it even without extensions
I use KDE as well, but GNOME is completely usable for me without extensions. This definitely depends on the person.
KDE essentially has every extension already installed and you can't get rid of that bloat. Gnome only has what you need, no bloat.
11:35 problem with kde is there are a number of apps that do pretty much the same thing. Such as konquer and kweb like there is just so many apps that similarly overlap. Why not merge or discontinue ones that are hardly maintained
The trouble with Tick Tock cadences, like KDE used to employ, is that developers usually enjoy building new features, but really don't much enjoy fixing bugs. So the Tock milestone is never as thoroughly engaged as the Tick milestone, leaving an ever growing backlog of bugs that never get fixed.
When I first tried KDE I spent way too much time going through the settings. I guess in that regard using gnome when beginning will let you focus on learning the important things. However the familiarity factor with KDE is unmatched.
what important things? if one doesn't want to tinker with settings - why not just leave them alone how they are?
@@joansparky4439 Well that's just the kind of person I am, when switching to a platform I'd like to see all the capabilities. As for the important things it's like the display servers, how the file system is structured, key ring daemons, and *actually* learning the terminal.
@ um8078
people who tell others to use the terminal usually don't apply this kind of mantra to other aspects of their lifes.. like knowing where all the products they consume come from and how they are made in detail.
So yeah, I don't give a toss about that 'aspect' of linux.
PS: Just had to revert 3 kernels back because the latest I updated to crashed Vbox and the one before that slowed down a WinServer VM.
@@joansparky4439 um I don't know what you are talking about, I simply find using zoxide faster than the file manager and using my terminal alias for my vpn faster than the gui. If you don't use the terminal for things you do 10 times a day then you are probably missing out. It's not terminal superiority, some things are just objectively faster in the terminal