Share your favorite Linux Desktop Environment

KDE sets a really high bar with all the packages and extensibility. Almost everything (not including the lesser known and used packages) is feature-packed and just works. I really don't know any other software that constantly amazes me like KDE.

Came to say KDE/Plasma. Glad it was already on top
In addition to that, they make nice FOSS apps that are great for any DE (see Krita, Kdenlive)
Also it looks like Windows, and that to me is a huge plus for anyone using my computer.
I'm fine in general with most of them but I'm settled on KDE. I agree the software is great, I love apps like Okular and there are these little goodies hidden everywhere, like typing "fish://user@server" in the file manager url/path area and I get a folder open of the remote file system, I can even add it to "Locations".
KDE Plasma 5.27 is incredible. Such a stable and customizable experience! 😍

XFCE, tried cinnamon a couple times it was okay but I just prefer the simplicity and stability of xfce

Seems like I'm the outlier here that prefers Gnome over KDE. Gnome feels more polished than KDE for me. Granted KDE comes with more features out of the box, but I don't find anything lacking in Gnome for me.

Tried KDE long time ago to compare it to Gnome 3, went back to Gnome. Tried KDE again a few months ago to compare to Gnome 42, came back to Gnome again.

I also can't stand having all my programs' name starting with K.

I also can't stand having all my programs' name starting with K.
Like Okular, Spectacle, Dolphin, .....
- Maybe I shouldn't have said all, but it's annoying to me when the they put a "k" in the name in a very awkward way just because it's an KDE app.
- to be fair okular does have a k in it
I like Gnome the best too. In my experience, it's the desktop environment that focuses the most on making sure that no little bugs slip in. Like normally when you're using a desktop environment, it will be good except for a few bugs here and there where you have to remember weird things like not backing out of the settings menu in a certain way in order to not trigger a bug. Gnome seems to have the least amount of weird little bugs like that.
It's not very configurable out of the box, but I prefer that too. I'm getting a bit old and set in my ways, and don't really want to mess around with too much configuration anymore.
I’m in the same boat. I use mostly stock gnome to avoid experiencing bugs. I used KDE for a bit and loved it but never really loved how many options the settings gave me. I would also constantly run into issues with the docks disappearing when unplugging monitors. In contrast docks on gnome just work. I really only use the Ubuntu dock extension on gnome
KDE has a lot of customization and plenty of neat features, but it suffers a death of a thousand papercuts. There's just so many small "non-severe" issues that adds up to making it end up feeling clunky and unpolished compared to GNOME's general polish.
KDE was the first one I used after getting more comfortable with Linux and leaving Unity behind. KDE was very customizable and extensible, but when you actually started customizing it quickly became unreliable. I stuck with it for a few years then I tried Elementary next and it was pretty polished but it was limited to a specific distribution. After that I went to GNOME and I've been using it for 7 years now. It does need a few extensions, but otherwise I've found that it works quite well. I think I've also changed, I'm not as interested in things like wobbly windows anymore. I just want the desktop environment to stay out of my way, but I also don't want it to be too bare bones.
Both take great benefits from the improvements of the other.

GNOME, for sure. It works out of the box, and it's kind of pretty out of the box.

I also tried it on a touch screen PX and it works surprisingly well.

xfce for a very long time. I really like tiling WMs but always come back to xfce

Xfce is the best!
- See I don't really get the appeal of xfce, I kinda see it as the minimal DE you use if you've got low powered hardware or if you need a DE on a system that isn't a personal computer and just need the bare minimum to run a graphical application or two

Vanilla Gnome. It's simple/boring, and I like that. It seems like most people that like Gnome don't care that it's not a poweruser DE, and aren't excited to talk about it either.

KDE. Because it's mostly a complete package and has tons of knobs and dials to tune for anyone's needs edited

Not even mentioning the DE, what a Chad move
- I meant KDE. Was replying to OP

I'm a simple person. I see KDE, I upvote.

I use gnome, but it's basically the worst DE, except all of the other ones that have been tried

It has the least features, so by default the least bugs.

KDE forever!

i3. I mean, it's fast, customizable, and you can make it look good. That's all i need.

KDE is love, KDE is life

Absolutely KDE Plasma.

I've been using Cinnamon for years. It's stable, fairly lightweight, and pleasing to the eye.

KDE Plasma on desktop

Cinnamon on (older lower spec) laptop

Love me some Cinnamon. Specifically what comes out of default Linux Mint. It isn't trying to do more than it already is. As cool as tech is I wish I didn't need to care about Wayland or X11. I just want it to launch applications, feel like the windows I used as a kid, and stay out of my way. Cinnamon does this all for me. And since freaking high school mint has been there trying to do that.

I use KDE now, but Cinnamon was my first and made the transition beautiful. It's a great DE.

Mine is MATE:

It's still GNOME 2, but I see no problem with that, it works and I'm used to it and I like traditional desktops. I don't need (or care) about round borders or those on/off switches of modern desktops, that make them look like phone screens turned 90°.

Please share that wallpaper, looks awesome!
- If you want, I also got a Makima (character from the same series, Chainsaw Man) wallpaper roughly in the same style:
Nice, impressive.

Xfce, i just like it.

I like Gnome with Pop OS's tiling

Gotta be KDE for a full featured DE.

But using Sway for now.

i3 / Sway with Albert or dmenu or rofi

I just love keeping my hands on the keyboard

Gnome with pop_os tiling window manager

No DE just DWM

Cinnamon is the best

GNOME, with a little bit of extension customisability!

Cinnamon. Stupidly simple and elegant looking.

I am enjoying GNOME at the moment. But I think I may switch to Cosmic DE when that gets released.

For aesthetics: Budgie, with Cinnamon a close second For simplicity and speed: XFCE

XFCE and/or AwesomeWM

Sway or GNOME (Wayland) with Pop shell extension.

Hyprland ftw!

Vanilla Gnome

Sway and dmenu when in a keyboard productivity sorta mood, KDE otherwise.

KDE

It's between XFCE for it's simplicity and KDE for it's Wayland support for me

KDE if it was less buggy.

It's KDE for me too, but I don't really get the buggy part. Sure kwin crashes sometimes, but that happened to me like 2 or 3 times during my 2 and half years on openSUSE. Other than that I can't think of something really bugged? Maybe I'm too tolerant, having to work with Windows XP and DOS at work...
- Maybe, I had so many frickin kwin crashes every time I tried it, and there is a known bug with fractional scaling in some resolutions which affected me that drove me insane, if you care enough I could try to track it down on the bugtracker and link it.
  But yeah, loved it, except for the bugs. I like gnome less, but it's less buggy, so I'm using that.

Although I use sway, I used KDE for a long time and XFCE prior. They're both phenomenal. I'd love to see XFCE make its way to wayland in the future.

As an aside, I feel like Wayland has a market ripe for the introduction of lightweight DEs. Sure, it has the very lightweight (hyprland, sway, river, dwl) and heavyweight (KDE, Gnome) but nothing between like XFCE, LXDE or MATE

Also a fan of sway! Plenty configurable, and swaymsg+jq bash scripts can go a long way. Hoping we'll see more development in lightweight DEs as well- Wayland is pretty great, and sway could use with some more features. also nice username :D

Pop! _OS's Cosmic Version of GNOME (regular GNOME kinda stinks) but KDE is also pretty great. Can't wait for COSMIC DE. I'm sure that one will rock itself up to the number 1 spot really quickly.

i use i3 + kde its really cool

I've got used to XFCE.

I used to only use KDE or KDE plasma with i3 but after using fedora I've fallen hard for Gnome and the design philosophy of the project.

Xfce overall, but I like MATE a lot as well. Just give me a traditional desktop experience, I don't need mobile-like options on a desktop.

I actually switched to MATE primarily because I like its suite of software a bit more (calculator, file manager, file archiver) than Xfce's, though I use some of MATE's stuff (Caja mainly) on Xfce on my laptop.

Budgie is cool

Kde because it has a really useful and functional out of the box tools, being dolphin and connect the most useful ones for me.

Never had an issue since last year, but yeah, was buggy as hell.

Mate if I want more juice from a not so good pc, and xfce for the low end ones.

KDE - using it with Manjaro now, but also used it on Mint before that.

KDE + Latte dock is what I use. Very simple and minimalistic setup with no widgets.

BSPWM and Polybar because I am too lazy to figure out eww and I use KDE as a backup in case anything breaks lol

Me exactly. I'm totally definitely for sure going to try out all the more complicated DEs and widget tools (eww, maybe AwesomeWM if I'm willing to learn Lua or Hyprland if I'm willing to try Wayland)... Someday
In the meantime, my BSPWM + Polybar setup is there and works while I procrastinate on trying anything else.

I keep wanting to try out vanillaOS and everytime I liveboot it, I immediately regret my decision. I cannot stand Gnome.
I love KDE, I love it for how versatile, intuitive and customizable it is.
Bot to mention, I rarely experience any bugs. It just works.

I like Gnome. It is very usable out of the box and requires the least amount of work to get it to my liking. I am current running pop_os' cosmic version of gnome though I also enjoyed vanilla-ish(that is with 2-3 extensions) version of gnome with fedora. If only mutter starts officially supporting vrr when using wayland

@fugepe I can live with KDE, Cinnamon, Xfce, Gnome, Lxqt., Mate... I am using KDE right now but I like Xfce more than others...

I'm not huge into customising desktop environments, so when I've tried window managers like i3, I typically only get it functional to my likings and then realise how boring I am compared to how others use it.

So typically I use gnome or kde, but I like cinnamon and xfce as well. I don't really have a favourite, they're all good. At the minute I am trying to adopt wayland and have been using gnome while I do that.

Xfce, Gnome or just a WM like Sway.

i3wm at work and at home

@lemsolm @fugepe
I use i3wm at school since I don't bring my mouse with my laptop to school, so I just use my keyboard to do everything.

KDE + bismuth

Oh, nice! Does this work regardless of X/Wayland?
Heads up though, might be headed towards extinction with the manual tiling added in 5.27 https://github.com/Bismuth-Forge/bismuth/issues/471#issuecomment-1410969462
Polonium seems to be a possible successor: https://github.com/zeroxoneafour/polonium
- I use it with X, I think I will have to rework the stack when i will switch to Wayland.
  Here is my config: https://github.com/simone-viozzi/my-dot-files#tiling
  I don't think It will be useless even if KDE add basic tiling, there are layout and shortcuts that will be useful anyway.
  Thank you for polonium! I will check it out!
- Cool, I was wondering when someone would create a successor to bismuth. KDE Plasma + Bismuth was my daily driver for a long time until 5.27.

Not a DE but AwesomeWM. I like its default aesthetic and it's highly extensible using Lua which gives a lot of power to the user.

Boring old X11 Gnome for me, it looks pretty, it's reliable and it has all the stuff I'd expect out of a desktop environment

Wayland doesn't play nice with my GPU and I've heard it's not great for gaming anyway

Gaming has been pretty good for me on GNOME Wayland.
I've heard it's not great for gaming anyway
Gaming on wayland now has more or less the same performance as on x11. Some things like vrr (atleast on plasma) is even better/easier on wayland than on x11
- Vrr? Did you mean vr?
  Also maybe I should try it on my PC then, haven't tested it there though can't really see any need for it as my monitors are similar resolution there

Been a gnome guy for the past ~13 years with a bit of unity thrown in back when it was relevant! I've tried to love KDE repeatedly over the years but it's never quite clicked with me - the customisation is great, but using it just feels kinda wrong personally!

KDE for my main and XFCE for my lower powered systems or VM's

This is what I do too. I've been considering switching to XFCE everywhere, because why use more resources, when XFCE does the job insert The Office "why waste time say lot words ..."-gif

My very first WM was Blackbox, back in 2000, and I imprinted on it like a baby duck, so today I still mostly use Fluxbox. It's abandoned and unmaintained, but still works (for now). It's very minimalist and lightweight. When it finally dies completely I guess I'll finally learn how to use a tiling WM.

(I use Gnome on a laptop with a HiDPI screen, because that was too annoying to configure correctly on Fluxbox. It's... fine. I added a bunch of customisations and it mostly stays out of my way, which is what I want in an environment.)

No matter what WM/DE I use, I always add a dropdown / "quakelike" terminal application -- I previously used Yakuake, but switched to Guake. It uses a hotkey to show / hide a terminal (and you can use multiple tabs, and multiplexers inside the tabs). I can't live without this, and I highly recommend it if you often find yourself hunting around for your terminal window.

Hyprland + bemenu. Minimalistic, very little overhead, but still a pretty boi.

XFCE, while it doesn't have all the fancy animations and such it is incredibly customizable while still being super light weight.

I have been using cinnamon for many years. For the last 2 y it is xfce for me.

Simple, reliable and stable, low in resources, does the work well.

Pop_OS underneath with Regolith (basically a pre-configured i3) on top.

River, not a DE but close enough. I could configure it in fennel without much problem.

I have a hard time recommending it, but I ran Deepin on Arch a few years and was blown away by it. There were some weird limitations to how much you can customize, and I prefer window managers in general, so I eventually stopped using it. But that was the best time I had with a DE in Linux overall.

The best I can actually recommend is KDE.

sway + bemenu for building my own utilities

btw what distro are my fellow sway users on? i'm loving the control i get over what i install with gentoo

how is everyone interacting with audio, networking, bluetooth?

Arch for me; pulsemixer, iwctl, bluetoothctl

SwayFX (Sway with a bit more eye candy effects)

This actually seems really cool, will give it a shot

I use Gnome at work and KDE at home. I like the workflow in Gnome and the customization of KDE.

i have an android phone because i love customization at a level apple does not allow, however, i use GNOME on my laptop as for some reason i prefer simplicity on the pc. well, of course i have a different theme and some extensions but hey, it's GNOME after all ☺️

xfce if i had to run a desktop environment, but i usually stick with dwm and haven't got around to trying wayland yet

I personally like Mate, especially with i3 as the window manager.

I'm super torn on desktop environments. There simply are too many great choices! I like XFCE, KDE Plasma and the most recent Gnome versions - for different reasons. KDE is the perfect choice when you want the full shiny, modern, bling desktop and if you love to customize it in all kinds of ways that are possible out of the box. When I spend time with KDE, over the course of weeks, I keep constantly changing my wallpapers, themes, cursors, icons, colors, etc. - just for the sake of variety. With KDE, the desktop never gets boring.

BUT... I also love minimalism (to a tasteful, practical extent) and classic retro computing, as well as efficiency. That's why XFCE is very comfy to me. It only has the features you need, but still to the extent of a nice and fully featured desktop environment. Doesn't eat too many system resources, still can look very pretty with themes, does what it's supposed to. Very stable, too. There are times when KDE just feels cluttered and ... too much for me, then I retreat to XFCE.

I'm running Fedora Silverblue for quite a while now and although I always had my gripes about modern Gnome... after using it for a while, it really grew on me. Since version 42, modern Gnome really is going the right direction. It's nicely clean and readable, modern, performant, and once you get used to it, its different approach to the workflow really makes sense. The apps are lovely, they do one thing and do it well, and they're beautifully integrated in the same design language. There's a wonderful collection of apps called Gnome Circle, these are not developed directly by the Gnome team, but endorsed by them, as they're useful and integrate perfectly into the UI design language. There's some amazing tools in there! It all feels very unified, and with the Blur-my-shell extension, you don't need much else for a pretty look. The only downside is that this clean look sometimes is achieved by cutting poweruser features, which can be frustrating when you bump into something you need to do, but the UI doesn't account for. For example, I have multiple bluetooth adapters in this PC and can't select which one to use. Still, great desktop.

Xfce, didn't try KDE yet, using gnome currently.

@fugepe Gnome

I usually use WindowMaker or FVWM but as a desktop environment... CDE

Kde for the win!

xfce

I don't have a favorite. I use Cinnamon because it disappoints me the least.

Yeah i literally just run whatever the default in Linux Mint is. It's got everything where i expect it to be and has no friction, and that's good enough for me.

I'm a Gnome user, with a few extensions but mostly vanilla.

For me efficiency and less eye strain is important. I want my eyes to be at the center of the screen for the majority of my session. Gnome is my goto for that reason but any tiling windows manager would do as welll.

KDE and the windows start bar lookalikes constantly have your eyes going to the corner or sides to open and find apps.

Enlightenment

TDE (for those who haven't encountered it before, the Trinity Desktop Environment forked from KDE3 more than a decade ago). It might not be the flashiest or the newest, but it has a decent selection of features and applications, and presents a traditional desktop environment whose interface doesn't get changed for the sake of change. In other words, it stays out of the way and lets me get things done.

(If I'd liked Gnome 2 better than KDE 3 rather than vice-versa, I probably would have gone for MATE instead.)

Correct me if i'm wrong but doesn't TDE depend on the undermaintained qt3?
- The TDE crew have also taken on responsibility for maintaining TQT (formerly QT3). If you're aware of any open bugs, go ahead and file them to the TQT3 repo on TDE's Gitea and someone will have a look.

I've used gnome for years, about a month ago I decided to give KDE a try on my old spare laptop. Two days later it was on my desktop and work laptop. I am loving KDE.

KDE if I have performance to spare. XFCE if I am running this in a container on my phone.

kde

@fugepe I use Ubuntu but, is KDE easy to pick up? Just getting into Linux my self.

There are several DE. The two big ones are KDE and Gnome. If you want to switch I recommend trying a live image of Kubuntu, which is Ubuntu but with KDE.

I really like KDE, but I’ve been daily driving Gnome since version 40. Insanely polished and I really like the workflow of everything. I do wish they were faster in implementing stuff like VRR though.

is anyone used herbsluftwm for low powered CPU here?

FVWM.

Um....none.

I've been using QTile for probably a year now. It's not perfect, but I like the tiled windowing and I know python.

I am on pop is for my home desktop. I like the built in tiling manager. Ubuntu for work. Might give nix or kde a go next.

A while back I was into KDE Plasma but for whatever reason had this bug that would cause my system to run at 100 percent at all times. When I looked into it, many stated it was a bug that related to how kde searches for stuff on the system. Dont remember much else but that had me look elsewhere.

Been on gnome for awhile now and havent had any issues.

Xfce on work desktop, gnome works well with gestures at home on my laptop. Will be changing to kde when I get a new machine at work!

bspwm + sxhkd, for years. Based on the Manjaro config at first, today it's my own setup. Even convinced may family. The best!

For me it was Enlightenment DR16 (discontinued). you could make themes with shaped borders (transparent regions, buttons and titles anywhere, even overlapping into the window a bit), have it remember window positions, change border style for a window (e.g. drawer, so it can be collapsed sideways) and it would not steal focus. it had really good effects and features. I miss it a lot in Wayland. Check the web for some screenshots, if you want to be inspired.

i3 on my laptop, gnome on my gaming rig (cuz wayland)

@fugepe I use a mostly vanilla Gnome, with the exception of the Blur My Shell and Vitals extensions

@fugepe Wow, not a lot of replies are saying Gnome, but there's a lot more XFCE than I thought I'd see

XFCE? always that shit is fast and the memory management is better than KDE and Gnome
It may be a sort of shy Tory effect. People don't volunteer that they run Gnome because it's seen as the default mainstream option, but if someone uses xmonad, they're going to tell you about it.

Mine is a combination of Sway + i3bar. Stick with it since I downlosded Pop!_OS

EXWM (Emacs X windows manager)

all it lacks is a good editor

(j/k, I've settled on Cosmic on Pop for the last few years, and now I'm so lazy, I barely update it)

I cannot but mention xmonad wm with my own configurations

barless dwl, love the simplicity

Debian/KDE

dwm, I got too much used to "it just works" and never ever breaks afrer an update.

@fugepe XFCE is the best in my opinion. It's lightweight, full customizable & easy to set up....

Vanilla Gnome Shell. I know it's heresy, but I've been using it since beta and I actually enjoy the work flow.

i3 counts, right? I have always been a keyboard oriented user and a big part of what drove me from Windows is them breaking or changing the hotkeys I used regularly. To me it is the perfect "you have control, this is your device, it works and looks how you want." wm

My favourite so far is Windows as my DE and WSL for my Linux

@ryncewynd @fugepe the question is "best DE"... not "most annoying DE"...
Your desktop environment needs to update. It will reboot three times and the whole process will take about an hour.