basically this. Now I am used to GNOME, I find it annoying when apps like firefox don't respect my system defaults and try and impose windows-like behaviour.
I actually don't think so. It is a bit weird, since everythings up top, but that's about it. Most hotkeys like resizing the Windows, bringing up the window settings, etc. are identical, whilst KDE's are not. Despite its different looks, it seems to work for most. Sure they are a bit slower, but they understand. In my Opinion, Plasma is a lot to learn as many things are being called different which, depeding on your knowledge can mess a lot up (e.g. Pin to Taskbar is not called like that)
Gnome + Dash-to-Panel is a good combo for a Windows/ChromeOS users experience on Linux. Very clean and familiar. That being said it's annoying that I need an extension as I never quite trust that it wont break on updates.
Not accurate for everyone. I still can't get used to Gnome and dislike it enough to avoid it at all costs. I struggled with a Gnome-based distro for nearly a year that shipped with sane plugins like Dash to Dock - Pop!_OS. Now I run Fedora's KDE spin on most of my systems that have a GUI. My workflow usually has one browser open and a terminal with tmux and neovim, perhaps slack or discord open in the browser. I prefer my DE to disappear into the background and help me work like I want to, not force me to change my habits 🤷♂
Yeah gnome is good if you want just the most basic things, without needing to do much configuration. Also i use hyprland, but gnome is there as a fallback, if hyprland ever crashes lol
@@themadoneplays7842 UX consistency is very lacking in KDE, and the design language is god awful, it feels like I'm booting into a PC from the 90's, no amount of themes or tweaks can fix this since it's a core design system problem.
Yes, but this is also why gnome needs 4 different control centers. One is the one it comes with, then there are tweaks, then the one for extensions and the other for the color themer (when it doesn't get borked by the ever-changing API's of gnome.) KDE is superior as every setting is under one roof and there is this thing called the search bar.
I agree on this. The only two thing that should definitely be in the main settings is the button layout (Enable minimize, maximize etc.) and startup apps. The rest is probably negligible though it would be a nice to have
@@MichaelNROHI personally configure GNOME-related configurations (keyboard layouts, fonts, icons, custom keybinds, title bar buttons, startup apps etc) via a Fedora post-installation script I wrote, I run it once and that's it!
@@themadoneplays7842I don't believe a person who is not tech savvy wants \ will change their theme especially if there are an enormous amount of options. Maybe the font they would change, but it would not be many users that do. The settings app does need a few more things though that tweaks already has, but likely not themes.
For some reason I hate gnome with a passion and always find it clunky, restrictive and visually dull. If I had a choice between gnome and cinnamon, I would use cinnamon.
KDE's account management is horrendous, so much so, I tried to shoehorn gnome's setup into my KDE environment ... yea that didn't end well. Gnome on the other hand, god that's so amazing! Login there once, and it's there everywhere. Contacts, email, file shares, and most importantly, calendar events in the calendar! HOW does KDE not have that! Kmail setup was painful .... I hope that's fixed, else I'm torn b/w gnome and KDE
Agreed, I also see this as well, plus I also see a lot of hate towards Gnome with people calling it things like directionless, dumbed down, and that you're forced to use it one way, and one way only, when on Manjaro I get 4 different layout choices(I go with traditional layout) of which I can then further customize fairly easy, and the only ther DE that gets close to Gnome for me is Budgie, which is currently based on Gnome.
I just enjoy using GNOME so much. I am generally considered a tinkerer, at least relative to the rest of my friends group, but I just cannot switch to KDE no matter how much I try. Not just KDE, I can't switch to anything else.
@@themadoneplays7842 while extensions on GNOME aren't always perfect, the ones I use 100% are. I use 5-6 extensions and none of them have ever broken on me. And yeah the customisation options are a little limited but if I did want, I could directly edit the gtk-4 config files to change themes. If you know what you're doing, GNOME is pretty much as customizable as KDE. The important part for me though is that I don't feel the need to customize my GNOME setup too much because, well, hot take but Adwaita Dark is a much better theme than KDE's Breeze Dark. So I almost need to make big changes to KDE to set it to my liking whereas I really don't on GNOME. That's the difference.
I am a KDE fan, but I like gnome of it's transparency and smoothness, also better touch screen and gesture support. But I do really miss the integration of Google drive on KDE.
I’ve been using GNOME for a long time now and I really like it. I am also tempted by Plasma 6 since it appears to be resolving a number of issues I had with Plasma 5. But I am in no rush. My current GNOME setup works great and if Plasma 6 ends up being better I’ll use that. If not I’ll stick where I am at.
Great comparison! Personally, I use Gnome on my laptop for work and KDE on my desktop for gaming and leisure. Gnome's workflow with a touchpad is simply unparalleled. I'd argue it's better than Mac.
@@Arxari gnome sucks on details uses more ram more input delay and devs dont care gaming that much(kde is funded by valve thats why kde needs to work on it too) hdr is also a good pro for kde
I tried several times to switch to GNOME. I couldn't. I find it easier to switch to LXDE or XFCE. GNOME looks great, but the weird internal logic is annoying. Therefore, I stay on KDE with simple and clear internal logic and ample customization options.
If you like the workflow, then definitely. Back on Plasma, it took a couple of hours to get a similar workflow whereas I didn't misclick something all the time
Gnome is just beautiful IMO and efficient. And it even feels more modern than macOS. Surely it's not perfect, but I really enjoy using it over all other DEs. I only wish, my preferred Debian 12 has a newer version.... Gnome46 could be the reason to have a look at Fedora. But I really love my stable system.
I am absolutely in love with gnome on fedora. Switched to it from windows and oh boy is it amazing. With a few gnome extensions i made the environment that works the best for me and i cannot be happier with it. KDE was always weird to me because it looked more like windows from the start which to me was weird.
I did hop around different DEs, including KDE, GNOME, Xfce, Cinnamon. And while all of them are good, I personally think GNOME suits my needs the best.
The first time I tried Linux I moved from Windows 7 and tried KDE, but went back to Windows, but when I gave it another try several years later, I tried it with Gnome and I stayed on Linux ever since. Part of my issue with KDE was that I was effectively just looking for a Windows clone and when ANYTHING didn't behave as I expected it to on Windows it lost my interest, where as when I switched to Linux with Gnome, Gnome was different enough that I was expecting things to be very different throughout and more willing to change my habits so it was the fact that it was different and yet simple to get to grips with that Gnome was able to win me over and made me stay on Linux. Now I get frustrated when I use work computers based on Mac or Windows because they always feel like they're missing important productivity features that I got used to in Gnome.
Yeah, but setting up the keyring to be unlocked automatically and be used as the default is a hassle for most. I would personally automate it or use a different launcher as you said
this video planted the seed for me to try out gnome, and i actually like it overall. the lack of a taskbar actually encouraged me to use the workspaces, which i find to be a lot more useful overall. i don't have that many extensions installed either. it's 45 since my distro of choice hasn't updated their repositories for the two new DEs, but i actually want to stick with gnome now.
Can't help but stick to Gnome, despite trying KDE many times. I do love the open customization and global themes, but there is a lack of consistency between the UI elements in different apps and it's just hard to use, because its edit menus are very unintuitive. "set flexible size" for example moves everything in the taskbar for no reason and the sizes snap to different scales at random intervals. "edit mode" has two separate windows that both handle different UI aspects but are both overlapping in many functions. For example, right clicking on "add widgets" brings up an extra menu that also says "add widgets" so there's 3 separate buttons labeled identically with no clear communication as to what they each do. I also see "plasma crashed" every time I try to adjust things to my liking and there's zero information telling me what went wrong or how to avoid it next time... So in the end, I personally don't value KDE's customization at all because it's just so impractical, unstable, and opaque in design language. Gnome might not be as tweakable as I'd like, but it's so reliable and has enough variation that I am mostly happy sticking to it...
KDE Plasma requires some time investment, but you can actually bend it whatever way you want. I am also lucky that my go-to Linux distro, i.e. OpenSUSE, comes with KDE Plasma by default.
I was the same not so long ago, love Gnome and how it feels more polished in some ways than KDE. But overall I enjoy KDE much more the more I use it. After I found it's quirks, just as I did with Gnome, and how to make it perfect for my workflow, and usually KDE fits better to my workflow out of the box than Gnome. I like the mix of windows and linux ways of doing things, and Plasma 6 is very good at doing that even without extensions, the animations are smooth and feel polished, the settings are much more improved, and I prefer the Plasma 6 settings over Gnome settings. Tho Plasma 5 settings are worse than Gnome settings. Tho generally, I feel like plasma 6 is going to change the way people look at KDE. It's new version made a big boom this past week, and lot more people are gonna at least try it, even those that say they're never gonna use it.
I use to be a big fan of KDE way back in the KDE 2 days in the very early 00's, but yeah these days just give me Gnome in traditional desktop layout, as it just feels so much more comfortable to use.
@@richardalvarez2390 Thanks for stating the very obvious, & wasting my time, because as I already pointed out in my OG comment, it's the reason I don't use it now, & instead use Gnome with the traditional layout settings. 🤦♂
I currently have KDE Plasma 6, GNOME 45, and Hyprland all installed and switching back and forth between them - however what I'm *really* looking forward to is COSMIC!
KDE UI is just a mess. Very uncomfortable to use, once you got used the clean and mostly well-thought design of GNOME. KDE might be more modern and rich in terms of features and technical capabilities. But the feel is not the same. Feels more like a large sandbox than a well rounded desktop environment.
@folksurvival KDE is a huge mess of settings and unclean ui compared with GNOME. The core design language of KDE is awful. It's just a fact tbh. What exactly makes GNOME a smartphone ui?
@@ProMaster_4Big round buttons everywhere. Seriously, I’m not opposed to having a well thought out design language (and KDE is very much lacking in that regard), but gnome focuses too much on simplicity making their layouts feel like 90% whitespace when working on a modern desktop display. KDE is great in terms of technical implementation and the UI design isn’t bad either, but the entire UX is just horribly inconsistent. I really hope they’ll manage to address this in upcoming releases, plasma 6 seems to be a step into the right direction
@@Mooooov0815 Fair. Honestly the only thing that is oversized in gnome for me is the app view, but 🤷♂️ everything else I feel is very well thought out. I would much rather have consistency and a clean and simple ui over janky customization potential, and so would most average users I suspect.
Gnome is beautiful and very modern. It's a different way to use a computer, but once you learn it other systems feel kind of ancient. Vanilla Gnome with custom keyboard shortcuts is great by itself, but people are too invested into old systems like Windows and are unable to learn something new.
I used Gnome 2 for years but eventually ditched Gnome 3 because it felt like using a budget tablet. Last year I decided to give the latest Gnome a second chance and it has improved a lot. Its worth taking the time to learn the customization options. It has become pretty decent out of the box.
100% agree with every point made in the video.. I was recently forced to switch from Gnome to KDE because of some nvidia driver shenanigans (window decorations in gnome were borked due to some bug in the nvidia driver, and I couldn't find out what caused it. I only know now because of the nvidia driver changelog). At first I stayed with Gnome and just switched from X11 to Wayland which fixed the decoration issues, but it came with a new issue: Gnome-Shell kept hard-crashing every few hours for no discernible reason... so off to KDE I went and hit all of the same annoyances as you with the Overview and my gnome-centric workflow. I think I'm in a pretty decent state with KDE6 right now, tho. I managed to configure it enough like Gnome so that it's comfortable to use and gaming really is infinitely better on KDE. I mean gaming on Gnome Wayland was fine too, it's only Gnome-X11 that is really really awful with gaming with all the micro- and macrostutters, but on KDE it's almost perfect now. Still not perfect because gaming on wayland currently leads to very freaky game behavior if the framerate is below the monitor refresh rate, but if it's at or above the refresh rate all is good.
I have been having this same exact issue since I upgraded from Zoris OS 16.3 to 17 and upgraded my GTX 1660 to an RTX 3050. I have been racking my brains trying to figure out what the issue was. I upgraded Nvidia driver to 550 and have been getting 2 to 3 times a day Gnome Shell crashes which require a reboot. Going to KDE fixed this for you???
@@adamthornbrugh6161 yeah, only a single crash in kde so far and that was a crash to desktop, so recoverable. Be mindful of the annoyances that come with kde, tho. Unlike Gnome kde seems to have never heard what systemd is and relies on some super old school autostart garbage entwined with dbus
@@MichaelNROH Maybe not for most things, but for gaming it makes a difference on Gnome. the way mutter is architected just doesn't jive with how nivida does syncing (with nvidia not implementing implicit sync (which I think is fair enough, explicit sync makes more sense) but gnome also is gnome so they don't even try to work with people working on explicit sync support)
Every time I try to use KDE (including plasma 6 nowadays) in the end I always return to GNOME. Yup, it doesn't have the latest and greatest bells and whistles, but to me GNOME feels just right. However It would be cool to have HDR support, for instance. I guess you can't have everything you want, right?
@@richardalvarez2390Somebody said before that the beauty is in the eye of the beholder. To each their own. That's the beauty of Open Source, you use what you want.
Man, I love Linux. We can just look and pick whatever we like. And whenever a desktop environment gets a nice feature that enhances user experience directly, it makes me happy. Since devs usually work together, those new features make their way to other DE"s. Everybody wins.
I like KDE a lot and to this day it is my "backup desktop" from GNOME but to me, when you get used to GNOME is hard to make the switch due how unique and productive it feels compared to any other DE imo
I just bought a ThinkPad t480s it has 12 gigs of RAM and 128 gigs of storage but it works nicely for what I need and I just use it casually just to watch some videos the battery life is still pretty good the bad thing is the charging port I probably have to resolder
01:56 - "can't launch an application twice... You need to launch an app, then the overview, then drag-n-drop it..." You can just switch to the required desktop and launch an app with middle click on the panel task-bar/task-manager item. Also on both Plasma 5 and Plasma 6, when searching on the overview, search filters opened app windows only from the current desktop. If there's no such app there - search gives me result with its launcher. So, again, open the overview switch to the required desktop (with keyboard shortcut, alternatively with click on Plasma 6), search for an application, launch it...
Biggest workflow improvement in Gnome is to learn the Gnome shortcuts. The workflow is simply amazing especially with a browser. Opening a new app, then moving it to a new space all throught he keyboard shortcuts is brilliant.
Gnome feels solid and thought-out. KDE more like a toolbox. If only there wouldn´t be the gaming things and the freezes I do also encounter quite often sadly. I need to do my system all over again but thinking of setting everything up to my likings makes me trying to avoid it since weeks now... Oh and reading for new stuff about Gnome and KDE in upcoming versions doesn´t make it easier to do what I need to ^^
If gnome made a way to have auto tiling that works as well and as smooth as a WM, I would totally use gnome. It's just after being on hyprland, it's hard to use floating windows again. Also, yes I have tried the extensions and it's just not there and doesn't work the same.
i was a big fan of KDE ,but when i learned Gnome i knew that's it ,this is my desktop and not gonna change it now i'm using OpenSuse gnome desktop and there is nothing to complain
Same. I switches from Gnome (with Ubuntu), to Manjaro with KDE and now to EndeavourOS with KDE. Finally KDE6 Released i love it. The Problem with the Search you mentioned i do not have. Can multiple Launch opened programs and even start on new Virtual Desktop and use the same programs in it. May im just a Desktop KDE and Notebook Gnome User :D
This was a very meaningful and detailed look at the current differences between the two desktop environments. Extensions shouldn’t break like they did during the GNOME 44-45 transition. G46 on Fedora 40 should be quite good. But the comparison between G47 and Plasma 6.1 on Fedora 41 in about 8 months is going to be very interesting. There is a lot of convergent evolution and Wayland bug fixing happening.
Interesting. I'm kind of in the same boat as you. I'm primarily a Gnome user, but I don't have any issues with the games I play for lack of VRR. I even switched to KDE for a bit just to test a few games and felt no difference. I still prefer the overall aesthetic of gnome, but KDE feels more appropriate for a desktop. My laptop on the other hand is staying gnome, touchpad gestures and such, just work too good. I'm really curious to see the wayland integration on KDE in 6.0
I'm curious about the stuttering of games in Gnome. I haven't seen it. I wonder why Gnome would have that issue while KDE doesn't. Seems like something that would be impacted at a lower level.
probably because of missing variable refresh rate. i once played dark souls 2 on fedora gnome which is a game running capped on 60fps, but on a 100hz monitor. this way, the game felt stuttery and laggy. Once i set my monitor on 60hz instead of 100hz, this changed and the game was buttery smooth.
It's not noticable unless you have a benchmark and know what to look out for. The higher the refresh rate the more you can notice it, but only when you know what to look for. It doesn't stutter as in lags, but its definitely not as smooth as it could be either.
@@MichaelNROH imo it's ***very*** noticeable, games just look as if they were running at half the frame rate that they are, and I notice that despite using a 240hz monitor
Until said extensions break with every iteration. There been so many great ones abandoned because the gnome devs keep on changing crap every 10 seconds.
This is an issue for sure, though as long as they work it's kinda neat. KDE Plasma is great because they care about customization, but for the end user it doesn't matter all that much since its searching on both
@@themadoneplays7842All my extensions get updated within a month with the majority within a few days so I just wait a bit to update gnome versions. It's really not too big of a deal as people like to make out.
@@ProMaster_4Yes but vanilla gnome sucks. Its an iphone clone stuck on a desktop UI. You cant tweak it unless you install 900 extentions that will break next version.
Oh yeah, I just went back too. I gave up VRR but honestly gaming is more stable in general and my workflow to do everything is better too, so yeah. I tried :P
Basically, you get used for GNOME ways, so it's more efficient for you. Nothing bad here. For me it quite opposite, I get used to KDE Plasma, e.g. I prefer KWallet and don't need keyring. I like 3×3 grid virtual desktops and don't like dynamic ones, prefer keyboard navigation through them, and launch new apps with KRunner not from overview. Also prefer KDE looks.
2:00 You are using the launcher to *activate* a window, not to launch the app. You can do both. Also you can just go into the desktop and open the app. That's far more efficient than opening it and then dragging it around. Also shortcuts do exists to send it to a desktop.
Great Video! Can't wait for you "final decision" I was so hyped for Plasma 6, but I'm using GNOME for the past couple days and I really like it! And tbh... I don't notice much differnce in Gaming, but VRR & HDR would be aweseome! I never had any glitches or bugs in GNOME. And everything looks unified. I'm also using a lot of Flatpaks and I always hated Flatpaks on KDE Plasma, but in GNOME they look beautiful and match the whole system design. I also try to use GNOME more the GNOME way, I see a lot of ppl using sooo many addons and then I'm like: "You should probably use KDE Plasma instead" I just use these: Blur my shell, Tray and Vitals. And they never broke on me, probably because they are so popular. Ah and I use something that displays my battery for my Ps5 Controllers.
Once I got a steam deck I married KDE on my desktop because with Valve’s backing I think it’ll evolve very quickly and I prefer having the same DE on all my machines.
To me GNOME died with GNOME 3. I don't need this "modern" feel. I need classic desktop. That's why I use Xfce and sometimes MATE. I remember how many issues I had with GNOME 3 I never had with Xfce or GNOME 2 (or MATE). Same goes for KDE Plasma, by the way. To me it's either KDE 3 (TDE) or nothing. KDE died with Plasma. Yes, I am a GNU/Linux user from 2000s, I've tried everything and I can feel the difference in usability.
I've went the opposite direction. Gnome user for years. Fell in love with KDE. Its far superior for a 32:9 monitor with native support for building your own drag and drop areas for window resizing without using stupid stupid tiling. That feature alone will keep me here. VRR and HDR support are bonuses, gaming is better, and Dolphin is WAY better.
gnome makes more sense to me. the only thing it lacks is native auto-tiling support which is why I'm looking forward to system76's cosmic desktop which I think borrows some design decisions from gnome.
I used KDE for the last months, too. I used GNOME for years before. Now I am currently on GNOME 46 but also have plasma 6 installed (tumbleweed ftw). And in some games like Overwatch, GNOME just gives me more stable FPS at my monitor refresh rate of 240, I lock FPS at 236 and on KDE the game drops down to 200 fps sometimes while on GNOME it stays at stable 236, so basically at the FPS lock all the time. I dont know why this is the case tho. In World of Warcraft I have also the feeling that GNOME feels like it has way lesser input lag compared to KDE plasma 6. Yes, KDE is cool and the devs seem to get stuff done faster, especially new implementations. But why does GNOME run better? Oh yeah, the workflow is just better on GNOME compared to KDE, in GNOME its like NOTHING gets in the way ever, it just works. Cant say that about KDE, there is always something that just doesn't feel good or annoying. Like not being able to switch workplaces with mouse wheel and windows key. Why?! I don't care about VRR, there is no use for it for the things I do and play.
hot take but i really dont see the appeal of KDE, if i wanted customisability i would build it from the ground up, if i wanted ease i would go with GNOME. KDE is just customisable enough to not be able to look that good and not satisfy my desires. it doesnt even have a good dock for crying out loud. i spent the same amount of time messing with KDE making it look decent that i did setting up hyprland, making it look and function exactly as i wanted
For multi-tasking on GNOME, I can feel comfortable only when using keyboard shortcuts for app/window switching (e.g., Alt+Tab, Meta+Tab, Meta+number). I can't deny that keyboard shortcuts help user to be more effective but on KDE Plasma mouse usage is generally way easier, in my opinion.
To each his own but I prefer GNOME by a long shot. I liked plasma 6 in testing - it’s excellent work but found I was longing for GNOME. Using GNOME 45 now on Ubuntu 23.10. One last thing I will say, I ran Cinnamon for a few months and it seemed more stable, but just didn’t have the silkyness that GNOME has. So it’s still GNOME for me.
I wish I could get into Gnome. It looks cool, is consistent, and has a lot of the things I like from macOS, but I end up on KDE or Cinnamon. I need to just force myself to try it in earnest at some point.
I like Gnome because it is simple. I really don't want to customize my desktop since I spend most of my time with the applications that I use. The only thing that I change from the default is the natural scrolling and add the minimize and maximize to the window which I don't even use.
with the gnome keyrings with minecraft launcher, solution to my problem was to literarily just download the package, thats it worked and solved the issue of relogging in each time
I have similar feelings. I switched to gnome when I discovered a bug in KDE with selecting and moving multiple files (September 2023?). Gnome lacks a few things, like settings :D (I would use gwenview even on Windows if I could), but it also offers some of its own features. The closer I get to the new fedora, the more I don't want to go back to KDE. But it's a bit tempting, although I have no problems with Gnome (I don't use VRR, but I use samba, nautilus save thumbnail cache for external drive, most programs support the Gnome file picker by default (or exclusively), etc.). Even the lack of a program bar doesn't bother me. I'm still going to check KDE on an additional laptop, but I don't see anything in KDE that would definitely make me switch again.
The biggest problem with gnome is scaling, i use 125% on 1440p screen on windows, on gnome it looks too big (and also x11 apps are blurry) i also find the fonts and stuff low quality compared to kde or windows (maybe because everything is smaller), and gnome on my second 1080p monitor everything looks too big. Kde scaling is now perfect thanks to kde 6, tested it, pretty much equivalent to windows, x11 apps arent blurry because they scale themselves I have gnome on my xps 4k laptop, it’s stellar, everything looks incredibly good, I think i will just buy a 4k monitor and don’t use my gaming rig monitors for work (i really wanted to do both like my current setup but it’s not good because of gnome)
@@MichaelNROH I can’t modify font size depending on the monitor i use, i want to keep everything the same on my laptop, and when i use my desktop monitors, i want different scaling for every display, like i said, the best solution is to buy a 4k screen and use the laptop screen as a smaller secondary one
I've been using Gnome for the longest time. KDE is "customizable", but not in an intuitive way compared to Cinnamon or using Gnome's really well made community extensions like dash to panel. That being said, I'm excited about Cosmic DE to actually start building add-ons in Rust which I'm much more familiar with.
I use Gnome and Gnome very effcient, quick, stable and you can be very productive. I only with that gtk4 was more consistent amongst apps, that is something that need to be worked on.
The gnome workflow is also the reason for me why i not switched to kde yet. Even if I think that kde is more feature complete. In my opinion the kde devs should add a page with all installed apps to the overview effect like when you press Meta twice in Gnome. I also find its not perfect that the panel is not displayed in the overview effect. From a new user perspective the kde online account setup is a mess compared to gnome. On gnome i enter my credentials and i have access to my files and to my calendar on nextcloud. On kde the online account page in the system settings do nothing in my experience. I first had to look on the Internet to find out how to get access to my nextcloud. Then I had to install packages (in kde neon) to get access to dolphin. The calendar app was not pre-installed (on kde neon) after the installation the access has to be set up again. The display of appointments in the calendar applet in the panel also has to be configured separately.That is pity because I think KDE is very good in principle. But the developers should revise the user experience for new users (and copy Ubuntu or Mint). My kde. Perhaps kde also lacks a distribution like Mint which has a very strong focus on a easy to use experience.
@@MichaelNROH Yes, I think you're right. But hopefully, now that the Plasma 6 release is successfully done, the developers will have some free resources available for it
Im using gnome cuz it's been already beautiful and efficient out of the box. Just need a little tweak to be perfect. I tried KDE 6, customized it for an hour. But meh, still buggy and too much things to do to be liked by me .
Gnome would be hands down my choice if they could fix touchpad scrolling on hi dpi laptops. KDE has managed this and has improved desktop switching via gestures. I find myself alternating between the two.
I am using Tuxedo OS and happy with it. Since they are up to date (like rolling releases) on the DE side while the system stable enough. On the other hands, I am using flatpak for my apps, almost all my apps. Kio gdrive not working on Dolphin flatpak. And the other software is the fwupd, I didn't install this because it is not a GUI app.
KDE Plasma is good, but in my case, GNOME is unforgettable. I stick with GNOME because it. I wish GNOME get more integration improvement for Qt apps. GNOME quiet bad with Qt apps
For me, KDE has been nothing but a buggy mess. Context menus going transparent when using fractional scaling, styling not persisting randomly after a few restarts, random plasma crashes, unable to turn of my machine trough UI commands, not being able to define my main screen through the settings menu, icons disappearing and much more. VRR, which is the main reason why I decided to give KDE a try, didnt even function as expected, in some cases it would randomly max out the refresh rate of my monitor, even though the game stayed at a consistent lower res. This combined with the inferior dynamic desktop and in general UI, made KDE a big no for me. I have an easier time configuring sway through a configuration file, than traversing the wizard jungle that is KDE settings panel.
gnome is veary alien when you come from windows or kde, but if you stick with it the workflow becomes adictive
basically this. Now I am used to GNOME, I find it annoying when apps like firefox don't respect my system defaults and try and impose windows-like behaviour.
I actually don't think so.
It is a bit weird, since everythings up top, but that's about it.
Most hotkeys like resizing the Windows, bringing up the window settings, etc. are identical, whilst KDE's are not.
Despite its different looks, it seems to work for most. Sure they are a bit slower, but they understand.
In my Opinion, Plasma is a lot to learn as many things are being called different which, depeding on your knowledge can mess a lot up (e.g. Pin to Taskbar is not called like that)
Gnome + Dash-to-Panel is a good combo for a Windows/ChromeOS users experience on Linux. Very clean and familiar.
That being said it's annoying that I need an extension as I never quite trust that it wont break on updates.
addiction isnt good for your health.
Not accurate for everyone. I still can't get used to Gnome and dislike it enough to avoid it at all costs. I struggled with a Gnome-based distro for nearly a year that shipped with sane plugins like Dash to Dock - Pop!_OS. Now I run Fedora's KDE spin on most of my systems that have a GUI. My workflow usually has one browser open and a terminal with tmux and neovim, perhaps slack or discord open in the browser. I prefer my DE to disappear into the background and help me work like I want to, not force me to change my habits 🤷♂
Gnome feels more consistent, fluid, buttery smooth and modern than KDE. I switched to linux because of GNOME.
Yeah gnome is good if you want just the most basic things, without needing to do much configuration.
Also i use hyprland, but gnome is there as a fallback, if hyprland ever crashes lol
It's the opposite.
You havents seen plasma 6 then, never seen anything smoother
So how would you make KDE "modern" strip it bare of features and make the UI a iphone clone forced onto the desktop.
@@themadoneplays7842 UX consistency is very lacking in KDE, and the design language is god awful, it feels like I'm booting into a PC from the 90's, no amount of themes or tweaks can fix this since it's a core design system problem.
Gnome makes more sense to me than KDE. One of the reason to switch from Windows to Linux was Gnome
GNOME is very comfortable to use, the system settings are a lot more polished and the whole system just lookd better.
Yes, but this is also why gnome needs 4 different control centers. One is the one it comes with, then there are tweaks, then the one for extensions and the other for the color themer (when it doesn't get borked by the ever-changing API's of gnome.) KDE is superior as every setting is under one roof and there is this thing called the search bar.
@@kadupseyou still need tweaks to customize fonts and themes.
I agree on this.
The only two thing that should definitely be in the main settings is the button layout (Enable minimize, maximize etc.) and startup apps.
The rest is probably negligible though it would be a nice to have
@@MichaelNROHI personally configure GNOME-related configurations (keyboard layouts, fonts, icons, custom keybinds, title bar buttons, startup apps etc) via a Fedora post-installation script I wrote, I run it once and that's it!
@@themadoneplays7842I don't believe a person who is not tech savvy wants \ will change their theme especially if there are an enormous amount of options.
Maybe the font they would change, but it would not be many users that do.
The settings app does need a few more things though that tweaks already has, but likely not themes.
I just love the look and feel of Gnome. 🙂
Same, for any reason I feel comfortable with Gnome
For some reason I hate gnome with a passion and always find it clunky, restrictive and visually dull. If I had a choice between gnome and cinnamon, I would use cinnamon.
@@richardalvarez2390 Fortunately, one can choose the desktop environment they like the most 😊
I find it strangely cozy
Best advice ever “Just wait”
KDE's account management is horrendous, so much so, I tried to shoehorn gnome's setup into my KDE environment ... yea that didn't end well.
Gnome on the other hand, god that's so amazing! Login there once, and it's there everywhere. Contacts, email, file shares, and most importantly, calendar events in the calendar! HOW does KDE not have that! Kmail setup was painful ....
I hope that's fixed, else I'm torn b/w gnome and KDE
Finally Gnome gets some love too! Everywhere I go I see people praising KDE while taking the good stuff Gnome does for granted.
Agreed, I also see this as well, plus I also see a lot of hate towards Gnome with people calling it things like directionless, dumbed down, and that you're forced to use it one way, and one way only, when on Manjaro I get 4 different layout choices(I go with traditional layout) of which I can then further customize fairly easy, and the only ther DE that gets close to Gnome for me is Budgie, which is currently based on Gnome.
For food reason gnome is lame and ghey
@@CommodoreFan64 Manjaro installs many Gnome extensions.
@@unnainconnu9098 True, but it works really well for my needs.
I just enjoy using GNOME so much. I am generally considered a tinkerer, at least relative to the rest of my friends group, but I just cannot switch to KDE no matter how much I try. Not just KDE, I can't switch to anything else.
well enjoy constantly breaking extensions and having little customization theme wise besides dark with blue highlights and light with blue highlights.
@@themadoneplays7842Most of the time extensions just need to update their version number which doesn't take long at all.
@@themadoneplays7842 while extensions on GNOME aren't always perfect, the ones I use 100% are. I use 5-6 extensions and none of them have ever broken on me.
And yeah the customisation options are a little limited but if I did want, I could directly edit the gtk-4 config files to change themes. If you know what you're doing, GNOME is pretty much as customizable as KDE.
The important part for me though is that I don't feel the need to customize my GNOME setup too much because, well, hot take but Adwaita Dark is a much better theme than KDE's Breeze Dark. So I almost need to make big changes to KDE to set it to my liking whereas I really don't on GNOME. That's the difference.
I am a KDE fan, but I like gnome of it's transparency and smoothness, also better touch screen and gesture support. But I do really miss the integration of Google drive on KDE.
Plasma 6 really improves everything on wayland. Its soo smooth and touch is just amazing 😍
"smoothness"? KDE is way smoother and lighter than GNOME on all PCs I've tested. No contest.
@@smishyt by smoothness, I mean the smoothness of workflow, especially on laptop, KDE is one step backward in this case.
@@AndRei-yc3tibut still returns its 90's like aesthetics
@@ArefinKarimI agree! I installed Fedora/Gnome on my laptop and it just seems like it's the right DE for it. But I use Cinnamon on PC 😅
I’ve been using GNOME for a long time now and I really like it. I am also tempted by Plasma 6 since it appears to be resolving a number of issues I had with Plasma 5.
But I am in no rush. My current GNOME setup works great and if Plasma 6 ends up being better I’ll use that. If not I’ll stick where I am at.
Great comparison! Personally, I use Gnome on my laptop for work and KDE on my desktop for gaming and leisure. Gnome's workflow with a touchpad is simply unparalleled. I'd argue it's better than Mac.
Gnome has not given me problems while gaming. At least not yet.
Gnome causes issues on my laptop whenever I watch a video, random color tearing.
Youre not a proper gamer then
@@z0rden_ I've played everything from small pixelated indie to projects to AAA story games and currently playing The Finals. No issues yet.
Problems? Not really.
You are still not really at a disadvantage but side by side, Plasma is just a tad smoother (Only looking at Wayland btw)
@@Arxari gnome sucks on details uses more ram more input delay and devs dont care gaming that much(kde is funded by valve thats why kde needs to work on it too) hdr is also a good pro for kde
I tried several times to switch to GNOME. I couldn't. I find it easier to switch to LXDE or XFCE. GNOME looks great, but the weird internal logic is annoying. Therefore, I stay on KDE with simple and clear internal logic and ample customization options.
i use Gnome with(fedora 39) because it seems way more faster in terms of animation and other daily tasks as compared to KDE.
If you like the workflow, then definitely. Back on Plasma, it took a couple of hours to get a similar workflow whereas I didn't misclick something all the time
Gnome is just beautiful IMO and efficient. And it even feels more modern than macOS. Surely it's not perfect, but I really enjoy using it over all other DEs.
I only wish, my preferred Debian 12 has a newer version.... Gnome46 could be the reason to have a look at Fedora. But I really love my stable system.
Don't know man. Gnome just feels right.
I am absolutely in love with gnome on fedora. Switched to it from windows and oh boy is it amazing. With a few gnome extensions i made the environment that works the best for me and i cannot be happier with it. KDE was always weird to me because it looked more like windows from the start which to me was weird.
I did hop around different DEs, including KDE, GNOME, Xfce, Cinnamon. And while all of them are good, I personally think GNOME suits my needs the best.
The first time I tried Linux I moved from Windows 7 and tried KDE, but went back to Windows, but when I gave it another try several years later, I tried it with Gnome and I stayed on Linux ever since. Part of my issue with KDE was that I was effectively just looking for a Windows clone and when ANYTHING didn't behave as I expected it to on Windows it lost my interest, where as when I switched to Linux with Gnome, Gnome was different enough that I was expecting things to be very different throughout and more willing to change my habits so it was the fact that it was different and yet simple to get to grips with that Gnome was able to win me over and made me stay on Linux. Now I get frustrated when I use work computers based on Mac or Windows because they always feel like they're missing important productivity features that I got used to in Gnome.
You can install gnome keyring on plasma and it fixes the minecraft issue. But you may as well just use a better launcher like prism.
Yeah, but setting up the keyring to be unlocked automatically and be used as the default is a hassle for most.
I would personally automate it or use a different launcher as you said
this video planted the seed for me to try out gnome, and i actually like it overall. the lack of a taskbar actually encouraged me to use the workspaces, which i find to be a lot more useful overall. i don't have that many extensions installed either.
it's 45 since my distro of choice hasn't updated their repositories for the two new DEs, but i actually want to stick with gnome now.
Do a video on Linux Gaming, graphics and which games are suited for Linux
Can't help but stick to Gnome, despite trying KDE many times. I do love the open customization and global themes, but there is a lack of consistency between the UI elements in different apps and it's just hard to use, because its edit menus are very unintuitive. "set flexible size" for example moves everything in the taskbar for no reason and the sizes snap to different scales at random intervals. "edit mode" has two separate windows that both handle different UI aspects but are both overlapping in many functions. For example, right clicking on "add widgets" brings up an extra menu that also says "add widgets" so there's 3 separate buttons labeled identically with no clear communication as to what they each do. I also see "plasma crashed" every time I try to adjust things to my liking and there's zero information telling me what went wrong or how to avoid it next time... So in the end, I personally don't value KDE's customization at all because it's just so impractical, unstable, and opaque in design language. Gnome might not be as tweakable as I'd like, but it's so reliable and has enough variation that I am mostly happy sticking to it...
KDE Plasma requires some time investment, but you can actually bend it whatever way you want. I am also lucky that my go-to Linux distro, i.e. OpenSUSE, comes with KDE Plasma by default.
I was the same not so long ago, love Gnome and how it feels more polished in some ways than KDE. But overall I enjoy KDE much more the more I use it. After I found it's quirks, just as I did with Gnome, and how to make it perfect for my workflow, and usually KDE fits better to my workflow out of the box than Gnome. I like the mix of windows and linux ways of doing things, and Plasma 6 is very good at doing that even without extensions, the animations are smooth and feel polished, the settings are much more improved, and I prefer the Plasma 6 settings over Gnome settings. Tho Plasma 5 settings are worse than Gnome settings. Tho generally, I feel like plasma 6 is going to change the way people look at KDE. It's new version made a big boom this past week, and lot more people are gonna at least try it, even those that say they're never gonna use it.
I use to be a big fan of KDE way back in the KDE 2 days in the very early 00's, but yeah these days just give me Gnome in traditional desktop layout, as it just feels so much more comfortable to use.
KDE plasma 6 is nothing like that antiquated version you used in the 00s
@@richardalvarez2390 Thanks for stating the very obvious, & wasting my time, because as I already pointed out in my OG comment, it's the reason I don't use it now, & instead use Gnome with the traditional layout settings. 🤦♂
I currently have KDE Plasma 6, GNOME 45, and Hyprland all installed and switching back and forth between them - however what I'm *really* looking forward to is COSMIC!
KDE UI is just a mess. Very uncomfortable to use, once you got used the clean and mostly well-thought design of GNOME. KDE might be more modern and rich in terms of features and technical capabilities. But the feel is not the same. Feels more like a large sandbox than a well rounded desktop environment.
Opposite. Also GNOME UI is a touchscreen tablet/smartphone UI which is unsuitable and impractical for desktop computer usage.
@folksurvival KDE is a huge mess of settings and unclean ui compared with GNOME. The core design language of KDE is awful. It's just a fact tbh. What exactly makes GNOME a smartphone ui?
@@ProMaster_4Big round buttons everywhere. Seriously, I’m not opposed to having a well thought out design language (and KDE is very much lacking in that regard), but gnome focuses too much on simplicity making their layouts feel like 90% whitespace when working on a modern desktop display.
KDE is great in terms of technical implementation and the UI design isn’t bad either, but the entire UX is just horribly inconsistent. I really hope they’ll manage to address this in upcoming releases, plasma 6 seems to be a step into the right direction
@@Mooooov0815 Fair. Honestly the only thing that is oversized in gnome for me is the app view, but 🤷♂️ everything else I feel is very well thought out.
I would much rather have consistency and a clean and simple ui over janky customization potential, and so would most average users I suspect.
@@folksurvivalI am sorry, but are you trolling? Touch support is not even nearly there, yet. It is based on desktop usage.
Gnome is beautiful and very modern. It's a different way to use a computer, but once you learn it other systems feel kind of ancient. Vanilla Gnome with custom keyboard shortcuts is great by itself, but people are too invested into old systems like Windows and are unable to learn something new.
Current GNOME UI is a touchscreen tablet UI which is not suitable for desktop computer use.
That's not really true.
It's the scaling that throws most of.
Gnome is well usable with exclusive mouse or keyboard navigation
I used Gnome 2 for years but eventually ditched Gnome 3 because it felt like using a budget tablet. Last year I decided to give the latest Gnome a second chance and it has improved a lot. Its worth taking the time to learn the customization options. It has become pretty decent out of the box.
Gnome 3 was also not my taste, and it did run worse in terms of performance yeah
100% agree with every point made in the video..
I was recently forced to switch from Gnome to KDE because of some nvidia driver shenanigans (window decorations in gnome were borked due to some bug in the nvidia driver, and I couldn't find out what caused it. I only know now because of the nvidia driver changelog).
At first I stayed with Gnome and just switched from X11 to Wayland which fixed the decoration issues, but it came with a new issue: Gnome-Shell kept hard-crashing every few hours for no discernible reason... so off to KDE I went and hit all of the same annoyances as you with the Overview and my gnome-centric workflow.
I think I'm in a pretty decent state with KDE6 right now, tho. I managed to configure it enough like Gnome so that it's comfortable to use and gaming really is infinitely better on KDE. I mean gaming on Gnome Wayland was fine too, it's only Gnome-X11 that is really really awful with gaming with all the micro- and macrostutters, but on KDE it's almost perfect now. Still not perfect because gaming on wayland currently leads to very freaky game behavior if the framerate is below the monitor refresh rate, but if it's at or above the refresh rate all is good.
I have been having this same exact issue since I upgraded from Zoris OS 16.3 to 17 and upgraded my GTX 1660 to an RTX 3050. I have been racking my brains trying to figure out what the issue was. I upgraded Nvidia driver to 550 and have been getting 2 to 3 times a day Gnome Shell crashes which require a reboot. Going to KDE fixed this for you???
@@adamthornbrugh6161 yeah, only a single crash in kde so far and that was a crash to desktop, so recoverable.
Be mindful of the annoyances that come with kde, tho. Unlike Gnome kde seems to have never heard what systemd is and relies on some super old school autostart garbage entwined with dbus
I I've had a hard time on Gnome while gaming and I thought it was because of using Nvidia, I would get a stutter that I still don't have in KDE.
The AMD vs NVIDIA argument doesn't stand as much as it used to.
Nowadays its mostly a Desktop Environment thing which is both good and bad
@@MichaelNROH Maybe not for most things, but for gaming it makes a difference on Gnome. the way mutter is architected just doesn't jive with how nivida does syncing (with nvidia not implementing implicit sync (which I think is fair enough, explicit sync makes more sense) but gnome also is gnome so they don't even try to work with people working on explicit sync support)
Every time I try to use KDE (including plasma 6 nowadays) in the end I always return to GNOME. Yup, it doesn't have the latest and greatest bells and whistles, but to me GNOME feels just right. However It would be cool to have HDR support, for instance. I guess you can't have everything you want, right?
I have tried gnome many times and I can't stand how lame, and ugly the whole de is
@@richardalvarez2390Somebody said before that the beauty is in the eye of the beholder. To each their own. That's the beauty of Open Source, you use what you want.
Man, I love Linux. We can just look and pick whatever we like. And whenever a desktop environment gets a nice feature that enhances user experience directly, it makes me happy. Since devs usually work together, those new features make their way to other DE"s. Everybody wins.
I like KDE a lot and to this day it is my "backup desktop" from GNOME but to me, when you get used to GNOME is hard to make the switch due how unique and productive it feels compared to any other DE imo
yeah and its so consistent and simple and good looking
I just bought a ThinkPad t480s it has 12 gigs of RAM and 128 gigs of storage but it works nicely for what I need and I just use it casually just to watch some videos the battery life is still pretty good the bad thing is the charging port I probably have to resolder
01:56 - "can't launch an application twice... You need to launch an app, then the overview, then drag-n-drop it..."
You can just switch to the required desktop and launch an app with middle click on the panel task-bar/task-manager item.
Also on both Plasma 5 and Plasma 6, when searching on the overview, search filters opened app windows only from the current desktop. If there's no such app there - search gives me result with its launcher. So, again, open the overview switch to the required desktop (with keyboard shortcut, alternatively with click on Plasma 6), search for an application, launch it...
Biggest workflow improvement in Gnome is to learn the Gnome shortcuts. The workflow is simply amazing especially with a browser. Opening a new app, then moving it to a new space all throught he keyboard shortcuts is brilliant.
Gnome feels solid and thought-out. KDE more like a toolbox. If only there wouldn´t be the gaming things and the freezes I do also encounter quite often sadly. I need to do my system all over again but thinking of setting everything up to my likings makes me trying to avoid it since weeks now...
Oh and reading for new stuff about Gnome and KDE in upcoming versions doesn´t make it easier to do what I need to ^^
KDE, for me on Arch
If gnome made a way to have auto tiling that works as well and as smooth as a WM, I would totally use gnome. It's just after being on hyprland, it's hard to use floating windows again.
Also, yes I have tried the extensions and it's just not there and doesn't work the same.
Yeah, some sort of tiling would be nice. They don't even support quad splitting windows at the moment
i was a big fan of KDE ,but when i learned Gnome i knew that's it ,this is my desktop and not gonna change it now i'm using OpenSuse gnome desktop and there is nothing to complain
I tried gnome many times. It's lame and ghey
Same. I switches from Gnome (with Ubuntu), to Manjaro with KDE and now to EndeavourOS with KDE. Finally KDE6 Released i love it. The Problem with the Search you mentioned i do not have. Can multiple Launch opened programs and even start on new Virtual Desktop and use the same programs in it.
May im just a Desktop KDE and Notebook Gnome User :D
This was a very meaningful and detailed look at the current differences between the two desktop environments. Extensions shouldn’t break like they did during the GNOME 44-45 transition. G46 on Fedora 40 should be quite good. But the comparison between G47 and Plasma 6.1 on Fedora 41 in about 8 months is going to be very interesting. There is a lot of convergent evolution and Wayland bug fixing happening.
I'm waiting for the HDR support on Gnome.
I feel bit sad about that empty special thanks, lol.
But nice both are improving so in the end it might not matter what you use, lol.
Interesting. I'm kind of in the same boat as you. I'm primarily a Gnome user, but I don't have any issues with the games I play for lack of VRR. I even switched to KDE for a bit just to test a few games and felt no difference. I still prefer the overall aesthetic of gnome, but KDE feels more appropriate for a desktop. My laptop on the other hand is staying gnome, touchpad gestures and such, just work too good. I'm really curious to see the wayland integration on KDE in 6.0
VVR will come in Gnome 46
I'm curious about the stuttering of games in Gnome. I haven't seen it. I wonder why Gnome would have that issue while KDE doesn't. Seems like something that would be impacted at a lower level.
Yeah, I've definitely seen that in Cinnamon, but not in Gnome. KDE was too prone to crashing when I last tried it to evaluate performance in games.
probably because of missing variable refresh rate. i once played dark souls 2 on fedora gnome which is a game running capped on 60fps, but on a 100hz monitor. this way, the game felt stuttery and laggy. Once i set my monitor on 60hz instead of 100hz, this changed and the game was buttery smooth.
It's not noticable unless you have a benchmark and know what to look out for.
The higher the refresh rate the more you can notice it, but only when you know what to look for.
It doesn't stutter as in lags, but its definitely not as smooth as it could be either.
@@MichaelNROH imo it's ***very*** noticeable, games just look as if they were running at half the frame rate that they are, and I notice that despite using a 240hz monitor
I like gnome, it has good extentions and good alternatives to some programs.
Until said extensions break with every iteration. There been so many great ones abandoned because the gnome devs keep on changing crap every 10 seconds.
This is an issue for sure, though as long as they work it's kinda neat.
KDE Plasma is great because they care about customization, but for the end user it doesn't matter all that much since its searching on both
@@themadoneplays7842All my extensions get updated within a month with the majority within a few days so I just wait a bit to update gnome versions. It's really not too big of a deal as people like to make out.
@@themadoneplays7842 Because GNOME is supposed to be used vanilla. That's the whole point, simplicity and consistency.
@@ProMaster_4Yes but vanilla gnome sucks. Its an iphone clone stuck on a desktop UI. You cant tweak it unless you install 900 extentions that will break next version.
Oh yeah, I just went back too. I gave up VRR but honestly gaming is more stable in general and my workflow to do everything is better too, so yeah. I tried :P
Basically, you get used for GNOME ways, so it's more efficient for you. Nothing bad here. For me it quite opposite, I get used to KDE Plasma, e.g. I prefer KWallet and don't need keyring. I like 3×3 grid virtual desktops and don't like dynamic ones, prefer keyboard navigation through them, and launch new apps with KRunner not from overview. Also prefer KDE looks.
Nirtrux's Maui Environment is what I'm interested in... I just don't know how to get it on Manjaro & Pop OS
2:00 You are using the launcher to *activate* a window, not to launch the app. You can do both. Also you can just go into the desktop and open the app. That's far more efficient than opening it and then dragging it around. Also shortcuts do exists to send it to a desktop.
1:27 Me running my apps using rofi
Great Video! Can't wait for you "final decision"
I was so hyped for Plasma 6, but I'm using GNOME for the past couple days and I really like it!
And tbh... I don't notice much differnce in Gaming, but VRR & HDR would be aweseome!
I never had any glitches or bugs in GNOME. And everything looks unified. I'm also using a lot of Flatpaks and I always hated Flatpaks on KDE Plasma, but in GNOME they look beautiful and match the whole system design.
I also try to use GNOME more the GNOME way, I see a lot of ppl using sooo many addons and then I'm like: "You should probably use KDE Plasma instead" I just use these: Blur my shell, Tray and Vitals. And they never broke on me, probably because they are so popular. Ah and I use something that displays my battery for my Ps5 Controllers.
Once I got a steam deck I married KDE on my desktop because with Valve’s backing I think it’ll evolve very quickly and I prefer having the same DE on all my machines.
Yeah, I usually also like having the same DE on all my devices. If I get a new one with Linux pre-installed, I just use that one whatever it might be
To me GNOME died with GNOME 3. I don't need this "modern" feel. I need classic desktop. That's why I use Xfce and sometimes MATE.
I remember how many issues I had with GNOME 3 I never had with Xfce or GNOME 2 (or MATE).
Same goes for KDE Plasma, by the way. To me it's either KDE 3 (TDE) or nothing. KDE died with Plasma.
Yes, I am a GNU/Linux user from 2000s, I've tried everything and I can feel the difference in usability.
I've went the opposite direction. Gnome user for years. Fell in love with KDE. Its far superior for a 32:9 monitor with native support for building your own drag and drop areas for window resizing without using stupid stupid tiling. That feature alone will keep me here. VRR and HDR support are bonuses, gaming is better, and Dolphin is WAY better.
32:9 is a bit extreme for most, but yeah KDE Plasma should handle this use case better
gnome makes more sense to me. the only thing it lacks is native auto-tiling support which is why I'm looking forward to system76's cosmic desktop which I think borrows some design decisions from gnome.
Gnome has a feel to it, I can't say what. It's like whisky versus whiskey...
I used KDE for the last months, too. I used GNOME for years before. Now I am currently on GNOME 46 but also have plasma 6 installed (tumbleweed ftw). And in some games like Overwatch, GNOME just gives me more stable FPS at my monitor refresh rate of 240, I lock FPS at 236 and on KDE the game drops down to 200 fps sometimes while on GNOME it stays at stable 236, so basically at the FPS lock all the time. I dont know why this is the case tho. In World of Warcraft I have also the feeling that GNOME feels like it has way lesser input lag compared to KDE plasma 6.
Yes, KDE is cool and the devs seem to get stuff done faster, especially new implementations. But why does GNOME run better? Oh yeah, the workflow is just better on GNOME compared to KDE, in GNOME its like NOTHING gets in the way ever, it just works. Cant say that about KDE, there is always something that just doesn't feel good or annoying. Like not being able to switch workplaces with mouse wheel and windows key. Why?!
I don't care about VRR, there is no use for it for the things I do and play.
hot take but i really dont see the appeal of KDE, if i wanted customisability i would build it from the ground up, if i wanted ease i would go with GNOME. KDE is just customisable enough to not be able to look that good and not satisfy my desires. it doesnt even have a good dock for crying out loud. i spent the same amount of time messing with KDE making it look decent that i did setting up hyprland, making it look and function exactly as i wanted
Preferences and personal needs. Not everyone likes the same things, which is good since it builds different experiences
For multi-tasking on GNOME, I can feel comfortable only when using keyboard shortcuts for app/window switching (e.g., Alt+Tab, Meta+Tab, Meta+number). I can't deny that keyboard shortcuts help user to be more effective but on KDE Plasma mouse usage is generally way easier, in my opinion.
@Michael Horn, really liking your desktop wallpaper u have at the monitor behind you, mind sharing the image?
To each his own but I prefer GNOME by a long shot. I liked plasma 6 in testing - it’s excellent work but found I was longing for GNOME. Using GNOME 45 now on Ubuntu 23.10. One last thing I will say, I ran Cinnamon for a few months and it seemed more stable, but just didn’t have the silkyness that GNOME has. So it’s still GNOME for me.
I feel the same about Cinnamon
In Gnome, paperwm is a serious workflow game changer!!!! I LOVE it and will never leave Gnome...ever!!!!
I was using a very customized plasma, after updating to plasma 6 everything broke, most widgets don't work anymore. So I switched back to gnome.
I only use Linux for games, so I’ll give gnome a try again when they get proper VRR support
I wish I could get into Gnome. It looks cool, is consistent, and has a lot of the things I like from macOS, but I end up on KDE or Cinnamon. I need to just force myself to try it in earnest at some point.
Preferences are different. Some may never like Gnome, even if it had some objective advantages
Gnome +1 until Cosmic DE is fleshed out.
I like Gnome because it is simple. I really don't want to customize my desktop since I spend most of my time with the applications that I use. The only thing that I change from the default is the natural scrolling and add the minimize and maximize to the window which I don't even use.
with the gnome keyrings with minecraft launcher, solution to my problem was to literarily just download the package, thats it worked and solved the issue of relogging in each time
I have similar feelings. I switched to gnome when I discovered a bug in KDE with selecting and moving multiple files (September 2023?). Gnome lacks a few things, like settings :D (I would use gwenview even on Windows if I could), but it also offers some of its own features. The closer I get to the new fedora, the more I don't want to go back to KDE. But it's a bit tempting, although I have no problems with Gnome (I don't use VRR, but I use samba, nautilus save thumbnail cache for external drive, most programs support the Gnome file picker by default (or exclusively), etc.). Even the lack of a program bar doesn't bother me. I'm still going to check KDE on an additional laptop, but I don't see anything in KDE that would definitely make me switch again.
Note, that Plasma 6 is still fresh. It's working OK, but it has certainly many bugs, so it will be in better shape since 6.0.4 or higher.
The biggest problem with gnome is scaling, i use 125% on 1440p screen on windows, on gnome it looks too big (and also x11 apps are blurry) i also find the fonts and stuff low quality compared to kde or windows (maybe because everything is smaller), and gnome on my second 1080p monitor everything looks too big. Kde scaling is now perfect thanks to kde 6, tested it, pretty much equivalent to windows, x11 apps arent blurry because they scale themselves
I have gnome on my xps 4k laptop, it’s stellar, everything looks incredibly good,
I think i will just buy a 4k monitor and don’t use my gaming rig monitors for work (i really wanted to do both like my current setup but it’s not good because of gnome)
I think you should try increasing the font size instead of the whole shell. Scaling might change in Gnome soon as well probably
@@MichaelNROH I can’t modify font size depending on the monitor i use, i want to keep everything the same on my laptop, and when i use my desktop monitors, i want different scaling for every display, like i said, the best solution is to buy a 4k screen and use the laptop screen as a smaller secondary one
I've been using Gnome for the longest time. KDE is "customizable", but not in an intuitive way compared to Cinnamon or using Gnome's really well made community extensions like dash to panel.
That being said, I'm excited about Cosmic DE to actually start building add-ons in Rust which I'm much more familiar with.
KDE 6's new panel customization is much better with simple selections in the edit mode with visuals for each setting
After doing a lot of distro hopping for a few months, Ubuntu with Gnome is the linux I like the most, because of its simplicity.
I use Gnome and Gnome very effcient, quick, stable and you can be very productive. I only with that gtk4 was more consistent amongst apps, that is something that need to be worked on.
Honestly, still rocking Hyprland. After getting setup, I could never go back to floating windows.
I'm still on gnome too bro, an not the latest version either.
saying that, I also have a pair of windows machines I use for gaming, and a mac mini I use for .... ,.. well,. nothing.
The gnome workflow is also the reason for me why i not switched to kde yet. Even if I think that kde is more feature complete. In my opinion the kde devs should add a page with all installed apps to the overview effect like when you press Meta twice in Gnome.
I also find its not perfect that the panel is not displayed in the overview effect.
From a new user perspective the kde online account setup is a mess compared to gnome. On gnome i enter my credentials and i have access to my files and to my calendar on nextcloud. On kde the online account page in the system settings do nothing in my experience. I first had to look on the Internet to find out how to get access to my nextcloud. Then I had to install packages (in kde neon) to get access to dolphin. The calendar app was not pre-installed (on kde neon) after the installation the access has to be set up again. The display of appointments in the calendar applet in the panel also has to be configured separately.That is pity because I think KDE is very good in principle. But the developers should revise the user experience for new users (and copy Ubuntu or Mint). My kde. Perhaps kde also lacks a distribution like Mint which has a very strong focus on a easy to use experience.
It needs a lot more polishing yes. KDE Plasma has become so modular that there is seemingly not much time to streamline the experience
@@MichaelNROH Yes, I think you're right. But hopefully, now that the Plasma 6 release is successfully done, the developers will have some free resources available for it
Im using gnome cuz it's been already beautiful and efficient out of the box. Just need a little tweak to be perfect. I tried KDE 6, customized it for an hour. But meh, still buggy and too much things to do to be liked by me .
Tbh, KDE Plasma 6 is not really out yet on distros that are considered stable. Neon seems like a mess at the moment
Gnome would be hands down my choice if they could fix touchpad scrolling on hi dpi laptops. KDE has managed this and has improved desktop switching via gestures. I find myself alternating between the two.
I am using Tuxedo OS and happy with it. Since they are up to date (like rolling releases) on the DE side while the system stable enough. On the other hands, I am using flatpak for my apps, almost all my apps. Kio gdrive not working on Dolphin flatpak. And the other software is the fwupd, I didn't install this because it is not a GUI app.
After trying hyprland normal desktop enviroments became weird to me, also i use arch btw
Been using KDE / Plasma desktop since 2005, but my wife prefers the limited customizability (less choice paralysis) of GNOME
GNOME is great! It's nice seeing it get love.
KDE Plasma is good, but in my case, GNOME is unforgettable. I stick with GNOME because it. I wish GNOME get more integration improvement for Qt apps. GNOME quiet bad with Qt apps
gnome input lag feels so much better I never understood how people are not noticing :)
TBH I am driving GNOME because it can be easily configured with Homemanager in NixOS :D
GNOME is Home and KDE is that weird neighbor, welcomed to borrow what works
Which is not a bad thing. Learn from another, implement it in their own philosophy
With kde 6 release in kde neon they have critical bugs(it's stable/user release) and they selling laptops with that system
With KDE Neon? I don't think its considered a stable distro at all
@@MichaelNROH kde neon has many editions(user/unstable/testing)
user must be stable
That's neon fault not Plasma!
For me, KDE has been nothing but a buggy mess. Context menus going transparent when using fractional scaling, styling not persisting randomly after a few restarts, random plasma crashes, unable to turn of my machine trough UI commands, not being able to define my main screen through the settings menu, icons disappearing and much more. VRR, which is the main reason why I decided to give KDE a try, didnt even function as expected, in some cases it would randomly max out the refresh rate of my monitor, even though the game stayed at a consistent lower res. This combined with the inferior dynamic desktop and in general UI, made KDE a big no for me. I have an easier time configuring sway through a configuration file, than traversing the wizard jungle that is KDE settings panel.
The question of do I use Gnome or do I use KDE has been bothering me since 1998...
It is goof that we have Gnome, but KDE has been and is my primary choice.
Gnome also won't open new windows by default... also you demonstrated that with the file manager which has a dedicated key combo just like on Windows.
I hate gnome. Have since 3.0. it has gotten better but not enough to make me not hate it.
It's free software, you don't pay a single cent/dinar/riyal - there is nothing to hate. It's also unhealthy to hate
@@geekoacolyte lol, it's unhealthy to hate people. Not software.
Personally I am waiting for COSMIC. Right now I use GNOME with pop cosmic extensions, but they haven't updated it in a while so it's still GNOME 42.