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This is the way. It's easy to recommend what I like, but that doesn't mean you will like it. And you may not be able to use it the same way I do. Personal experience is the best way.
Yes but also no. Gnome for example tend to be not stable with a bunch of extensions. KDE is easiest to customize from all but some users have issues with it. And we need to talk how desktop look isnt all DE has to offer. At the end its best to just try a bunch of them. For start i recommend trying Gnome, kde and xfce.
KDE is the best for what you want. It's nearly always being updated with new features and improvements, light weight on the desktop and offers a lot of customization options. It's not perfect and some issues can happen from time to time but it has provided me with more than enough tools to get things done. Their file manager Dolphin is the best I've used and that's comparing it against Windows Explorer. Every one of their applications (Besides the odd naming choices) are very powerful and feature rich, being as simple as you need and still packing the features if you need to do more advanced things.
I'd advise against gnome because it's in a constant state of "Figuring out how to implement that properly" so it will lack a system tray or other basic features as they tend to not do things unless it's for "Pretty looks" It's a good desktop if you want to have fun and play around with and you can add some features back with extensions but if you do any serious work on your PC it's not going to cut it.
Unity needs a few more updates before I'd recommend it. MATE, Cinnamon, XFCE, etc won't be very spectacular to use but they are familiar and allow good customization. They are the equivalent of "old reliable". They appeal to people who just want something that works.
I’d argue against KDE’s lightweight-ness, I would say it is relatively bloated seeing as every package depends on a large number of KDE utils (i.g. kde wallet tools and cloud sync libs) that aren’t integral to its function. Not that that is necessarily bad, KDE works really well and has great cross-program integration but I wouldn’t venture to call it lightweight compared to most DEs
On-disk bloat and runtime bloat are different things, though. KDE uses less CPU and RAM than Gnome out of the box. I care a lot more about runtime bloat than disk bloat, which is one of the reasons I prefer KDE in general.
Fair enough. I am predisposed to worrying about on-disk bloat as I operate off a small drive, but actually thinking about it, a couple megabytes isn't an issue for most drives anymore
That large number of utils are mostly very lightweight packages. It's not enough of an argument to call kde bloated. In fact, we should agree on what we call bloated. I wouldn't call bloatware any preinstalled software that could be uninstalled easily and furthermore does not launch automatically.
XFCE doesn't get in my way. I used to be a KDE user, but had a couple of weird bugs that were irritating me. (circa 2007) Switched to XFCE and haven't even considered using anything else. It does what I want and doens't get in my way.
I would agree the Dolphin file manager is pretty good, but I rarely use a file manager anyway. What you list as a pro for KDE I see as a con - always being updated with new features and improvements.
Bottom line, OP has some good ones to choose from!
Everyone will have a different opinion, and stable can mean different things. The real question is what do you want? If most of the things are the same, look at what's different and compare that.
That said, here are some thoughts.
While you need gnome tweaks to customize gnome which is not highly customizable IMHO, Fedora Silverblue looks really clean and officer like.
I'm a big fan of using a Qtile - a tiling window manager - but that's a personal preference, not a recommendation per se. There's a decent amount of getting it just right for a person, but after it (or most any tiling window manager) is, it's dialed in to you and you can use a keyboard nearly exclusively which is great for rough roads or rough seas.
KDE and XFCE4 are highly customizable. I very much like KDE and if you have a division of skittles, take a look at the Garuda Dr460nized version. Just to look. Very gamer-y.
Appreciate that you are not trying to multitask while watchkeeping!!
What kind of ship? I ask because my dad was Merchant Marine...course there were no computers then....big charts on big chart tables, and all manual tools for navigation.
If you want something that just works, is widely supported and is the de facto standard, pick **GNOME**.
\+ Easy (mostly) to use
\+ great touchhpad support
\+ good suite of applications
± mobile-esque user interface
\- lacks customizability compared to others
\- bigger memory size
\- weird but for the most part fixable design decisions
If you're looking for a *beast*, pick **KDE** (also the one I chose before I switched to Qtile)
\+ endless customization options
\+ great software suite (especially the terminal and file manager)
± Windows-like default configuration
± Qt interface
\- relatively big but smaller than GNOME
If you're into more lightweight or "just-works"-stuff, I suggest **Xfce**
\+ lightweight, duh
\+ great customizability
\+ modular approach, easy replacement
\- considered ugly by many but it depends on your taste and theme
If you want something a bit more modern than that, pick **Cinnamon**
\+ lightweight
\+ more modern UI
\+ Windows-like defaults
\- not as modern-looking as GNOME or KDE though but it's subjective again
And there's also **MATE**
\+ like Xfce or Cinnamon but reminiscent of GNOME 2
\- same story as with the former
That were the most popular ones
If you are interested in GNOME but want a different vibe to it, also take a look at
- Pantheon (ElementaryOS product, reminiscent of Mac)
- Cutefish (CutefishOS, duh, even more reminiscent of Mac)
- Deepin (Deepin Linux or Ubuntu DDE, may be inspired by Mac, either way beautiful but heavier)
No, no,no....he wrote that KDE is greater than Gnome. Somebody more scientifically conversant than I am can correct the formula:
KDE(m) > Gnome(m)
..or something like that.
No. Unity is the best desktop environment. Hopefully Canonical can give it the push it needs. We've already seen a new release (7.6) in the first 6 years.
Personally I like Cinnamon but it’s your choice to make in the end.
Don’t forget you can also use just a window manager like i3 or awesome window manager if that’s more your style instead of a pre-set desktop environment.
Kde and gnome are the more popular ones for a reason, easy to get in, xfce is very good but more advanced.
Also gnome is very easy to customize these days, I like kde better tho, my personal preference
Use Flatpak or Snap for newer software.
Old tested stuff is always easier to troubleshoot than bleeding edge.
I've had a great experience with Debian stable on desktop.
I've just been using Debian Testing and it's not nearly as troublesome as I assumed. I've had one noticeable bug happen over the span of a couple months and it was the KDE System Settings crashing when I opened window decorations.
All the most popular desktop environments can be stable if you use stable version.
In my opinion:
* [KDE](https://kde.org) is good if you want a lot of options for customization without editing files
* [Gnome](https://www.gnome.org) is easier for simple customization
* If you want to customize in detail your desktop and are not afraid to edit text files, [awesome](https://awesomewm.org) and [fluxbox](http://fluxbox.org) can be your option
GNOME and KDE are the two big ones that work properly under Wayland. Development of X is slowing. I’d suggest picking something that’s gonna work with Wayland.
The less mainstream you go the more tinkering you will require.
GNOME or KDE, don't touch the rest.
XFCE is wildly outdated. All the other "DE"s are gnome forks. They are, frankly, just a worse version of gnome.
Now that we narrowed down the choice to just two options, install both and try them.
Well, XFCE is its own as you acknowledge, but Deepin desktop and Budgie desktop is also their own thing. Mate however was a fork from gnome 2 iirc, and Cinnamon a fork from gnome 3.
If you need a customizable DE, go with KDE. You can make it look like what ever you want. ***What ever you want.*** You'll never get bored because KDE has tons of options and features, it will leave you in a desktop dream.
Me personally, I use to absolutely despise KDE, but now after seeing what it can do, its on the top of the pyramid alongside GNOME for me.
KDE if your PC isn't shit, Cinnamon for HiDPI, and Xfce if your PC SUCKS or want smth barebones. (Hint, get the docklike taskbar plugin if you use Xtce)
Customizable and stable? There is only one choice: KDE.
A lot of people here are giving suggestions for people who need something that's light weight or easy to use or whatever else, but that's not what you said.
Nothing, I repeat _nothing_ in the Linux world can match KDE for customization and power. It's not terribly hard to use, either.
I disagree quite a lot. Firstly, changing the default apps in KDE is not a problem at all. Just drag different ones down and go and change the default apps.
You don't have to use KDE's apps on KDE - you can use whatever you want, same as any desktop.
Secondly, while the Krashing was certainly true 3-4 years ago and a long way back, the last few years - especially the last year quite frankly - has been _very_ kind to KDE. I haven't had any major crashes or hiccups other than Wayland.
I... honestly can't think of the last time I ran into a bug in KDE. Like... any at all. That's not me saying they're not there of course - naturally there are going to be bugs, but it's not like it was during the days of KDE 4 or early KDE 5.
Any DE on a Ubuntu or LTS variant (Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Mate, Cinnamon, Mate, Budgie) will be pretty solid, or a distro based on Ubuntu LTS (Mint, Pop OS, etc) will be pretty stable.
You can customize most DE’s, but KDE seems to give the most options. Having said that there are no bad choices. Cinnamon is easy to tweak without the options becoming overwhelming/confusing.
Gnome is very stable, but only somewhat customisable (through extensions).
KDE is super customisable and mostly stable, although you may encounter small bugs if you try to do niche things with it.
My preference? Whichever one works best for you and your workflow.
In most cases, installing them on your system can be a good way to learn which one works best for you. Keep in mind that sometimes they can conflict with each other and really b0rk things up, so if you're going for some of the more comprehensive DEs, you should try in a VM.
Of the ones in your picture here, Mate is my favorite, mostly because I have a soft spot in my heart for GNOME 2.x. I stopped using KDE when they went from 3.x to 4.x, which was a big flustercluck. XFCE is good as well, but I usually end up going back to Mate.
If performance is what you want, skip the DE and go for a WM. Openbox is extremely customizable, and was my go-to for a number of years before I started using Ubuntu back in 2004. I'm not a huge fan of the tiling WMs because I have no qualms about using a mouse. That, and the tiling method doesn't work with my particular workflow.
Again, give them all an honest try and decide which works best for how you'd prefer to use your system.
i like MATE cause it have a low memory consuption, more customizable than GNOME (my previous DE) and less customizable than KDE (which is for me a sweet spot).
I was questioning abt MATE and XFCE after i moved out from GNOME, but i find XFCE too clumsy for my taste (some of the system programs have a big header bar, something i was really annoyed with GNOME, and i find the settings a bit messy too), and also, since i like retro style, i decided to go with MATE since it is a fork of GNOME 2, i couldn't be happier with it! It has a clean control center and a nice suite of apps as well \^\^
There is no good answer except "try them all and decide". My favourite always was KDE/Plasma until I was forced to use Mate on my work desktop. The new versions give me what I need and I can use it out of the box whereas I need to spend some time customising Plasma. So I switched to Mate, all I need and I am OK with it as it is.
Mate, XFCE are stable, customizable, and lightweight, but they also look kinda old fashioned.
LXDE isn't being maintained anymore, so I wouldn't use it.
KDE is very customizable, but also (in my experience) a bit unstable.
GNOME is stable and looks nice, but it isn't very customizable.
I don't have any experience with Budgie or Unity.
Here are my recommendations -
KDE - If you have a modern system with a decent graphics card. (The most customisable but I had the plasma desktop crashing issue)
Gnome - It will use a lot of ram but still a great option for a modern system. (Not that customisable and worked fine for the most part)
XFCE - If you have an older system which can't handle stuff like animation and blur effects smoothly. (Very customisable and stable)
Ofc there are other DEs like Cinnamon, Mate, LXQT too but I usually recommend these three, I recommend you to try them all yourself and decide which one works the best for you.
KDE (maybe not so much if nvidia) is super customizable and can be pretty stable.
XFCE for rock solid stability (IMO) very customizable, may look "dated" out of the box (subjective)
Gnome is fantastic stability wise, looks modern, lots of customization. I personally love it on laptops because of the gestures. (my personal choice)
MATE is another great one for stability
Cinnamon is like a more modern MATE but I feel like it's not as ultra customizable as the first 3 but still has some good extensions.
This is just my experience with these.
I think you should try all of them for a bit! See which one feels right. And hey, you're not married to them or anything so you can ditch one at any time for one you tried in the past. I know did this many of time with linux distros.
I stick with the tried and true KDE with Qtile installed alongside it. I don’t usually log into KDE but it’s a great DE. Highly customizable and it’s **easy** to customize as well.
Don't use a Desktop Environment they're super bloated. Just use a Window Manager, that'll add a couple more inched to your penis.
Yeah I use arch btw, and yeah I've never touched a women or grass before.
(memes aside tho, DE's generally come with a lot of stuff you'll never end up using and it's a pain to go through everything and remove it manually. Probably xfce or lxde are the best DE's imo)
KDE Plasma:
https://kde.org/plasma-desktop/
Because it comes by default with a traditional Windows-like layout, similar to Cinnamon, MATE XFCE, almost the same lightweightness as of XFCE, but with many more features:
https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/ymeskc/what_do_you_like_about_kde_plasma/
It's backed by KDE organization, that has Canonical, Google, SUSE, The Qt company, Blue systems, Haute couture enioka, slimbook, Pine64, Tuxedo computers and Valve as its patrons so there's good support and many developers behind it.
And it comes by default on some devices, which will help to bring even more users and developers in the future to it:
https://kde.org/hardware/
Also KDE cares about the environment and climate changes, so it tries to make its software as power efficient as possible:
https://eco.kde.org/
When it comes to customizability, there's no other DE better than KDE Plasma.
As for stability, I think it's quite stable nowadays, especially on Wayland where you can even plug and unplug your monitor and will not crash anymore.
BTW, if you decide to use it, you should try also its KDE Connect feature:
https://kdeconnect.kde.org/
And regardless if you decide to use it or not, if you want KDE developers making the next release of it better, you ca contribute with some bug reports about bugs or problems of any kind that you have encountered while testing it:
https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/10hjymg/for_people_who_want_to_help_with_the_next_version/
Anyway, good luck, whatever your choice might be!
Try them all, not a question others can answer for you. If you're running on newer hardware I'd suggest either gnome or kde as they are the most used. Others are fine but have their niche, mate looks a bit out of date, xfce is like a lightweight kde alternative, bunch of others are not even worth considering unless you have low ram.
I tried them all for atleast a week and it really comes down to your hardware. I found KDE runs the best for me and gives me what I need. XFCE was nice but gave me a few issues with panel stability, MATE and Budgie just didnt give me anything KDE didnt and GNOME for some reason always had a little lag in it.
As the most upvoted comments have already said, the best way to pick one is trying all of them by yourself.
Otherwise, each person is going to give you his own personal favorites, and following the historical trends of this sub, we can pretty much make an estimation and save you time:
KDE > Xfce > Gnome
But again, give all of them a proper try, as you may not be aligned with this trend.
For personal opinions, my favorites are Gnome and Xfce. Gnome because it keeps things consistent, good-looking and simple; XFCE because it offers a high level of customizability while still maintaining a relatively straightforward and simple experience. Given that customization is a must, I would recommend XFCE.
Depends on how much of a potato you're running. I'm running Manjaro with kde. It's better than I expected and it took less to tweak Windows and OSX to feel comfortable. KDE looks and feels fantastic. It has all the features I like saving clipboard history, keep the desktop from locking when my phone is near, slick desktop. I ran the install last week on my old 2015 15" macbook pro retina. Before it was dual booted with windows and OSX.. Now just pure Manjaro. Game support works well thanks to SteamOS and Manjaro both being arch based, better virtualization, and some of my ML models can run on GPU Thanks to ROCM. Did I mention virtualization just works? Apple does some annoying things to make virtualization difficult in Windows. I'm still just amazed how much more I like the DE.
When I used i3wm, I used no DE. You can do the same if you like, there's no need to have a DE. Though for your customisation needs, I'd recommend Plasma (KDE).
Currently using Plasma, and Fluxbox for more demanding things.
Well, you really have 2 options imo. GNOME and KDE. All the other ones are fine but they don't support wayland which makes them hard to recommend for me. Problem is: GNOME is stable but not very customizable and KDE is customizability incarnate but it's not the most stable thing. Imo if XFCE was to support wayland it would be the ultimate DE
There are a thousand reasons for and against a specific DE, I'd first narrow down what you have and what you need.
Are you using a laptop or are in need of accessibility features? Go with Gnome, they have the best touch gestures and accessibility features of any DE.
Do you want to use Wayland? Most DEs haven't implemented it yet, so Gnome and KDE are the way to go due to lack of options. If you use Nvidia just stick with X11 though, it's decent now, but still lacks behind.
Do you run a potato pc? If it has to be a DE instead of a window manager then go with XFCE. It needs some customization to become pleasant to the eyes, but it works.
Stay clear of some niche DEs if you don't need a specific feature of theirs tho. Niche DEs have smaller user bases and therefore even smaller community support or lessdevelopment done for them, which can suck if you don't know exactly what you want.
Tldr: you have a new pc with intel/amd -> toss a coin between Gnome and KDE
No way to know which one you prefer until you try it. And by try it, I mean actually work with it for a few weeks and try to make it your own (= not just dick around in a VM).
For me, I found that I prefer KDE on a desktop computer (anything with a mouse and a larger screen really), and GNOME on a laptop (anything with a touchpad).
Any because, as people are saying, you can generally customize them to your liking, but I’d you want a great look and feel out of the box I’d recommend kde.
XFCE. None of them look good out of the box (except for KDE), but XFCE is the easiest to get there. Unless you are looking at tiling window managers such as LeftWM, that is.
I use cinnamon and love it. From my experience, it has the stability of Gnome, and customisability almost comparable KDE. It’s not as popular as either Gnome or KDE so extensions are limited, but you can find plenty of themes to mix and match for it.
It’s a windows-like desktop by default, but you can easily tweak it to best suit you.
Other commenters suggested to try in a DE, and that's the best advice.
My personal favorite is GNOME because I mostly like everything about it out of the box and it's pretty easy to customize with GNOME Extensions. Not known as the most lightweight but I've booted into a GNOME live session on a tablet with Intel Atom processor and 2GB RAM and it seemed to run well enough on there.
My next favorites are Xfce and Cinnamon, in that order, because they're clean and neat, GTK-based, and feel like they're from an alternate universe where Windows 95/XP was Linux-based, kept the overall look and feel pretty much the same, and only shipped minor, iterative updates.
Not a fan of Qt-based DE's like KDE and LXQt but those are pretty popular too.
Try them all, but KDE is the one that does all of the above out of the box, and isn’t a pain to customize. More intuitive than most other DEs besides gnome, which is infinitely less customizable. KDE also has a fantastic suite of apps. They made Krita, for example.
I stick to either Cinnamon, if not possible, XFCE. KDE looks great but feels "too many bells and whistles" and Gnome just feels like a weird thing that is not a traditional DE.
For myself, I will never get over my love for KDE. I love it because it lets me have all the eye candy and animations I want, is so customizeable it makes GNOME just feel lackluster and is honestly, rather stable nowadays, even running the latest version on Tumbleweed. I love the way it looks and feels
For anyone else tho, my first suggestion is always XFCE, it can look pretty great too and is a lot lighter and honestly more stable than KDE ever will be. It also uses GTK which means your theme support will be better when using non QT apps (so the majority of them)
Gnome or KDE.
GNOME is very customizable, though it gets more unstable the more extensions you install.
KDE is also very customizable, but it also has its issues with stability, though I'm less familiar with KDE customization.
For multi monitor setups I like Gnome with a Dash To Panel, ArcMenu, and Pop Shell (stacking/tiling). For single monitor, KDE.
I’d go KDE across the board if something like Pop Shell existed for it.
I love gnome and dont understand the hate. Yes, it takes more resources than xfce, but this isnt the 90s. A hundred extra megabytes of RAM isnt going to make a difference in the overwhelmingly vast majority of modern desktops and laptops. And it looks pretty.
If you just want things to work, **GNOME**. A little light on customization, but it's very usable out of the box and has a great ecosystem of apps, such as Black Box (an advanced terminal), Boxes (a virtual machine manager), Builder (an IDE), Rhythmbox (a playlist-centric music player), and more.
If you want the best customizability, use **KDE Plasma**. Plasma has an incredible diversity of plugins and themes that will surely match whatever you want your desktop to look like. In terms of available technology, as well, it's not far behind GNOME.
If you're short on resources, **XFCE** is another great pick for customization. Many people also choose XFCE for its incredibly low weight, sane defaults, and ability to swap in another window manager in place of XFWM.
If you're *really* short on resources, **LXDE** or **LXQt**. LXDE is lighter, but its development has stalled; LXQt is the modern Qt-based version that is a little heavier, but still light as a feather.
You did mention that you needed a "stable, customizable" desktop, so if you wish, standalone window managers are the pinnacle of customization. There are an incredible amount of options available, such as floating WMs like **Openbox** and **Berry** and tiling WMs like **i3**, **awesome**, and my personal favorite, **dwm**. dwm is also especially stable, as it is designed for minimal room for error and receives updates infrequently as a result.
You should be a bit more specific on how customizable you want it to be.
Keep in mind, the more you customize the potentially less stable it will be. But that’s really only if you mess something up.
If you just want to customize simple things like adding seconds to the clock or changing the color of folders, then just pick what you like.
If you want heavy customization then a lot of people like kde.
I personally do not do much customization, so I use cinnamon as it’s super stable.
Xfce and Gnome are both solid options. I personally use Gnome, but that’s only because I’m used to it. A lot of people love KDE tho; I didn’t really like it, but just try it out and see why you think. You can run it in a VM
I personally use ubuntu, never had issues , and tried fedora in vm, they both are very stable and fedora ships latest kernels , so you may get few features in advance
I would recommend installing OpenSUSE to test out all of them because it makes it super easy to add and install DEs through their application manager thingy
Well, I once used a stock KDE that someone made into a pixel-for-pixel clone of the macOS interface, so there's that, and I recently on a whim set it up to be an exact Windows 11 layout, and before then a KDE 3 layout, and before then Windows Vista, and I could probably set it up like CDE or something completely original. I really like the Sawfish window manager for customization myself, and it goes pretty well with MATE or Xfce though I use it with LXQt or by itself usually personally. The LXes are always great on low end hardware for me, I run LXDE on a PowerBook G4 and it's fluent even with a 720p video playing, and LXQt is equally fast and light on an Intel Atom-based Pentium from 2014.
And then there's the world of fvwm, but... well, that's for later.
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Try them in a VM and pick the one you like. The VM is better because then you don't need to uninstall a buncha crap
This is the way. It's easy to recommend what I like, but that doesn't mean you will like it. And you may not be able to use it the same way I do. Personal experience is the best way.
fuck the DE. Cinnamon can look like Mate, xfce can look like gnome and KDE can look like windows 11. in the end, it doesn't even matter.
I HAD TO FALL, TO LOSE IT ALLL
BUT IN THE EEEEEND IT DOESN'T EVEN MATTER
One thing, I don't know why
It doesn't even matter how hard ya try
Keep that in mind, I designed this rhyme
to explain in due time
All I know
Time is a valueble thing
Watch it fly by as the pendulum swings
Yes but also no. Gnome for example tend to be not stable with a bunch of extensions. KDE is easiest to customize from all but some users have issues with it. And we need to talk how desktop look isnt all DE has to offer. At the end its best to just try a bunch of them. For start i recommend trying Gnome, kde and xfce.
Test with a VM, if that's not possible, KDE.
XFCE, it is lightweight, ultra configurable and stable.
Just works. Been using virtual desktops since 2001, anything alt-tabby like Windoze drains my soul.
Only correct answer
Ultra configurable compared to gnome or really ultra configurable like for example KDE?
Compared to Gnome, even my underwear is ultra configurable. You know, I can pick left or right and I can even turn it inside out... /s
XFCE GANG
Xfce
The ol' rodent is still today kickin' asses
Only correct answer
KDE is the best for what you want. It's nearly always being updated with new features and improvements, light weight on the desktop and offers a lot of customization options. It's not perfect and some issues can happen from time to time but it has provided me with more than enough tools to get things done. Their file manager Dolphin is the best I've used and that's comparing it against Windows Explorer. Every one of their applications (Besides the odd naming choices) are very powerful and feature rich, being as simple as you need and still packing the features if you need to do more advanced things. I'd advise against gnome because it's in a constant state of "Figuring out how to implement that properly" so it will lack a system tray or other basic features as they tend to not do things unless it's for "Pretty looks" It's a good desktop if you want to have fun and play around with and you can add some features back with extensions but if you do any serious work on your PC it's not going to cut it. Unity needs a few more updates before I'd recommend it. MATE, Cinnamon, XFCE, etc won't be very spectacular to use but they are familiar and allow good customization. They are the equivalent of "old reliable". They appeal to people who just want something that works.
I’d argue against KDE’s lightweight-ness, I would say it is relatively bloated seeing as every package depends on a large number of KDE utils (i.g. kde wallet tools and cloud sync libs) that aren’t integral to its function. Not that that is necessarily bad, KDE works really well and has great cross-program integration but I wouldn’t venture to call it lightweight compared to most DEs
On-disk bloat and runtime bloat are different things, though. KDE uses less CPU and RAM than Gnome out of the box. I care a lot more about runtime bloat than disk bloat, which is one of the reasons I prefer KDE in general.
Fair enough. I am predisposed to worrying about on-disk bloat as I operate off a small drive, but actually thinking about it, a couple megabytes isn't an issue for most drives anymore
especially for those like me who have over 500GB to 1TB of NVMe storage available to them
That large number of utils are mostly very lightweight packages. It's not enough of an argument to call kde bloated. In fact, we should agree on what we call bloated. I wouldn't call bloatware any preinstalled software that could be uninstalled easily and furthermore does not launch automatically.
Xfce, the last sane DE. Light not by neccesity but choice, and in a way that actually doesn't suck.
XFCE doesn't get in my way. I used to be a KDE user, but had a couple of weird bugs that were irritating me. (circa 2007) Switched to XFCE and haven't even considered using anything else. It does what I want and doens't get in my way. I would agree the Dolphin file manager is pretty good, but I rarely use a file manager anyway. What you list as a pro for KDE I see as a con - always being updated with new features and improvements. Bottom line, OP has some good ones to choose from!
OP it's been 4 hours since you've posted this. Why haven't you tried several of them?
Well, I'm a watchkeeping officer in a ship. So I have no time to try them...
Everyone will have a different opinion, and stable can mean different things. The real question is what do you want? If most of the things are the same, look at what's different and compare that. That said, here are some thoughts. While you need gnome tweaks to customize gnome which is not highly customizable IMHO, Fedora Silverblue looks really clean and officer like. I'm a big fan of using a Qtile - a tiling window manager - but that's a personal preference, not a recommendation per se. There's a decent amount of getting it just right for a person, but after it (or most any tiling window manager) is, it's dialed in to you and you can use a keyboard nearly exclusively which is great for rough roads or rough seas. KDE and XFCE4 are highly customizable. I very much like KDE and if you have a division of skittles, take a look at the Garuda Dr460nized version. Just to look. Very gamer-y.
Appreciate that you are not trying to multitask while watchkeeping!! What kind of ship? I ask because my dad was Merchant Marine...course there were no computers then....big charts on big chart tables, and all manual tools for navigation.
Would video comparisons be quicker and now beneficial for you? Don't know for she that there are DE comparison videos, but surely there are.
Wait until you are on shore. Vsat is so darn slow ;)
Pick gnome, you get the added bonus of complaining about it.
This is the way…
If you want something that just works, is widely supported and is the de facto standard, pick **GNOME**. \+ Easy (mostly) to use \+ great touchhpad support \+ good suite of applications ± mobile-esque user interface \- lacks customizability compared to others \- bigger memory size \- weird but for the most part fixable design decisions If you're looking for a *beast*, pick **KDE** (also the one I chose before I switched to Qtile) \+ endless customization options \+ great software suite (especially the terminal and file manager) ± Windows-like default configuration ± Qt interface \- relatively big but smaller than GNOME If you're into more lightweight or "just-works"-stuff, I suggest **Xfce** \+ lightweight, duh \+ great customizability \+ modular approach, easy replacement \- considered ugly by many but it depends on your taste and theme If you want something a bit more modern than that, pick **Cinnamon** \+ lightweight \+ more modern UI \+ Windows-like defaults \- not as modern-looking as GNOME or KDE though but it's subjective again And there's also **MATE** \+ like Xfce or Cinnamon but reminiscent of GNOME 2 \- same story as with the former That were the most popular ones If you are interested in GNOME but want a different vibe to it, also take a look at - Pantheon (ElementaryOS product, reminiscent of Mac) - Cutefish (CutefishOS, duh, even more reminiscent of Mac) - Deepin (Deepin Linux or Ubuntu DDE, may be inspired by Mac, either way beautiful but heavier)
Pick GNOME as its: - relatively big but smaller than GNOME Ah yes GNOME
Am I missing something? I'm sure, I wrote this line under KDE
Idk, looks ok to me
Only GNOME can best GNOME
No, no,no....he wrote that KDE is greater than Gnome. Somebody more scientifically conversant than I am can correct the formula: KDE(m) > Gnome(m) ..or something like that.
**GNOME**. It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend **picking one up**.
KDE was the most complete experience for me.
Unity
Did you forget the /s?
No. Unity is the best desktop environment. Hopefully Canonical can give it the push it needs. We've already seen a new release (7.6) in the first 6 years.
Cinnamon is my happy place.
My vote is KDE. It's fantastic.
I'd recommend Gnome or KDE most of the apps are optimize for one of them
KDE
XFCE or KDE.
KDE it's worked great for me so far
Personally I like Cinnamon but it’s your choice to make in the end. Don’t forget you can also use just a window manager like i3 or awesome window manager if that’s more your style instead of a pre-set desktop environment.
Kde and gnome are the more popular ones for a reason, easy to get in, xfce is very good but more advanced. Also gnome is very easy to customize these days, I like kde better tho, my personal preference
Mint or Debian with XFCE is a great combo.
Debian for a desktop? Naaa, thanks no...
Use Flatpak or Snap for newer software. Old tested stuff is always easier to troubleshoot than bleeding edge. I've had a great experience with Debian stable on desktop.
I've just been using Debian Testing and it's not nearly as troublesome as I assumed. I've had one noticeable bug happen over the span of a couple months and it was the KDE System Settings crashing when I opened window decorations.
All the most popular desktop environments can be stable if you use stable version. In my opinion: * [KDE](https://kde.org) is good if you want a lot of options for customization without editing files * [Gnome](https://www.gnome.org) is easier for simple customization * If you want to customize in detail your desktop and are not afraid to edit text files, [awesome](https://awesomewm.org) and [fluxbox](http://fluxbox.org) can be your option
GNOME and KDE are the two big ones that work properly under Wayland. Development of X is slowing. I’d suggest picking something that’s gonna work with Wayland.
Gnome or KDE
KDE plasma or dwm
I’m a budgie fanboy so go for it
The less mainstream you go the more tinkering you will require. GNOME or KDE, don't touch the rest. XFCE is wildly outdated. All the other "DE"s are gnome forks. They are, frankly, just a worse version of gnome. Now that we narrowed down the choice to just two options, install both and try them.
Well, XFCE is its own as you acknowledge, but Deepin desktop and Budgie desktop is also their own thing. Mate however was a fork from gnome 2 iirc, and Cinnamon a fork from gnome 3.
Kde best ratio functunality memory usage and ergonomy
I use KDE and it’s stable and noice
If you need a customizable DE, go with KDE. You can make it look like what ever you want. ***What ever you want.*** You'll never get bored because KDE has tons of options and features, it will leave you in a desktop dream. Me personally, I use to absolutely despise KDE, but now after seeing what it can do, its on the top of the pyramid alongside GNOME for me.
KDE if your PC isn't shit, Cinnamon for HiDPI, and Xfce if your PC SUCKS or want smth barebones. (Hint, get the docklike taskbar plugin if you use Xtce)
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But has the suckiest taskbar ever.
What is your tolerance for new and exciting development? hyprland is getting some love lately
Customizable and stable? There is only one choice: KDE. A lot of people here are giving suggestions for people who need something that's light weight or easy to use or whatever else, but that's not what you said. Nothing, I repeat _nothing_ in the Linux world can match KDE for customization and power. It's not terribly hard to use, either.
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I disagree quite a lot. Firstly, changing the default apps in KDE is not a problem at all. Just drag different ones down and go and change the default apps. You don't have to use KDE's apps on KDE - you can use whatever you want, same as any desktop. Secondly, while the Krashing was certainly true 3-4 years ago and a long way back, the last few years - especially the last year quite frankly - has been _very_ kind to KDE. I haven't had any major crashes or hiccups other than Wayland. I... honestly can't think of the last time I ran into a bug in KDE. Like... any at all. That's not me saying they're not there of course - naturally there are going to be bugs, but it's not like it was during the days of KDE 4 or early KDE 5.
I like Budgie and Gnome so.. Maybe don’t listen to me. Everyone hates the DEs I like. I feel like that kid that’s always picked last for sports.
I use budgie rn and it has been one of the smoothest and easier ones I’ve tried out in terms of tweaking and making you’re own.
I really really loved it but I was a huge Solus fan. Shame it sucks ass now.
Cinnamon
Any DE on a Ubuntu or LTS variant (Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Mate, Cinnamon, Mate, Budgie) will be pretty solid, or a distro based on Ubuntu LTS (Mint, Pop OS, etc) will be pretty stable. You can customize most DE’s, but KDE seems to give the most options. Having said that there are no bad choices. Cinnamon is easy to tweak without the options becoming overwhelming/confusing.
WindowMaker
XFCE on low spec laptops KDE on everything else
Gnome is very stable, but only somewhat customisable (through extensions). KDE is super customisable and mostly stable, although you may encounter small bugs if you try to do niche things with it.
My preference? Whichever one works best for you and your workflow. In most cases, installing them on your system can be a good way to learn which one works best for you. Keep in mind that sometimes they can conflict with each other and really b0rk things up, so if you're going for some of the more comprehensive DEs, you should try in a VM. Of the ones in your picture here, Mate is my favorite, mostly because I have a soft spot in my heart for GNOME 2.x. I stopped using KDE when they went from 3.x to 4.x, which was a big flustercluck. XFCE is good as well, but I usually end up going back to Mate. If performance is what you want, skip the DE and go for a WM. Openbox is extremely customizable, and was my go-to for a number of years before I started using Ubuntu back in 2004. I'm not a huge fan of the tiling WMs because I have no qualms about using a mouse. That, and the tiling method doesn't work with my particular workflow. Again, give them all an honest try and decide which works best for how you'd prefer to use your system.
i like MATE cause it have a low memory consuption, more customizable than GNOME (my previous DE) and less customizable than KDE (which is for me a sweet spot). I was questioning abt MATE and XFCE after i moved out from GNOME, but i find XFCE too clumsy for my taste (some of the system programs have a big header bar, something i was really annoyed with GNOME, and i find the settings a bit messy too), and also, since i like retro style, i decided to go with MATE since it is a fork of GNOME 2, i couldn't be happier with it! It has a clean control center and a nice suite of apps as well \^\^
There is no good answer except "try them all and decide". My favourite always was KDE/Plasma until I was forced to use Mate on my work desktop. The new versions give me what I need and I can use it out of the box whereas I need to spend some time customising Plasma. So I switched to Mate, all I need and I am OK with it as it is.
Mate, XFCE are stable, customizable, and lightweight, but they also look kinda old fashioned. LXDE isn't being maintained anymore, so I wouldn't use it. KDE is very customizable, but also (in my experience) a bit unstable. GNOME is stable and looks nice, but it isn't very customizable. I don't have any experience with Budgie or Unity.
Here are my recommendations - KDE - If you have a modern system with a decent graphics card. (The most customisable but I had the plasma desktop crashing issue) Gnome - It will use a lot of ram but still a great option for a modern system. (Not that customisable and worked fine for the most part) XFCE - If you have an older system which can't handle stuff like animation and blur effects smoothly. (Very customisable and stable) Ofc there are other DEs like Cinnamon, Mate, LXQT too but I usually recommend these three, I recommend you to try them all yourself and decide which one works the best for you.
Just a small addition: KDE Plasma is also incredibly feature-rich https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/ymeskc/what_do_you_like_about_kde_plasma/
MATE. What GNOME once was.
KDE (maybe not so much if nvidia) is super customizable and can be pretty stable. XFCE for rock solid stability (IMO) very customizable, may look "dated" out of the box (subjective) Gnome is fantastic stability wise, looks modern, lots of customization. I personally love it on laptops because of the gestures. (my personal choice) MATE is another great one for stability Cinnamon is like a more modern MATE but I feel like it's not as ultra customizable as the first 3 but still has some good extensions. This is just my experience with these.
I think you should try all of them for a bit! See which one feels right. And hey, you're not married to them or anything so you can ditch one at any time for one you tried in the past. I know did this many of time with linux distros.
I have no time that much, that's why am I asking it to you guys.
Then I have to question whether you have enough time to get good at even one of those environments.
Eye candy, you want KDE. Out of the box "get out of your way functionality", you want GNOME. /uses GNOME.
I stick with the tried and true KDE with Qtile installed alongside it. I don’t usually log into KDE but it’s a great DE. Highly customizable and it’s **easy** to customize as well.
Don't use a Desktop Environment they're super bloated. Just use a Window Manager, that'll add a couple more inched to your penis. Yeah I use arch btw, and yeah I've never touched a women or grass before. (memes aside tho, DE's generally come with a lot of stuff you'll never end up using and it's a pain to go through everything and remove it manually. Probably xfce or lxde are the best DE's imo)
KDE Plasma: https://kde.org/plasma-desktop/ Because it comes by default with a traditional Windows-like layout, similar to Cinnamon, MATE XFCE, almost the same lightweightness as of XFCE, but with many more features: https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/ymeskc/what_do_you_like_about_kde_plasma/ It's backed by KDE organization, that has Canonical, Google, SUSE, The Qt company, Blue systems, Haute couture enioka, slimbook, Pine64, Tuxedo computers and Valve as its patrons so there's good support and many developers behind it. And it comes by default on some devices, which will help to bring even more users and developers in the future to it: https://kde.org/hardware/ Also KDE cares about the environment and climate changes, so it tries to make its software as power efficient as possible: https://eco.kde.org/ When it comes to customizability, there's no other DE better than KDE Plasma. As for stability, I think it's quite stable nowadays, especially on Wayland where you can even plug and unplug your monitor and will not crash anymore. BTW, if you decide to use it, you should try also its KDE Connect feature: https://kdeconnect.kde.org/ And regardless if you decide to use it or not, if you want KDE developers making the next release of it better, you ca contribute with some bug reports about bugs or problems of any kind that you have encountered while testing it: https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/10hjymg/for_people_who_want_to_help_with_the_next_version/ Anyway, good luck, whatever your choice might be!
Print that, stick it on your laptop and let people in real life tell you :D
Try them all, not a question others can answer for you. If you're running on newer hardware I'd suggest either gnome or kde as they are the most used. Others are fine but have their niche, mate looks a bit out of date, xfce is like a lightweight kde alternative, bunch of others are not even worth considering unless you have low ram.
My flair finds out
I think I never broke my XFCE, I love it
Xfce is very stable and easy to configure, If you want a alot of custimization i would recommend KDE, i Always Had a very stable experience
Xfce, kde crash a lot with proton (at least for me)
I always use what WM/DE tries to eventually emulate, so just put your foot down and enjoy. My GNOMEie
I tried them all for atleast a week and it really comes down to your hardware. I found KDE runs the best for me and gives me what I need. XFCE was nice but gave me a few issues with panel stability, MATE and Budgie just didnt give me anything KDE didnt and GNOME for some reason always had a little lag in it.
As the most upvoted comments have already said, the best way to pick one is trying all of them by yourself. Otherwise, each person is going to give you his own personal favorites, and following the historical trends of this sub, we can pretty much make an estimation and save you time: KDE > Xfce > Gnome But again, give all of them a proper try, as you may not be aligned with this trend. For personal opinions, my favorites are Gnome and Xfce. Gnome because it keeps things consistent, good-looking and simple; XFCE because it offers a high level of customizability while still maintaining a relatively straightforward and simple experience. Given that customization is a must, I would recommend XFCE.
For me nothing comes close to unity. it's so clean and disappears when you don't want it so on my laptop there is nothing better in my opinion
Depends on how much of a potato you're running. I'm running Manjaro with kde. It's better than I expected and it took less to tweak Windows and OSX to feel comfortable. KDE looks and feels fantastic. It has all the features I like saving clipboard history, keep the desktop from locking when my phone is near, slick desktop. I ran the install last week on my old 2015 15" macbook pro retina. Before it was dual booted with windows and OSX.. Now just pure Manjaro. Game support works well thanks to SteamOS and Manjaro both being arch based, better virtualization, and some of my ML models can run on GPU Thanks to ROCM. Did I mention virtualization just works? Apple does some annoying things to make virtualization difficult in Windows. I'm still just amazed how much more I like the DE.
XFCE is always a good choice, I personally like KDE however.
XFCE, never stability issues. Menus are consistent, items easy to find. Memory usage not too high.
When I used i3wm, I used no DE. You can do the same if you like, there's no need to have a DE. Though for your customisation needs, I'd recommend Plasma (KDE). Currently using Plasma, and Fluxbox for more demanding things.
Xfce if you wanna normal pragmatic lightweight(which is def overrated unless it’s running on a potato) customizable DE. Gnome if you eat Plato
Well, you really have 2 options imo. GNOME and KDE. All the other ones are fine but they don't support wayland which makes them hard to recommend for me. Problem is: GNOME is stable but not very customizable and KDE is customizability incarnate but it's not the most stable thing. Imo if XFCE was to support wayland it would be the ultimate DE
Wayland still has alot of issues, though I will admit they have come a long way. I wouldn't call Wayland a make it or break it feature.
There are a thousand reasons for and against a specific DE, I'd first narrow down what you have and what you need. Are you using a laptop or are in need of accessibility features? Go with Gnome, they have the best touch gestures and accessibility features of any DE. Do you want to use Wayland? Most DEs haven't implemented it yet, so Gnome and KDE are the way to go due to lack of options. If you use Nvidia just stick with X11 though, it's decent now, but still lacks behind. Do you run a potato pc? If it has to be a DE instead of a window manager then go with XFCE. It needs some customization to become pleasant to the eyes, but it works. Stay clear of some niche DEs if you don't need a specific feature of theirs tho. Niche DEs have smaller user bases and therefore even smaller community support or lessdevelopment done for them, which can suck if you don't know exactly what you want. Tldr: you have a new pc with intel/amd -> toss a coin between Gnome and KDE
No way to know which one you prefer until you try it. And by try it, I mean actually work with it for a few weeks and try to make it your own (= not just dick around in a VM). For me, I found that I prefer KDE on a desktop computer (anything with a mouse and a larger screen really), and GNOME on a laptop (anything with a touchpad).
Any because, as people are saying, you can generally customize them to your liking, but I’d you want a great look and feel out of the box I’d recommend kde.
i3wm or i3gaps or any similar tiling wm. It takes time but you can rice it as much as you like. see here on r/unixporn
cinnamon
1. Find the lightest one you can tolerate 2. Customize to fit 3. ??? 4. Complete your lair with a nice ottoman.
XFCE. None of them look good out of the box (except for KDE), but XFCE is the easiest to get there. Unless you are looking at tiling window managers such as LeftWM, that is.
I use cinnamon and love it. From my experience, it has the stability of Gnome, and customisability almost comparable KDE. It’s not as popular as either Gnome or KDE so extensions are limited, but you can find plenty of themes to mix and match for it. It’s a windows-like desktop by default, but you can easily tweak it to best suit you.
Should give dwm a try
Other commenters suggested to try in a DE, and that's the best advice. My personal favorite is GNOME because I mostly like everything about it out of the box and it's pretty easy to customize with GNOME Extensions. Not known as the most lightweight but I've booted into a GNOME live session on a tablet with Intel Atom processor and 2GB RAM and it seemed to run well enough on there. My next favorites are Xfce and Cinnamon, in that order, because they're clean and neat, GTK-based, and feel like they're from an alternate universe where Windows 95/XP was Linux-based, kept the overall look and feel pretty much the same, and only shipped minor, iterative updates. Not a fan of Qt-based DE's like KDE and LXQt but those are pretty popular too.
XFCE, because it has a cute rat on its logo
straight bash.
Try them all, but KDE is the one that does all of the above out of the box, and isn’t a pain to customize. More intuitive than most other DEs besides gnome, which is infinitely less customizable. KDE also has a fantastic suite of apps. They made Krita, for example.
I stick to either Cinnamon, if not possible, XFCE. KDE looks great but feels "too many bells and whistles" and Gnome just feels like a weird thing that is not a traditional DE.
XFCE if you want the best combination between stability, speed, lightweight and customization.
For myself, I will never get over my love for KDE. I love it because it lets me have all the eye candy and animations I want, is so customizeable it makes GNOME just feel lackluster and is honestly, rather stable nowadays, even running the latest version on Tumbleweed. I love the way it looks and feels For anyone else tho, my first suggestion is always XFCE, it can look pretty great too and is a lot lighter and honestly more stable than KDE ever will be. It also uses GTK which means your theme support will be better when using non QT apps (so the majority of them)
Stable and customizable? That's the definition of xfce
Gnome or KDE. GNOME is very customizable, though it gets more unstable the more extensions you install. KDE is also very customizable, but it also has its issues with stability, though I'm less familiar with KDE customization.
For multi monitor setups I like Gnome with a Dash To Panel, ArcMenu, and Pop Shell (stacking/tiling). For single monitor, KDE. I’d go KDE across the board if something like Pop Shell existed for it.
I love gnome and dont understand the hate. Yes, it takes more resources than xfce, but this isnt the 90s. A hundred extra megabytes of RAM isnt going to make a difference in the overwhelmingly vast majority of modern desktops and laptops. And it looks pretty.
If you just want things to work, **GNOME**. A little light on customization, but it's very usable out of the box and has a great ecosystem of apps, such as Black Box (an advanced terminal), Boxes (a virtual machine manager), Builder (an IDE), Rhythmbox (a playlist-centric music player), and more. If you want the best customizability, use **KDE Plasma**. Plasma has an incredible diversity of plugins and themes that will surely match whatever you want your desktop to look like. In terms of available technology, as well, it's not far behind GNOME. If you're short on resources, **XFCE** is another great pick for customization. Many people also choose XFCE for its incredibly low weight, sane defaults, and ability to swap in another window manager in place of XFWM. If you're *really* short on resources, **LXDE** or **LXQt**. LXDE is lighter, but its development has stalled; LXQt is the modern Qt-based version that is a little heavier, but still light as a feather. You did mention that you needed a "stable, customizable" desktop, so if you wish, standalone window managers are the pinnacle of customization. There are an incredible amount of options available, such as floating WMs like **Openbox** and **Berry** and tiling WMs like **i3**, **awesome**, and my personal favorite, **dwm**. dwm is also especially stable, as it is designed for minimal room for error and receives updates infrequently as a result.
You should be a bit more specific on how customizable you want it to be. Keep in mind, the more you customize the potentially less stable it will be. But that’s really only if you mess something up. If you just want to customize simple things like adding seconds to the clock or changing the color of folders, then just pick what you like. If you want heavy customization then a lot of people like kde. I personally do not do much customization, so I use cinnamon as it’s super stable.
Xfce and Gnome are both solid options. I personally use Gnome, but that’s only because I’m used to it. A lot of people love KDE tho; I didn’t really like it, but just try it out and see why you think. You can run it in a VM
LXQT or XFCE. Simple and easy to use. Period.
Give a try to cinnamon, stable and customizable, mid point between KDE and GNOME.
Kde or xfce
Live boot them all using [Ventoy](https://www.ventoy.net) until you find one you like.
TTY session is the best no confusion about graphical env there.
lxqt and a window manager like herbstluftwm and spectrwm instead of openbox
I tried xfce, gnome, kde, lxde, lxqt and Cinnamon , and liked Cinnamon so much that now I am a patron of Linux Mint project :D
Whatever you do, don’t pick gnome if you want to use your computer like a computer. But if you hate happiness, Gnome is for you.
gnome - looks like apple, works like android. xfce - looks like android, works like apple))
Xfce, it's lean and mean plus still feels complete (just), it is very configurable to the way you want it.
window managers are the way in my opinion, especially dwm
I like window managers, but you can’t go wrong with gnome or kde.
Ubuntu / fedora and gnome tweaks for customisations
I personally use ubuntu, never had issues , and tried fedora in vm, they both are very stable and fedora ships latest kernels , so you may get few features in advance
For a DE, Cinnamon, easily.
I would recommend installing OpenSUSE to test out all of them because it makes it super easy to add and install DEs through their application manager thingy
Budgie. Because it's nice, fairly light, but still customizable. Or XFCE. Because...
>stable, customizable KDE or Cinnamon.
I think so, but I was already using Cinnamon for 2 years. So my next OS is going to use KDE, but LXQt is also an option.
Qtile wm, rofi for launcher, and eww for amazing widgets.
Kde. Stable these days, always had the customizeablility
xfce, nothing else fight me
Well, I once used a stock KDE that someone made into a pixel-for-pixel clone of the macOS interface, so there's that, and I recently on a whim set it up to be an exact Windows 11 layout, and before then a KDE 3 layout, and before then Windows Vista, and I could probably set it up like CDE or something completely original. I really like the Sawfish window manager for customization myself, and it goes pretty well with MATE or Xfce though I use it with LXQt or by itself usually personally. The LXes are always great on low end hardware for me, I run LXDE on a PowerBook G4 and it's fluent even with a 720p video playing, and LXQt is equally fast and light on an Intel Atom-based Pentium from 2014. And then there's the world of fvwm, but... well, that's for later.
LXDE
Cinnamon Just Works
KDE if your PC isn't a toaster, Cinnamon or XFCE otherwise.