cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/111620

This guy basically mirrors my experience with KDE and GNOME. I like kde a lot but Gnome feels so much more polished and comfortable to use, especially on laptops.

  • NFT screenshotterOP
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    12 years ago

    You also don’t need endless customization in a desktop for it to be good. Gnome is a decisive desktop with a decisive development vision. KDE is a lot more customizable but it can feel more disjointed sometimes and it’s app ecosystem is beyond what you need. KDE and it’s ecosystem is known for having an overwhelming amount of options and customization, but there is such a thing as too much. I run KDE on my main PC right now but I’m about to switch to Gnome 41 comes out with system-wide dark mode and the libadwaita redesign is released.

    As for extensions, gnome extensions aren’t great because they aren’t officially supported but they aren’t awful either. I only really use the blur-my-shell extension to spice it up a bit. If you rely on extensions like dash-to-dock or other extensions to change the workflow you shouldn’t use a rolling release because you’ll generally want to wait for a little while after a release to update to make sure it wont break any extensions. In my opinion its probably wiser to get adjusted to gnome’s workflow instead of trying to fight it because once you do it’s really productive and smooth, way more polished than KDE feels for sure.

    At the end of the day though that’s all up to personal choice. if you want more options go with KDE for sure, but if you want something that “just works” gnome is a great choice.

      • NFT screenshotterOP
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        12 years ago

        None of the points in the comment you’re replying to said less options = good because options = distracting. I said that less options can be less confusing, and that KDE has what can be considered an overwhelming amount of options by comparison.

          • NFT screenshotterOP
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            2 years ago

            okay you’re right about the root topic.

            Mainly the idea is that gnome is nice because it has generally pretty solid defaults and doesn’t expect you to do anything drastic to get the most out of it (except dark mode which is coming in a few weeks in gnome 42). This helps productivity out of the box and makes it more approachable. KDE is also good, I’m running it right now and it’s defaults are also good, but it took me a long time to get anywhere near to getting the most out of it.

            For some people that’s good, they want to be immersed into their desktop and know and control every part they use. Other people prefer a simple setup to use as a medium to get work done and put that effort into other things like their work or games or anything else. It’s really up to the type of user.