Hi there, random question, I'm going to do a dual boot as I want to use ROCm, PyTorch et al with an AMD card and to install of the Stable Diffusion variants, just wondering if there is any particular Distro that is better suited to AI without being to ''mad scientist' in is particulars? Thanks buddy! ;D
I am a KDE dev and I think GNOME devs have done really well with their desktop environment. I just ended up with KDE plasma because I like the philosophy behind it, and contributing to KDE software was very easy to get into. Neither is better than the other, it's more like choosing between vanilla and chocolate cake. And I like both! I don't think it's a competition, we're just both doing our own thing.
As a sysadmin, I've used Linux at work for years, but not really at home. Windows 11's recent moves pushed me to look for a Linux gaming distro, and I quickly settled on Bazzite with KDE for my two HTPCs. I'm only a few weeks in, but it's been great so far. :) I did not even consider Gnome as they are hopping on the DEI bandwagon and that has become fatiguing for me.
I am using ubuntu with gnome but I like KDE plasma's beauty. I would love to learn and contribute to this project. Can you guide me how can I help maintain this project. Thanks for making KDE a beautiful reality. I think as long as the competition is fierce both the developments will prosper. Both distros should learn and copy useful things from each other but maintaining their originality.
One question, because, even though I like KDE and the philosophy, etc, can I ask if there is a plan to centralize a bit the config files and gather them under a specific directory? I, really, HATE that the .config folder becomes a cluttering mess with "rc" files when I install, even the basic plasma desktop. Very few folders, and mostly text files randomly lying around. In this regard, GNOME has done a very good job. I get it, some of these are not under the KDE project at all, but, for those which are, please, do something. Why did these change from KDE 3 and 4?
for me it's something like this: UI design - GNOME Compatibilty/Usability - KDE Staying out of my way - Xfce (thank you for your existance, you saved my chromebook)
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.
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
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 use the Fedora KDE spin, and have to say that the devs have been doing an amazing job this year. KDE 6 now is nearly perfect, even on my desktop with an Nvidia card, on Wayland.
@@シミズルリthat is interesting. It's always been the opposite for me. It's always the best experience for me on Fedora. Maybe the hardware configuration is at play?
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.
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 started to work with computers in 1979. Since then I have worked (professionally) with a myriad of different operating systems and user interfaces. During the last 20 years I have worked on Linux primarily with Gnome and KDE. At the end I always reached my goals irrelevant of the desktop. But as someone who spends 12 hours per day on a PC/laptop KDE is clearly my favorite and winner in nearly every aspect - and it is getting better and better - especially for pros. Gnome apps are working fine when integrated in KDE. No complaints. As a challenging user I can't complain about bugs in the KDE apps or a lack of stability. Decisive for me is my productivity - and here Gnome can absolutely NOT compete with KDE (considering my workflows).
I started to work with computers in March 1969 :) Since then I have worked on OS design and Air Traffic Control systems. I designed an OS for Air Traffic Control. After retirement 1-1-11 I spend (as hobby) 12 hours per day behind my PC with Gnome; KDE and XFCE. I worked on ATC with the most critical customers in the world. Agreeing with my old customers, my main requirement is about reliability. That is the reason that I dumped KDE this year, I now concentrate on Gnome and XFCE. I keep an eye on Budgie and Unity and probably I will do the same for KDE again next year.
I use 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
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.
@@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
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.
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 THINK IM FIRST, HI, BIG FAN AND YOU HELPED ME SWITCH TO LINUX, and i just realized I had caps lock on, I'm not retyping that. Anyways, thank you. You are awesome. Edit: wasn't first
I 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.
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'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'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: ruclips.net/video/SO6xx-KF3qs/видео.htmlsi=54iTQ8KsRhHhQIbT .
i am using Thunar under Mint Cinnamon because it has an undo-redo button. I was very used to these buttons in my file explorer in windows, spent hours trying to find it in Nemo, gave up and installed Thunar. It however needed a couple of things to do before i could use it such as creating 'custom actions' to be able to open as root, open the terminal from a location, create symlinks or hardlinks,... but once everything was set this is for me the only file explorer that i want
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.
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.
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.)
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. :)
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."
I can honestly say I love both. For work, I generally prefer Gnome, but have changed to KDE due to better fractional scaling in Wayland. I think it is great to have these two with different perspectives on what makes a good desktop environment.
I 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.
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.
Late to the party but for me - KDE is a must for non-techie users. Three reasons: 1. Familiar Windows 9x legacy workflow by default. Non-techies do not like learning things especially workflows! 2. "System settings. Everything in KDE has a GUI system setting. If a user has a problem I can whatsapp the config setting to change in system settings. Any other DE... I run the risk of the config requiring editing a hidden text file - a non-starter for average users. 3. "Yes." User wants it, KDE has it. When a user asks "Can I do this in Linux?" (it happens!) I can point them to the config in system settings. "Yes." Another other DE, most especially GNOME... not so much. Note that NOT providing a feature found in Mac or Windows can often equal "Well, Linux is no good then! I'm going back to Mac/Windows!" That's enough for most non-techie users in my experience. I dare not risk non-KDE for starters!
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 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 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.
@@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.
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'm a minimalist, and I'm using Gnome as how it is intended to be used. No extensions whatsoever, using Fedora a year now ever since I both my Thinkpad. All works well, even LTE on my laptop works well. I've used the Fedora KDE spin when I started installing Linux but man, the online accounts syncing, the LTE issues, and the wallet manager keeps giving me troubles. Gnome does do the job.
I love the Gnome way of doing things. Its very clean, beautiful and intuitive. The only change I make is to re-enable the minimize/maximize buttons. It also feels more coherent and new features tend to feel more polished on release.
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 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.
Personally, my biggest issue with Gnome is LibAdwaita and its wide adoption. I've experienced the changes from GTK+3, to GTK 4, to LibAdwaita over the years, and I hate it. Ignoring my dislike for Adwaita's looks, the apps simply don't fit any desktop except for Gnome. On KDE, Cinnamon, XFCE, etc' all LibAdwaita apps with their CSD simply destroy any cohesion. The worst part is when I use a TWM on my laptop - CSD is useless and takes from the already limited screen space that I have. At this point, I uninstall every LibAdwaita app (except for Flatseal) as a form of protest. Far too many devs explicitly support only Gnome.
100% agree. Using GNOME applications on a non-GNOME desktop just sucks. It's kind of sad how one-sided GNOME is. I love Adwaita as a theme (as long as I can change the colour), but LibAdwaita really only works if you use GNOME.
@@TheLinuxEXP the issue is when you're not a Gnome user. I would love to use some of those apps, but their CSD just ruins it. Kirigami / Qt doesn't have this issue because they support server-side decorations. I won't start using only Adwaita theme / LibAdwaita apps, because they're quite unpleasant to my eyes and the widgets are far too large.
Not to mention one of the few ways of theming Libadwaita apps, Gradience, is currently unmaintained and not fully working. Heck, if GNOME wasn't so hellbent against server side decoration, maybe more users would use it!
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
Sorry Nick, I tried the KDE plasma over the cinnamon desktop which I use daily. to see if I can move to a pure debian+KDE environment (just seems it should present as a more uniform environment, which is supposed to simplify also privacy and security). What I experienced, was a pretty much similar experience as far as the UI goes, and therefore user experience, but It takes more resources, and is less stable than the Cinnamon (I discovered it here and there and it was not a REAL concern, but for a daily driver, I want as less hassle as possible). Please let me know what are your thoughts on the subject.
I love how customizable KDE is but with GNOME I feel at home. Anyhow, love both of them and I have KDE/Plasma 6.1 running on a second laptop at home using Fedora Kinoite while using Fedora Workstation 40 as my daily driver (my work's laptop).
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
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.
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
Tbh, I came from Windows and hated KDE for being so overloaded in the settings. I switched to Gnome and directly felt home. My mother and two of my browsers used Gnome and had a nice experience immediately.
🤔I 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).
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}
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....
My DE adventure started with GNOME. I loved the overall feel and style of it. I spent a day tweaking it and adding themes. What I eventually discovered is that, yeah, GNOME is technically customizable BUT I generally suggest to avoid doing so (at least with theming) as GNOME will sometimes throw a fit. Yes, extensions are available but if you are still extremely limited and it feels like the DE is actively trying to fight you. After using GNOME for a bit, it feels like it was primarily designed for touchscreen/trackpad use. The Quick Settings feel very ChromeOS or Android to be which isnt a bad thing but I didn't much care for it. Once I get a linux laptop, I will for sure use GNOME. I switched to KDE and I dont fully love the way it lays things out but I have the ability to change it. Theming just works (minus the Flatpak theming being annoying to config) and is easy to configure via the GUI. I think the main differences is theming. If you want to have a better time theming, use KDE. If you want to keep the default theme and like the look, use GNOME.
use gnome since its the default on two major desktop distros Fedora and Ubuntu. I refuse using other, since I want to be first class users. I use KDE on tumbleweed or manjaro
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
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.
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.
While we're on topic, why not make klassy a part of KDE, because this theme (I use their for titlebars primarily) is super visible and make buttons very usable. GNOME on other hand never let me make inactive window to have different colour to active oe, which makes sometimes hart to identificate an active window fast(that is a bigger issue than you might think it is).
I used KDE some time but changed to Mate because it was not possible to set up my desktop as I wanted it with KDE. Okular is the best PDF reader with notation possibility. Gwenwiew is good if you want to crop pictures fast.
I've been using kde for most of my time on linux, but I do like to switch it up between gnome and kde every now and then. Sometimes I also like to play around with WM's.
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.
I've been a Gnome/Unity user and I'm really tempted to try KDE on my next install. However, I still have that impression that it kinda look "busy" to me, at least its default look. This also puts into perspective how difficult and long road to create a DE and be on par with these 2 in terms of features. I'm not even a core dev in Lomiri and only do small fixes ans stuffs but I am overwhelmed with how much more work is needed to make it work well and we even have to think about convergence 😄 It's fun though. My dream is to still use Lomiri on my desktop and not just my phones.
Dear Nick I was missing a topic on your video: touchscreen compatibility for dual devices. I feel that gnome is here more advanced than KDE even if it has a touchscreen mode too, but this one enlarges the Icons only. Unfortunately to my dislike KDE lacks here of a coherent touchscreen mode. I use KDE PLASMA because of it's customization possibilities, never mind to use gnome too (which I did for years using Ubuntu then later changed to KDE PLASMA because I wanted to mod my desktop toy needs).
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.
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.
@@BaardFigur Neither was GNOME 3.0. The amount of forks and loss of users like Linus Torvalds himself speaks volume to how bad early GNOME 3 was. You'd think they'd learn after the instability of KDE 4, but nope.
I 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.
First week with Fedora and Windows dual boot on the same SSD on my laptop (ryzen 6 core and rtx 3060). Really hated figuring out how to find out which GPU Fedora was using and how to install proprietary Nvidia drivers (which required signing the packages), but after figuring out, I am glad to be over with. Gaming wise with Proton Hotfix: Tekken 8 works, though: - it sometimes crashed when loading stuff (I assume it's that) - is noticeable that it does not run on a stable locked 60fps, but sometimes dips, which if solved would improve having low input Insurgency Sandstorm: - went from 120-160 fps on Windows 10 to 100-140 fps on Fedora - constant micro stutters that I could tolerate, but endure for a long session as it impacts smoothness and input. I will stick with it for a few months until I give Linux a good try and maybe try out Fedora KDE spin instead of Gnome.
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.
Go to ground.news/TLE to to know where your news is coming from. Subscribe through my link for 40% off unlimited access this month.
Please don't yell, just talk at a normal level, it's hard to listen....🫤
Hi there, random question, I'm going to do a dual boot as I want to use ROCm, PyTorch et al with an AMD card and to install of the Stable Diffusion variants, just wondering if there is any particular Distro that is better suited to AI without being to ''mad scientist' in is particulars? Thanks buddy! ;D
I am a KDE dev and I think GNOME devs have done really well with their desktop environment. I just ended up with KDE plasma because I like the philosophy behind it, and contributing to KDE software was very easy to get into. Neither is better than the other, it's more like choosing between vanilla and chocolate cake. And I like both!
I don't think it's a competition, we're just both doing our own thing.
As a sysadmin, I've used Linux at work for years, but not really at home. Windows 11's recent moves pushed me to look for a Linux gaming distro, and I quickly settled on Bazzite with KDE for my two HTPCs. I'm only a few weeks in, but it's been great so far. :) I did not even consider Gnome as they are hopping on the DEI bandwagon and that has become fatiguing for me.
I am using ubuntu with gnome but I like KDE plasma's beauty. I would love to learn and contribute to this project. Can you guide me how can I help maintain this project. Thanks for making KDE a beautiful reality. I think as long as the competition is fierce both the developments will prosper. Both distros should learn and copy useful things from each other but maintaining their originality.
One question, because, even though I like KDE and the philosophy, etc, can I ask if there is a plan to centralize a bit the config files and gather them under a specific directory?
I, really, HATE that the .config folder becomes a cluttering mess with "rc" files when I install, even the basic plasma desktop. Very few folders, and mostly text files randomly lying around. In this regard, GNOME has done a very good job.
I get it, some of these are not under the KDE project at all, but, for those which are, please, do something. Why did these change from KDE 3 and 4?
@@lev3271oh no, diversity. just keep wailing at the wall man
Thank you for your service!! I love kde so much
for me it's something like this:
UI design - GNOME
Compatibilty/Usability - KDE
Staying out of my way - Xfce (thank you for your existance, you saved my chromebook)
I also start to like LXQt more
they also about finished their transition to Qt6 and are working on Wayland (but experimental)
thank you for this comment, it really simplified it for my tiny brain!
@@kuhluhOG LXQt is nice too :)
I'm a Cinnamon user myself. But yes, XFCE is good too.
Xfce is beautiful
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.
Am stuck with Plasma. Somehow, all others do a lot of things not as I like it, and KDE is the only one that lets me configure it to be less of a nuisance.
Yeah, if you want configurations, Plasma is the only choice!
@@TheLinuxEXP After now way over 20 years of using different desktops, from KDE 3.4/5, GNOME 2.8, Unity, Budgie, Xfce, Awesome, you eventually will end up with just something to tailor to your taste and be done with it, don't you? I think you are in a similar situation? :D
@@TheLinuxEXPI'd argue Gnome extensions give you more config options. Also Cinnamon is pretty great for that too.
@gljames24 GNOME Extensions are a bit of a problem because they break every release, they sometimes have to be updated because of breaking changes to the GNOME Shell, and they aren't really official outside of Classic Mode, which is insane given Ubuntu literally has to enable and usd extensions just to make GNOME usable.
@@gljames24 I had more incompatible and breaking plugins than I can count. That is, more than four, I guess. And cinnamon is best left for the rolls, not as a desktop. Mate is also not so great, at least for my taste. Plasma is not perfect, but good enough to stick with it.
I feel like I'm in the minority but I love GNOME's no bullshit approach to UI. It's just really clean and enjoyable to use. Granted some extensions are a must for me, and I feel like recommending GNOME would be even easier if they made them more easily available.
I can understand liking the simplicity, but that is until I want to do something that the application just won't let me. Not wanting to feel that frustration for me overpowers the "clean design" aspect
@@viridisspielt Gnome for the W bro i first used in kali and now i use it on any distro cuz i think it is superior
I also like Gnome. It's more modern looking. Yes, you can customize KDE but generally it's UI looks dated.
Gnome is great if you want to work. KDE is when you have lots of time to play around and customize things.
Why you must need extensions? at least for me you have a big contradiction. You need more bullshit then.
Basically, its between a Windows-like experience by default that can be made into pretty much anything you want, or a macOS like experience where everything is polished inside the walled garden, but not as good outside.
Exactly!
What walled garden? Gnome is FOSS, there is no walled garden.
@@maxarendorff6521 No server-side window decoration, the attitude from some core GNOME devs may be off putting, like with their vision for GNOME, and the vanilla interface isn't very good for Windows users.
If only they had the same global-menu principle, it would be a valid option, but without it, it feels too limiting and dumbed down for me.
@@cameronbosch1213 Wayland is primarily client-side decoration by default, so all applications that support Wayland must support client-side decoration.
I use the Fedora KDE spin, and have to say that the devs have been doing an amazing job this year. KDE 6 now is nearly perfect, even on my desktop with an Nvidia card, on Wayland.
Oh yeah, Plasma 6 was a fantastic release.c and 6.1 really brought everything together
@@TheLinuxEXP Plasma 6.1 has been so good, I couldn't go back to a distro that didn't have it (cough cough Kubuntu & Steam OS, cough cough).
Keep reporting bugs and we'll keep fixing them
Funny enough, for me personally Fedora KDE always was the worst KDE experience😆
@@シミズルリthat is interesting. It's always been the opposite for me. It's always the best experience for me on Fedora. Maybe the hardware configuration is at play?
I'm a huge fan of KDE, but right now I'm using Cinnamon as a daily driver because Cinnamon's customizable enough while being more polished and stable in my experience.
I've never crashed Plasma. What are you doing wrong?
@@deusexaethera But I did a lot. It appears when you have newer hardware and newer KDE version
@@ismatovsanjarbek I don’t know how new the hardware has to be but I’m using Plasma 6.1(Wayland) on arch with a Ryzen 5 3600 and an RTX 4060ti and everything works great
My problems with KDE bugs is with distinctly old hardware: and it's not crashes, but inexplicable (by me) problems with installation. It feels like there's some kind of personal equation with KDE, and it just doesn't work for some folks (including me).
Same here. I've customised Cinnamon enough that it now looks like KDE, but with Windows 11 icons. I prefer it because it's less bloated.
My only issue with Gnome is them actively going against the standards every other desktop has agreed upon (server-side decoration, accent color naming, svg icons, status icons, etc).
thankfully, it seems like GNOME has adopted the XDG accent color standard, so we can peg one off the list
That, and their reliance on community plugins to make it usable, while breaking those same plugins every new release. Stylistically, there are things I like about gnome. Without plugins however, everything takes more clicks to get done than in any other de I’ve spent time on.
@@pcallycat9043 don't they not support plugins because they go against gnomes philosophy or something?
Just this, Gnome could be more stable, better compatibility, offers to send hookers and blow to my door every other night and I would never use it because every time there is a big blow-up about some integration that is needed, esp. for getting Wayland out the door, you can bet that Gnome is front and center in the drama.
windows icons it's a really huge drama... Gnome developers just ignore another part of the Linux community.
I've tried Gnome couple of times and always went back to KDE. I'm currently really happy with KDE 6.1.2 and TuxedoOS :).
same here🤣, gnome is sh!t
tuxedo supoorts btrfs as default and snapper?
Same, when I first made the jump I distro hopped from Ubuntu (16.04 Unity?) -> Xubuntu (Forgot) -> Kubuntu (18.04?) -> Linux Mint -> Fedora -> KDE Neon -> Kubuntu (20.04) then finally settled on Arch KDE and haven't changed since. I think I liked the familiarity of KDE coming from Windows over the "overly simplistic" way that GNOME operates. Like, I'd rather not have to install extensions for basic functionality like editing the path by typing in the file explorer and - in my opinion - fundamental things like that. I still get frustrated when a program gives me the GNOME style file picker where I have to navigate from the root / to a folder mounted drive 12 direcories deep.
I guess people like the other way but it's also okay to be wrong. /s
I've tried KDE Plasma multiple times and found that while I really like the customization options, there were too many glitches and annoyances. I consistently went back to GNOME. Folks who use Xfce or Mate? I can't even begin to understand that lot...
I started to work with computers in 1979. Since then I have worked (professionally) with a myriad of different operating systems and user interfaces. During the last 20 years I have worked on Linux primarily with Gnome and KDE. At the end I always reached my goals irrelevant of the desktop. But as someone who spends 12 hours per day on a PC/laptop KDE is clearly my favorite and winner in nearly every aspect - and it is getting better and better - especially for pros. Gnome apps are working fine when integrated in KDE. No complaints. As a challenging user I can't complain about bugs in the KDE apps or a lack of stability. Decisive for me is my productivity - and here Gnome can absolutely NOT compete with KDE (considering my workflows).
I started to work with computers in March 1969 :) Since then I have worked on OS design and Air Traffic Control systems. I designed an OS for Air Traffic Control. After retirement 1-1-11 I spend (as hobby) 12 hours per day behind my PC with Gnome; KDE and XFCE. I worked on ATC with the most critical customers in the world. Agreeing with my old customers, my main requirement is about reliability. That is the reason that I dumped KDE this year, I now concentrate on Gnome and XFCE. I keep an eye on Budgie and Unity and probably I will do the same for KDE again next year.
I use 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
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 using both on Arch, via dual-boot, and both are amazing, my personal favourite is KDE Plasma
are you dual booting with grub or systemd? (also dual booting linux distros has its own downsides - work with vms. )
@@KeepMovingForward-24-365 I have two separate drives, so both OSs are sandboxed, and I switch between them using my BIOS, and I use systemd-boot for both of them, not GRUB
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.
When I first wanted to try Linux, I went with the default choice, Ubuntu with GNOME. It felt actively hostile, like it had a secret idea of how a user should interact with the OS and wasn't going to allow anything outside of that to the detriment of the user. I gave up and went back to Windows 7.
This inflexibility is not an insurmountable challenge (and something like it happened again when I moved to a dynamic tiler), but especially as a beginner, one expects an "it just works" system out of the box from the most popular distro without having to learn an entire new workflow
.
And that was BEFORE they took away the maximize button!
Same here!
Same here. Currently running LMcinnamon 21.3 with Win7 styling as good as I could manage.. stability is similar (~7 days between reboots) but sophistication is lower now.. lots of little things that just worked don't and it's always a struggle to get something similar (which means at some point one just accepts what is). Am looking at KDE Plasma, but couldn't find the motivation (again) to switch everything to that.. _no idea where people take time for 'distro hopping' from?_
I THINK IM FIRST, HI, BIG FAN AND YOU HELPED ME SWITCH TO LINUX, and i just realized I had caps lock on, I'm not retyping that. Anyways, thank you. You are awesome.
Edit: wasn't first
I am a happy GNOME user. I have used KDE for quite some time but GNOME just fits my workflow quite a bit better. But I don't see it as a competition. They are two completely different approaches on DEs and I love both of them as they are the best DEs out there.
Personally I love the Gnome workflow but was frustrated by the lack of options and need for many extensions, so since KDE added an "overview" plugin a few version ago I've replicated the Gnome workflow in KDE on my desktop and have been happy ever since.
Gnome will always be the better choice on laptops for me though, their touchpad gestures are juste far superior, which is the one thing you (strangely) still can't customize on KDE. Beyond that, I also feel like Gnome's cleaner UI works better on smaller screens, while I prefer KDE on my desktop where I want most options to be accessible in a pinch.
this
GNOME looks beautiful, clean and simple, but hides away vital functionality.
It's very hard to use without extensions, but with Dash to Panel it's a lot more amazing.
I like GNOME very much on computers which I do not actively have to work on, like on servers or touch screen devices.
But it's clearly not for real things like software development and other keyboard intensive activities, which require an easy way of keyboard shortcut configuration, a desktop which is able to do proper fractional scaling (still an unfixed problem), and a file manager which is actually really usable (Nautilus is not).
I prefer KDE, Cinnamon or Xfce.
I'm making my slow switch to Linux. I've installed Arch with Gnome on my laptop and it's been a pleasure to configure it. The interface is clean and you can install extensions to config it to your heart's content.
Try KDE and then tell me how configurable GNOME is.
@deusexaethera Yeah, the fact that the AppIndicator extension took forever to be updated to GNOME 46 (it took at least a month for such a simple and vital feature) pissed me off greatly. Add that Dash to Dock took a similar amount of time because GNOME 46 broke it and I almost gave up on GNOME.
@@deusexaethera So true! Moving from Cinnamon to KDE for the wayland, I was very surprised at how configurable KDE was.
@@deusexaethera Try Gnome and then tell me how clean Plasma is
@@catto-from-heaven cleaner than GNOME.
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 preffer KDE over gnome, but men, KDE team really needs to reorganize their settings painel and cut redundance in the interface
They already do it.
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...?
You forgot nautilus (gnome files), pcmanfm, caja. I personally use Thunar due it's simplicity and low memory footprint. Also, I'm a huge vifm fan
@@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: ruclips.net/video/SO6xx-KF3qs/видео.htmlsi=54iTQ8KsRhHhQIbT .
i am using Thunar under Mint Cinnamon because it has an undo-redo button. I was very used to these buttons in my file explorer in windows, spent hours trying to find it in Nemo, gave up and installed Thunar. It however needed a couple of things to do before i could use it such as creating 'custom actions' to be able to open as root, open the terminal from a location, create symlinks or hardlinks,... but once everything was set this is for me the only file explorer that i want
I liked gnomes desktop but kde felt a lot less restrictive so I ended up switching over.
Imo I like GNOME better because it's just so refined and consistent. If I want to customize it more I have the option to do that with extensions, but as is, GNOME is perfectly usable and everything just has this level of polish and consistency that I miss when I switch to KDE.
I love how much customization features KDE has, but my issue is that when you start to do that and you get a fully custom system, then things start to become inconsistent in terms of the UI (particularly if you use flatpaks). It also doesn't feel as polished as GNOME does, the UI is a little too cludgy imo; functional sure, but the form could do with a little more refinement so it looks more modern.
I personally think Gnome looks ugly. It's also very bad for security, since it relies on web extensions.
Every time I intall distro with KDE, I use Gnome again on the computer the same day in the evening.
Gnome is much more intuitive, beautiful and easier to use for me.
I don't want to spend a lot of time customizing my computer. Cosmic FTW.
I just want to be comfortable using it - sayed windows user :D
My situation is directly opposite to yours. I have never used Gnome for one whole day. It's like no matter what I can't get it to work the way I make Plasma to work.
"...I don't want to spend a lot of time customizing my computer..."
Then GNOME is perfect there, as they forbid you from customizing it.
Really?.. I personally think Gnome looks ugly because it looks like Mac OS.
@@Casey2262 Maybe it's my opnion, but Gnome apps with LibAdwaita is very beautiful
I dont get your comment at all. Simply dont customize if you dont want to. Absurd to champion removing options for no reason.
While KDE and Gnome might seem equally matched, it's important to note how much Gnome alienated their users to the point that entire distros were created just to avoid it.
Unity, Cinnamon, Mate, Budgie, Cosmic all these and more exist because people love to use GTK apps, but hate to use Gnome desktop.
Yeah, the apps are great, but the desktop is just so frustraing
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.)
Thanks for the thorough review. It's helped me make my decision... Cinnamon
That’s a good choice too!
That's what I decided to go with as well. People can come up with a billion and one things to say about KDE or Gnome but I rarely hear bad things about Cinnamon besides "if you want your desktop to look just like mint why not just use mint?"
The answer?
Mint looks nice. :)
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."
I can honestly say I love both. For work, I generally prefer Gnome, but have changed to KDE due to better fractional scaling in Wayland. I think it is great to have these two with different perspectives on what makes a good desktop environment.
I prefer to pronounce Gnome as Geenome because it really upsets the zealots and it is funny (mainly because of how easily they get upset).
I 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.
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.
@Silverblue-se6iy Archcraft has done an amazing job with pre-configured TWMs. I'm currently using i3wm without having to configure much.
Gnome is tweakable in a similar way Windows is.
Hard and hidden, but surprisingly flexible if you know where (and know the right tools).
"... Gnome is tweakable in a similar way Windows is..."
As in not at all?
@@SenileOtaku you would be surprised at how much you can actually tweak Windows if you know how and where
As in broken frequently but unlike windows without the users needed to keep hacks working reliably?
Windows is crazy customizable actually. Just look at rectify11, start11, powertoys. I can't name all but you get the point 😊
Late to the party but for me - KDE is a must for non-techie users. Three reasons:
1. Familiar Windows 9x legacy workflow by default. Non-techies do not like learning things especially workflows!
2. "System settings. Everything in KDE has a GUI system setting. If a user has a problem I can whatsapp the config setting to change in system settings. Any other DE... I run the risk of the config requiring editing a hidden text file - a non-starter for average users.
3. "Yes." User wants it, KDE has it. When a user asks "Can I do this in Linux?" (it happens!) I can point them to the config in system settings. "Yes." Another other DE, most especially GNOME... not so much. Note that NOT providing a feature found in Mac or Windows can often equal "Well, Linux is no good then! I'm going back to Mac/Windows!"
That's enough for most non-techie users in my experience. I dare not risk non-KDE for starters!
Me who uses Cinnamon because I want simple,stable and customization. I've always had a buggy (yet not gamebreaking) experience with KDE but I would take it over the oversimplification of GNOME.
Team Cinnamon!
I 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 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'm using KDE for gaming and Gnome for productivity. Both are really good in their own ways. Great video !
... KDE for gaming , gnome for productivity and 100 % of time Windows ::)))))))))))))
What does Gnome provide for productivity that KDE doesn't have?
@@NJ-wb1cz Honestly, I think this is mostly a habit on my end. I tend to use the trackpad of my laptop a lot and I just prefer the way Gnome works in this case.
This channel deserves atleast a million subs.
Again a high quality video.
It's curious how Wayland support was avaliable first on Gnome but now Plasma is much ahead
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'm a minimalist, and I'm using Gnome as how it is intended to be used. No extensions whatsoever, using Fedora a year now ever since I both my Thinkpad. All works well, even LTE on my laptop works well. I've used the Fedora KDE spin when I started installing Linux but man, the online accounts syncing, the LTE issues, and the wallet manager keeps giving me troubles. Gnome does do the job.
I love the Gnome way of doing things. Its very clean, beautiful and intuitive. The only change I make is to re-enable the minimize/maximize buttons. It also feels more coherent and new features tend to feel more polished on release.
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 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.
Personally, my biggest issue with Gnome is LibAdwaita and its wide adoption. I've experienced the changes from GTK+3, to GTK 4, to LibAdwaita over the years, and I hate it.
Ignoring my dislike for Adwaita's looks, the apps simply don't fit any desktop except for Gnome. On KDE, Cinnamon, XFCE, etc' all LibAdwaita apps with their CSD simply destroy any cohesion. The worst part is when I use a TWM on my laptop - CSD is useless and takes from the already limited screen space that I have.
At this point, I uninstall every LibAdwaita app (except for Flatseal) as a form of protest. Far too many devs explicitly support only Gnome.
I personally really like libadwaita, it made all the GNOME apps look and feel awesome, and cohesive.everything was so messy previously
Yeah and guess what: I really dislike the "old" KDE/Qt look of applications, which doesn't fit in when you are mainly using Gnome and libadwaita
100% agree. Using GNOME applications on a non-GNOME desktop just sucks. It's kind of sad how one-sided GNOME is. I love Adwaita as a theme (as long as I can change the colour), but LibAdwaita really only works if you use GNOME.
@@TheLinuxEXP the issue is when you're not a Gnome user. I would love to use some of those apps, but their CSD just ruins it. Kirigami / Qt doesn't have this issue because they support server-side decorations.
I won't start using only Adwaita theme / LibAdwaita apps, because they're quite unpleasant to my eyes and the widgets are far too large.
Not to mention one of the few ways of theming Libadwaita apps, Gradience, is currently unmaintained and not fully working. Heck, if GNOME wasn't so hellbent against server side decoration, maybe more users would use it!
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.
I mostly preferred to used KDE than Gnome. And my 2nd choice is Linux mint’s desktop environment called Cinnamon.
Cinnamon and KDE are both great for customization. I think Gnome looks kinda ugly lol.
Started by using gnome, but then i found out about hyprland and tiling wms in general and its been amazing
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.
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).
Great comparison. I'm using BusenLabs right now and enjoying Openbox. But I may try KDE next.
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.
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!
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.
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.
Sorry Nick, I tried the KDE plasma over the cinnamon desktop which I use daily. to see if I can move to a pure debian+KDE environment (just seems it should present as a more uniform environment, which is supposed to simplify also privacy and security). What I experienced, was a pretty much similar experience as far as the UI goes, and therefore user experience, but It takes more resources, and is less stable than the Cinnamon (I discovered it here and there and it was not a REAL concern, but for a daily driver, I want as less hassle as possible). Please let me know what are your thoughts on the subject.
I love how customizable KDE is but with GNOME I feel at home.
Anyhow, love both of them and I have KDE/Plasma 6.1 running on a second laptop at home using Fedora Kinoite while using Fedora Workstation 40 as my daily driver (my work's laptop).
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
@@NJ-wb1cz That's quite sad to hear, especially because the basic gnome interface in terms of usability and access is the most intuitive I have seen.
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.
I use Arch btw, and Cinnamon is my Desktop of choice, I do use KDE once in a while.
Out of the box I prefer Gnome mainly for consistency of apps and ease of use. But I learned to like KDE with my steam deck
I 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
Tbh, I came from Windows and hated KDE for being so overloaded in the settings. I switched to Gnome and directly felt home. My mother and two of my browsers used Gnome and had a nice experience immediately.
🤔I 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).
I love GNOME simplicity and well thought out design. It’s the only DE that made me switch from XFCE.
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}
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....
My DE adventure started with GNOME. I loved the overall feel and style of it. I spent a day tweaking it and adding themes. What I eventually discovered is that, yeah, GNOME is technically customizable BUT I generally suggest to avoid doing so (at least with theming) as GNOME will sometimes throw a fit. Yes, extensions are available but if you are still extremely limited and it feels like the DE is actively trying to fight you. After using GNOME for a bit, it feels like it was primarily designed for touchscreen/trackpad use. The Quick Settings feel very ChromeOS or Android to be which isnt a bad thing but I didn't much care for it. Once I get a linux laptop, I will for sure use GNOME.
I switched to KDE and I dont fully love the way it lays things out but I have the ability to change it. Theming just works (minus the Flatpak theming being annoying to config) and is easy to configure via the GUI.
I think the main differences is theming. If you want to have a better time theming, use KDE. If you want to keep the default theme and like the look, use GNOME.
I am currently on KDE, but if I am being honest, I am simply waiting for XFCE 4.20 to be released and have compatibilty with Wayland.
u should also make video on other desktop environment comparision
What about the developers/community around each desktop? I think they are also relevant to new users.
Gnome with their gnome circle apps is a great experience for me
Asking which one is better is kind of a dumb question, how do you quantify "better"? what is a beginner?
use gnome since its the default on two major desktop distros Fedora and Ubuntu.
I refuse using other, since I want to be first class users.
I use KDE on tumbleweed or manjaro
When I first tried KDE I spent way too much time going through the settings. I guess in that regard using gnome when beginning will let you focus on learning the important things. However the familiarity factor with KDE is unmatched.
what important things? if one doesn't want to tinker with settings - why not just leave them alone how they are?
@@joansparky4439 Well that's just the kind of person I am, when switching to a platform I'd like to see all the capabilities. As for the important things it's like the display servers, how the file system is structured, key ring daemons, and *actually* learning the terminal.
@ um8078
people who tell others to use the terminal usually don't apply this kind of mantra to other aspects of their lifes.. like knowing where all the products they consume come from and how they are made in detail.
So yeah, I don't give a toss about that 'aspect' of linux.
PS: Just had to revert 3 kernels back because the latest I updated to crashed Vbox and the one before that slowed down a WinServer VM.
@@joansparky4439 um I don't know what you are talking about, I simply find using zoxide faster than the file manager and using my terminal alias for my vpn faster than the gui. If you don't use the terminal for things you do 10 times a day then you are probably missing out. It's not terminal superiority, some things are just objectively faster in the terminal
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.
Dang, your KDE theme at 7:14 is nice. Breeze looks like Windows 98 next to that.
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 like to have a clean interface, but also the option to tweak and change things the way I want. For me it has always been either Gnome or Xfce.
While we're on topic, why not make klassy a part of KDE, because this theme (I use their for titlebars primarily) is super visible and make buttons very usable. GNOME on other hand never let me make inactive window to have different colour to active oe, which makes sometimes hart to identificate an active window fast(that is a bigger issue than you might think it is).
My gf, a mac user, had no issue getting used to gnome on my laptop. My guess is that kde wasn't going to be an issue either, but theres that at least.
I used KDE some time but changed to Mate because it was not possible to set up my desktop as I wanted it with KDE.
Okular is the best PDF reader with notation possibility.
Gwenwiew is good if you want to crop pictures fast.
I've been using kde for most of my time on linux, but I do like to switch it up between gnome and kde every now and then. Sometimes I also like to play around with WM's.
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.
I've been a Gnome/Unity user and I'm really tempted to try KDE on my next install. However, I still have that impression that it kinda look "busy" to me, at least its default look.
This also puts into perspective how difficult and long road to create a DE and be on par with these 2 in terms of features. I'm not even a core dev in Lomiri and only do small fixes ans stuffs but I am overwhelmed with how much more work is needed to make it work well and we even have to think about convergence 😄 It's fun though. My dream is to still use Lomiri on my desktop and not just my phones.
I was distro hoping for about a month when I moved to Linux, I don't think either are bad. It's more what works for you.
Dear Nick
I was missing a topic on your video: touchscreen compatibility for dual devices.
I feel that gnome is here more advanced than KDE even if it has a touchscreen mode too, but this one enlarges the Icons only. Unfortunately to my dislike KDE lacks here of a coherent touchscreen mode.
I use KDE PLASMA because of it's customization possibilities, never mind to use gnome too (which I did for years using Ubuntu then later changed to KDE PLASMA because I wanted to mod my desktop toy needs).
I was looking for a kde and gnome full comparison, this video is what i needed ❤
Extensions on gnome are not only unsupported, they often break with new releases of gnome. I also found them much more unstable than plasma widgets.
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.
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.
Gnome just reminds me of Windows 8 too much for me to want to use it.
Windows 8 was way worse, and not fully thought through
@@BaardFigur Neither was GNOME 3.0. The amount of forks and loss of users like Linus Torvalds himself speaks volume to how bad early GNOME 3 was. You'd think they'd learn after the instability of KDE 4, but nope.
I 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.
First week with Fedora and Windows dual boot on the same SSD on my laptop (ryzen 6 core and rtx 3060). Really hated figuring out how to find out which GPU Fedora was using and how to install proprietary Nvidia drivers (which required signing the packages), but after figuring out, I am glad to be over with.
Gaming wise with Proton Hotfix:
Tekken 8 works, though:
- it sometimes crashed when loading stuff (I assume it's that)
- is noticeable that it does not run on a stable locked 60fps, but sometimes dips, which if solved would improve having low input
Insurgency Sandstorm:
- went from 120-160 fps on Windows 10 to 100-140 fps on Fedora
- constant micro stutters that I could tolerate, but endure for a long session as it impacts smoothness and input.
I will stick with it for a few months until I give Linux a good try and maybe try out Fedora KDE spin instead of Gnome.
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.