I’m relatively new to the linux space, I was introduced by the steam deck which uses kde, and it’s pretty similar to windows in terms of how it works so that’s the DE i’d be leaning towards when I eventually switch. I’ve never used gnome so i’m not sure if it’d be worth using I guess?
So I’m just looking for some input from the community, do you use Gnome or Plasma, why do you use it, and what’s kind of like a pros and cons kinda thing between the two?
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This. When you install a desktop environment (DE) in most Linux distros, it’s just available, not forced on you. Then, as OC said, you can choose which to use each time you login.
Try them all, decide for yourself. This is the way.
yo i tried installing kde alongside gnome before and it ended up just feeling sorta “after the fact” and scrambled, with mishmashed applications on both environments.
I prolly just did it wrong tho, is there a way to do this seamlessly you know of?
I imagine it’s due to the default apps not being changed when you switch between the environments. For example it’s probably still using GNOME’s Files application in KDE instead of Dolphin (or maybe vice versa). You should still be able to manually launch the “correct” app in each case, but of course you’ll have to know which is which. There’s no actual problems created by having both installed, but most people don’t because of this and other annoyances.
I tried a lot of desktop environments and I think KDE is the best one, games runs much better than GNOME while the desktop is so smart and many features… I really tried so hard GNOME but the UI sucks, it is slower running games, there are missing options very important for me that KDE has, so for me GNOME is a NO for working/gaming purposes.
Unless you’re barely meeting the minimum specs for a game, on a properly configured system any impact on game performance between the two should be a rounding error.
KDE Plasma Wayland, I’m using it for gaming mainly and occasionally for VR.
Pros:
- supports DRM leasing mandatory for wired VR headsets
- supports tearing (also in windowed apps but requires an additional setting) which reduces input latency in games
- usually all the new fancy features, ex. HDR, appear quickly
- decent support for fractional scaling (handy on laptops)
Cons:
- you might encounter bugs. While Plasma 6 has been a much better experience as opposed to older versions of it, there are still some bugs here and there appearing between the updates. As of this writing thought I can’t recall any bugs on my system.
Out-of-the-box GNOME, with no extensions or tweaks.
I used to be a customise-everything kind of guy. But I’m not naturally efficient, so any workflow I designed for myself would always end up being inefficient. With GNOME I see it as a kind of off-the-shelf workflow that I can adapt to, something I wouldn’t have come up with myself but it makes me more efficient.
with no extensions or tweaks.
🫥
Why do people downvote this?
Default gnome is honestly a GOAT, face of Linux for me and it is far more convenient than any other workflow I used before in the past
I totally get people saying things like “I couldn’t live with GNOME because it’s difficult to customise” because I used to be that guy. It took a significant shift in my mindset to come back to GNOME (having moved away from it previously when GNOME 3 was first released).
Gnome. Love how it just gets out of the way and let’s me do whatever I want without interruptions.
Gnome. It feels better even tho it runs so much worse
Why am I getting down voted? It does
I’d just like to interject for a moment. What you’re refering to as KDE, is in fact, KDE Plasma.
Anyway, I use Gnome but if you are used to Plasma, there is no need to make things harder by using Gnome on a device and Plasma on another. Just stick to Plasma.
KDE.
I’m OK with GNOME.
Gnome! I use Nixos so I prefer to use things that can be configured using its system, I like KDE but I can’t find a elegant way to configure the UI layout using nix
I’ve used GNOME in the past but currently use KDE Plasma. Both are good, but as for recommendations most Linux people I know of say for new users that if you’re coming from Windows start with Plasma and if you’re coming from Mac OS start with GNOME since those are the closer desktops to what you used before and will make things a bit easier. Depending on the distro you choose you may also have access to other desktops like Cinnamon, which I haven’t used but have heard is even easier than Plasma for new users coming from Windows. It’s not ready for daily use yet, but the upcoming Cosmic desktop may also be quite good for that.
I use GNOME. KDE is nice in that it allows you to customize everything, but if I want that degree of control I’d rather use a fully customized window manager setup (sway is generally my go-to).
GNOME is also designed to be used in a keyboard-centric workflow, which I prefer. It’s a nice comfy default for when I want the option to use my computer “lazily”, i.e. just kicking back mostly using the mouse to browse the web, but still has enough power-user functionality to make zipping around without touching the mouse feel good.
I also just like their defaults a lot. If you start to install a bunch of third party extensions etc it starts to get messy and degrade the point of the whole unified vision, and at that point you’re better off with KDE IMO.
It’s also worth noting that I don’t really like the default Mac OS UX – while I can see why people say “KDE is like Windows, GNOME is like Mac,” it’s really only a surface level comparison that mostly ends at “KDE uses a taskbar and GNOME has a dock”.
Gnome is so much more different, the closest comparison would be android but android is frankly a downgrade of gnome for me with how slow and clunky it is even with touch controls funnily enough
I used Gnome on my desktop and it was great! But after a while I just wanted to try something else, so I switched to KDE on my desktop and laptop which is also great. I technically have both installed but I mainly just use KDE plasma. I also recently switched to Wayland. For me at least both are equally good buy in different ways.
KDE, coming from Windows it was the easiest to get used to for me. It has a lot of options and required some tweaking to get it the way I like, but once I did it was smooth sailing.
GNOME because it just works better with network shares. Really wanted to use KDE but I use a lot of network shares and it just annoyed me.
In KDE I open a network folder in the file browser, double click a video and VLC can’t see it because it uses a different sharing protocol.
On GNOME it just works seamlessly.
I know I can fix it in command line, but I don’t want to. I tried the KDE fuse plug in but that had other issues.
