My first distro was Debian and I loved Gnome so much that I’ve never gotten around to trying anything else despite being on my 3rd distro hop.
I’m an old head and a firm believer in keyboard first computing. And I think an OS’s job is to be invisible until I need it. Gnome get’s out of my way until I summon whatever I need from it with the keyboard. For someone who’s labored under Windows for so long, Gnome is like escaping Plato’s cave.
I like Gnome because it’s very tablet-y by default. Sure, I could make KDE look like that, but who has the time for that?! Plus, not having a desktop is the most effective way to stop me from filling the desktop with unsorted garbage
I use gnome on my laptop and KDE on my desktop. I think gnome really shines when it comes to basic “business” productivity: using the internet, office suite, etc. And KDE is better for my normal use of a computer: gaming, media management, software development, etc. Obviously ymmv, but that’s how it’s been for me
KDE for me was death by 1000 cuts. I’d get a notification that I need to reboot my system but clicking the X doesn’t close it. The settings GUI pretty abysmal, but ig when you compare it to Windows it still looks golden. Randomly can’t wake up from sleep sometimes until i restart my display manager from a TTY. The “task manager” didn’t let me see all running tasks… It’s somehow so polished while also being janky.
Gnome alternatively is all polish, but you have to fight tooth and nail to go beyond defaults. I’m sure it’s more bloated too.
Now im on Niri with plenty of other problems but at least they’re my fault!
I used to get that as well but that was largely due to NVIDIA drivers. Either have to get a tty on the local machine or SSH into it and do a reset. But I haven’t had so much as a peep out of that machine since the Nvsync or Ntsync or whatever it was got merged. I had it happen outside of KDE as well.
I remember when KDE first rolled out plasma and the shit show it started out as. That’s when GNOME really blew up. But since the late 5.X and especially 6.5-6 its been solid. They broke off with a lot of those old abandoned themes etc with the 6.X series as well. That would often fail to function and shit the desktop. I haven’t encountered anything like that in the 6.X repos. My biggest gripe with any of them currently is the deskbar macos style that’s poorly exposed and configured. But comes by default from a few distro like garuda. And predictably isn’t consistent. When it works it’s nice. When it doesn’t it’s confusing.
I tried to customize the UI and had the DE crash like 5 times in 5 minutes. Took it as a sign. It’s ugly as can be but I was willing to put in some time to fix it but it seems luck was not on my side.
GNOME is not meant to be customized. Don’t even try. If your concept of customization goes beyond adding a panel in a different spot. It’s truly asking for grief. Their add-ons/plugins are fairly neat with all the different languages they can be written in etc. But with all the breaking changes that are constantly being done to the API you never know if they’ll be functioning in the next week. It’s part of why pop started Cosmic in the first place. The GNOME team would regularly roll breaking changes with minor point releases.
You are saying this to someone with 5 years of routinely changing major UI elements on GNOME and who has rarely had any issues with extensions breaking. Less than once a year.
I think the difference of experience is from how much we think the UI “needs” customizing. If I wanted GNOME to look like windows, I’d probably have had that experience. But that’s absolutely the furthest thing from what I’d ever want.
And before you claim I only use one or two extensions. Nope I’ve used 3-7 at all times.
I do. But, I recognize that preference is personal so I try not to shame people for the desktop environment they prefer.
I’ve tried KDE, and others, multiple times in the last 20 years or so and it’s just never felt as polished to me as Gnome does. When Gnome 3 came out I spent quite a bit of time with Mate because I didn’t like the new Gnome. But eventually I got used to it and it got better.
Typically, for new Linux users, I recommend Gnome for Mac people and KDE for Windows people.
KDE has a really beauty of a big screen. The tablet mode on my 2 in 1 works well enough but I can’t compare with gnome for obv reasons (I don’t use gnome)
For a media PC GNOME is goated, specifically their overview! One button on the “magic remote” mouse to easily switch between desktops, windows, control basic settings, and launch other applications is awesome. Generally prefer KDE and did choose it this time when reinstalling the media/coach-gaming machine, but really wish there was anything like GNOMEs overview on KDE.
(Yes, the Plasma overview is awesome, but you can’t launch new apps from it without typing).
People love gnome unironically? #kdeftw
My first distro was Debian and I loved Gnome so much that I’ve never gotten around to trying anything else despite being on my 3rd distro hop.
I’m an old head and a firm believer in keyboard first computing. And I think an OS’s job is to be invisible until I need it. Gnome get’s out of my way until I summon whatever I need from it with the keyboard. For someone who’s labored under Windows for so long, Gnome is like escaping Plato’s cave.
I like Gnome because it’s very tablet-y by default. Sure, I could make KDE look like that, but who has the time for that?! Plus, not having a desktop is the most effective way to stop me from filling the desktop with unsorted garbage
That’s my biggest gripe with GNOME. They constantly compromise or even remove features to be more touch friendly.
I don’t really get it either. I used gnome once and needed multiple extensions to get functionality that is the default of KDE
I use gnome on my laptop and KDE on my desktop. I think gnome really shines when it comes to basic “business” productivity: using the internet, office suite, etc. And KDE is better for my normal use of a computer: gaming, media management, software development, etc. Obviously ymmv, but that’s how it’s been for me
Even with several random extensions, gnome runs for 6 months for me before having the instability problems I had on KDE in 6 minutes
Last time KDE gave me issue was when they switched to Wayland by default I think. And even then that was mostly on me. 🤷♀️
KDE for me was death by 1000 cuts. I’d get a notification that I need to reboot my system but clicking the X doesn’t close it. The settings GUI pretty abysmal, but ig when you compare it to Windows it still looks golden. Randomly can’t wake up from sleep sometimes until i restart my display manager from a TTY. The “task manager” didn’t let me see all running tasks… It’s somehow so polished while also being janky.
Gnome alternatively is all polish, but you have to fight tooth and nail to go beyond defaults. I’m sure it’s more bloated too.
Now im on Niri with plenty of other problems but at least they’re my fault!
I used to get that as well but that was largely due to NVIDIA drivers. Either have to get a tty on the local machine or SSH into it and do a reset. But I haven’t had so much as a peep out of that machine since the Nvsync or Ntsync or whatever it was got merged. I had it happen outside of KDE as well.
I remember when KDE first rolled out plasma and the shit show it started out as. That’s when GNOME really blew up. But since the late 5.X and especially 6.5-6 its been solid. They broke off with a lot of those old abandoned themes etc with the 6.X series as well. That would often fail to function and shit the desktop. I haven’t encountered anything like that in the 6.X repos. My biggest gripe with any of them currently is the deskbar macos style that’s poorly exposed and configured. But comes by default from a few distro like garuda. And predictably isn’t consistent. When it works it’s nice. When it doesn’t it’s confusing.
I tried to customize the UI and had the DE crash like 5 times in 5 minutes. Took it as a sign. It’s ugly as can be but I was willing to put in some time to fix it but it seems luck was not on my side.
GNOME is not meant to be customized. Don’t even try. If your concept of customization goes beyond adding a panel in a different spot. It’s truly asking for grief. Their add-ons/plugins are fairly neat with all the different languages they can be written in etc. But with all the breaking changes that are constantly being done to the API you never know if they’ll be functioning in the next week. It’s part of why pop started Cosmic in the first place. The GNOME team would regularly roll breaking changes with minor point releases.
You are saying this to someone with 5 years of routinely changing major UI elements on GNOME and who has rarely had any issues with extensions breaking. Less than once a year.
I think the difference of experience is from how much we think the UI “needs” customizing. If I wanted GNOME to look like windows, I’d probably have had that experience. But that’s absolutely the furthest thing from what I’d ever want.
And before you claim I only use one or two extensions. Nope I’ve used 3-7 at all times.
Same. However, if you don’t need that functionality it’s solid. Just definitely not for me.
There are dozens of us
I do. But, I recognize that preference is personal so I try not to shame people for the desktop environment they prefer.
I’ve tried KDE, and others, multiple times in the last 20 years or so and it’s just never felt as polished to me as Gnome does. When Gnome 3 came out I spent quite a bit of time with Mate because I didn’t like the new Gnome. But eventually I got used to it and it got better.
Typically, for new Linux users, I recommend Gnome for Mac people and KDE for Windows people.
They are the same kind of people that use tablets for work
KDE has a really beauty of a big screen. The tablet mode on my 2 in 1 works well enough but I can’t compare with gnome for obv reasons (I don’t use gnome)
For a media PC GNOME is goated, specifically their overview! One button on the “magic remote” mouse to easily switch between desktops, windows, control basic settings, and launch other applications is awesome. Generally prefer KDE and did choose it this time when reinstalling the media/coach-gaming machine, but really wish there was anything like GNOMEs overview on KDE.
(Yes, the Plasma overview is awesome, but you can’t launch new apps from it without typing).
I used to like Gnome before 1.1. It was a while ago though.