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.
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 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.
@@user-xe6sm4jv8fthat 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'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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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
@@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
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. :)
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'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.
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.
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.)
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.
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'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.
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
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
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.
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.
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?_
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.
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've used Gnome and MATE, but this and your previous Plasma video have convinced me to try KDE on my Parrot box. I can't thank you enough for your channel. Can you maybe do a comparison of file managers: Nemo vs Thunar vs Dolphin...?
@@WildVoltorb I didn't include Konquerer and a dozen others. That's why I think it would make a good video. BTW, isn't Nemo the next generation of Nautilus?
file managers can't be simply mixed and matched.. I'm running Thunar under LM cinnamon (default was Nautilus).. because Nautilus wasn't able to show the folder tree how I wanted and some other quirks.. while Thunar works, it's not really 'anchored' with the system. One of the most important apps of a DE is not 100% reliable due to that..
@@joansparky4439 I use LM/Cinnamon's Nemo. It does have a folder tree and a good right-click menu. Comes natively with LM/Cinnamon. Linux Expert's latest video is about Cinnamon not playing well with others: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-SO6xx-KF3qs.htmlsi=54iTQ8KsRhHhQIbT .
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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 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.
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 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 😅
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.
@@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.
I would have really liked if gnome had the same mechanisms as KDE and they were officially supported. Cause I love Gnome's basic interface and design, but wish it was more customizable like kde(in built). Let's see how how Gnome 47 is like.
It would require major changes to the Gnome team. As in, all of them disappearing somehow and getting replaced by new people. Ever since Gnome 3 appeared years ago, Gnome has been defined by rigidity and simplicity, "my way or highway" kind of disposition, roleplaying wannabe Steve Jobses telling their users how those users must work and what theh should like. That kind of culture is backed in at this point. If a developer doesn't like that, they go develop KDE or other DEs
Plasma implements stuff without thinking that much about how well it works and how well it is integrated. GNOME thinks a lot about the implementation and the design of the feature... Which is better IMO.
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."
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.
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.
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
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 :)
Been a GNOME user for a few years now and it absolutely fits my workflow. No reason to change, so I won't. I admire the KDE project a lot but GNOME is where it's at for me.
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}
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!
@@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.
GNOME is best because it's original. It's neither following Windows nor MacOS standards, like KDE or Pantheon. It's just something else reinvented. Therefore requires a lot of time to get used to but then it's totally usable and has very good defaults. Extensions are nice to play with but not really needed. I used different desktops since 2012, I spent at least a year on KDE, Mate, xfce, sway/i3. But as for 2024, GNOME is by far the best DE and deserves to be the face of most major GNU/Linux distros.
I'm an overthinker, so I need all my apps to look and feel the same, with polished user interfaces. While KDE offers a lot of features, many of which I don't use, and it can be overwhelming, it's still a great desktop. However, I wouldn't trade GNOME for anything. To me, GNOME is more than just a desktop environment; it's a life beautifier.
KDE and Gnome both are good, but for different types of users. One warning I learned from experience - avoid using extensions in Gnome on a rolling release; Gnome has a habit of pushing out new releases before the extensions are ready for them, causing things to break. If you want something other than Gnome's default experience, use KDE or another desktop environment.
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.
if I have to use Linux I usually go for Cinnamon. Colleagues at work told me that KDE has a horrible audio driver called Pulse or Pulsar idk, and it constantly causes issues and doesnt feel modern. I always hear complaints about that audio thingy causing trouble and that alone would make me not wanna use KDE, no matter how cool it is....
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.
You can download the ISO of a distribution that uses GNOME out-of-the-box (e.g. Ubuntu) and one that uses KDE (e.g. Kubuntu) that support running from that image. You can then write each to a bootable flash drive and try it out without wiping your existing system. That way, you could try both (or other desktop environments) out before committing to one or the other.
GNOME is the most polished, original and productive. I see some pros of KDE but since I recently bought a laptop with touchscreen, I don't want to use anything else than GNOME. Except for testing and looking at what's new in other desktops.
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.
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
Idk i usually work in gnome for his simplicity and modern design and his ecosystem ... My screen dont have over 60hz and adaptive sync dont have HDR ))) but its obviously my choice for his bugless and gesture and multi tasking because i work with many apps at the same time.
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 still use Unity, it just feels more comfortable to me. I manually install it after I build a new Ubuntu system. Downside is that it is a little tricky adding launcher icons. I have to create/edit ~/.local/share/applications/*.desktop files.
Gnome accounts * chefs kiss * A shame KDE doesn't have anything that deep level of integration. One login in the settings page to set up both mail and calendar.
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.
@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.
I am in a dillema personally. I love the customizability of KDE Plasma in terms of theming and being able to change nearly everything without extensions, and I also love the quick adoption of new features. But on the other hand, I much prefer GNOME's workflow, with the hidden dock and full screen app launcher, along with the implementation of workspaces. I have tried to replicate it in KDE, but I don't think it was really designed with it in mind so it doesn't come to a satisfactory level to me in my opinion unfortunately.
🤔I really like GNOME, second edition was amazing. I really like GNOME 3 as well, but i've always felt little strange on it (like devs want's to do something different than others, something beyond typical UI - it wasn't typical, traditional DE).
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.
Linux is now so mature that the question of which is best is not such a relevant question anymore, it is much more important to ask which Linus do I like the most. Unfortunately, there is a situation where you love that version of Linux, but your computer hates it. You probably haven't thought about it, but you have a three-way relationship with your computer.
