I’m currently writing this on the MATE desktop. I started with linux on the gnome 2 desktop, so it only makes sense. A long time ago I used Xmonad (a tiling window manager) but tiling has less appeal for me now. If I need/want a lightweight solution, I use CWM (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cwm_(window_manager), which was originally developed on OpenBSD, but is usually available across different Linux distros and BSD’s.
I’ve tried pretty much every DE/WM under the sun at this point, and would be interested to know what you use and why
Think I might try Wayland/sway on my workstation project… XFCE just works and has the features you expect from a traditional desktop + plenty of useful plugins. But it’s somewhat ugly, nothing fancy. I like KDE but plasma was just too buggy so I use XFCE. Also QT framework isn’t FOSS I don’t like that. Cinnamon was my first and I still use it for my debian VMs. It’s really the best no bullshit one I know. Can’t really ask more from something that requires zero configuration.
I haven’t used MATE very much tho. Where would you recommend it?
I think MATE and XFCE are pretty similar actually. I pick one over the other at random to be honest. MATE is built off of gnome2, so if you have any experience of that, it will remind you of it.