Kinda rich dissing KDE for its “unstability” and putting GNOME as its paradigm, the very DE well known to break every major version.
Sometimes this kind of posts/“content” make me feel like I must be the only person in the world who hasn’t had major issues with KDE and it’s been absolutely flawless lately, specially since 5 - but I then realize people without issues don’t complain. It’s the people who have issues with something that make the noise and make it a very big deal (and I’d argue most cases are of the PEBCAK type).
If the need is for something simple and stable I’d shoot for something like Xfce - but putting GNOME as the example of “stability” is nothing but laughable.
From my personal experience having used primarily Gnome and KDE, KDE plasma always seems to have weird quirks and bugs upon first install that require fiddling and Google searching or waiting for them to be patched.
GNOME doesn’t break, extensions do.
Ahaha is that why they’re removing everything from the DE and forcing people to use extensions for things like desktop icons? So they can say “it’s not us, it’s the extensions”?
Why do you want to use desktop icons?
I personally don’t, but it’s a standard Mac/Windows users are very familiar with, and the ability to add them doesn’t impact you if you don’t want to.
In other words: it’s a net-positive.
Also some people just like them
They’re literally ignoring specs… and also most of the features of gnome are the extensions, so I’d count that.
If most of the features you use are gnome extensions you shouldn’t be using gnome. There are plenty of other desktops that would meet your needs better.
Most? I don’t think that someone who installs Dash to Panel would say most of their features are extensions, just some essential ones. I feel like you could go as far as “If any essential features you use are gnome extensions you shouldn’t be using gnome.”
Okay, I agree with that. CSD/SSD is a great example
Gnome has been rock solid for me and I’ve only had a handful of issues in over 5 years on Fedora.
Gnome focuses on reliability while KDE focuses on innovation
Reliability? Gnome maybe stable… per version! New resease? New breaking change! Screws all your extension and themes, and removes certain features because its “a decade old” or something.
Plasma is rock solid. Yes, you can break it. And that is called freedom.
If you don’t install 30 third party widgets and themes, you’ll be FINE, while still being able to make it yours.
That is why I always choose KDE Plasma (we’ll see when Cosmic comes).
I love it but I definitely wouldn’t call it rock solid. I have occasional small bugs here and there and especially with the Plasma 6 switch I’ve had the whole desktop going down (and taking all programs with it). That has been fixed though.
It is way to overwhelming for me personally. I need something that isn’t distracting.
If Xfce gets good Wayland support maybe I’ll try it for fun at some point.
Distracting how?
Everything is an option or extension. I just want a basic system.
Then just install it and use it. No need for tweaks.
But them all the setting a buried under tons of options I’ll never use. On gnome the settings menu is nice and clean.
There is a search bar…?
Encountering sleep/black screen bug is not freedom. The average linux user is shifting, its not longer being used only by teens/tech savvy. People want to get things done.
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What’s sad is the gnome team is so adamant about removing functionality to make their jobs easier.
This means you need extensions to make gnome usable, but it ends up feeling hacked together because it is.
I’ll never forgive the gnome team for their defense of putting the dock on the side with no option to change it or not including something like gnome tweak tools by default.
It’s really obvious gnome died with gnome3. That’s when all the forks happened, and for good reason. The gnome3 team just listens to the wrong people.
I’m glad we have alternatives to that pile of crap.
Gnome is amazing.
I’m glad you like it.
Yeah, it’s amazing. Best DE for sure. I’m sorry that it hurts your feelings or whatever, that’s unfortunate.
Yeah, let’s not mention Gnome breaking every peace of itself every update
This is not my experience.
That’s mine!
If you rely on extensions when you use GNOME, that’s on you. Vanilla gnome is perfectly fine by itself if you understand the workflow. I only really want, not need, one extension and that’s pano the clipboard manager. Anything else is just extra.
Vanilla gnome is perfectly fine by itself if you understand the workflow.
Well, maybe it is the DE that should be able to adapt to my workflow and not the other way around
@TeryVeneno @JustMarkov, Gnome really works good and it’s stable, but the Apps Ecosystem isn’t really the best. You have “limited” apps in the sense of: apps don’t have so much features as the Kirigami apps for KDE. Sometimes we like an integrated terminal in apps or split screen option (like in Dolphin) and Gnome doesn’t feature it from out of the box. Then you have to use extensions, which are really, really unstable 🙄 (that’s just my point of view)
That’s really interesting cause in my experience it’s been the opposite, I feel way too limited and also overwhelmed using kde apps, the plethora of gnome apps on flathub dedicated to doing one thing really well are just wonderful. And sometimes more complicated ones show up too like Design or Denaro or Planify.
@TeryVeneno, Yes Gnome it’s more user friendly and has more macOS features. It’s easier to catch up and use it (I used it for 4 years, before switching to Cinnamon, then Deepin and now KDE for another 4 years). On KDE I just like the features that Gnome doesn’t provide, like: hot corners, easier switching desktops, integrated terminal in almost any app 😅, KDE admin apps (like KSysLog), SSH profile in Konsole,… It’s better for daily usage. But Gnome has far better UI/UX (I have to admit) 😁
Aside from the integrated terminal in almost any app, I think gnome has all those other features you mentioned. I do have to say KDE is definitely more customizable though. Also not sure I would say gnome has any MacOS features, the two are very different in my experience. But gnome is definitely lagging on implementation of Somme Wayland things. UI/UX is king though for me so here we are lol.
ITT: people make up fake desktop war drama between gnome, KDE, and window managers
Listen, its FOSS. Gnome and KDE can have different design philosophys, if they didn’t why even be different. You can mix and match what you want and need from both quit a bit. The devs do!
All software has bugs, if your not paying devs or summited merge requests all you can do is ask nicely and fill helpful bug reports.
I love them both, just differently.
exactly!
ITT: people make up fake desktop war drama between gnome, KDE, and window managers
Happens every time. Someone has a criticism of Plasma and the Reddit/Lemmy comment sections devolve into “well Gnome = bad”
I don’t understand people who are so emotionally triggered by a DE they don’t even use.
I’ve been using KDE on Fedora for work for a few years now. Several system upgrades staeting from Fedora 36. Recently upgraded to plasma 6 and fedora 40. It is rock solid and very reliable.
And i do use alot of widgets, 3rd party apps, flatpaks, etc.
Plasma has been pretty stable for the last several years I’ve been using it, especially X11. Wayland is buggier, but not terribly so, and it gets better all the time.
I’ve switched over to Wayland with Plasma now because it is stable enough for me now, I’m on Nobara.
I don’t really use Gnome, so I can’t speak to that experience.
If I were to vouch for a DE that is rock stable, it would be Cinnamon. I’ve never had any problems with Cinnamon. It’s not super pretty, and it’s a bit clunky, but if I want a DE that just works and gets out of my way, Cinnamon is my first choice.
It’s what I use for my business laptop, LMDE with Cinnamon, rock solid.
I should also add that I’ve always used fully AMD hardware, CPU and GPUs, and never brand new. Always a year or two old, so the Linux kernel has time to address bleeding edge bugs and such.
I think we have to step back once in a while to get a wider perspective.
Both GNOME and Plasma are not just simply desktops. Oh no. They are entire stacks, complete with SDKs, for the user and desktop applications to use. They are orchestrated collections of libraries, services and apps, that together combine to make huge projects.
All of this requires contributions, all of this requires developer time. And in this economy? Open source is taking a kick to the pants.
You also got feature creep and tech debt galore, as well as needing to replace various bits and pieces when things become outdated, deprecated and unmaintainable.
Let’s put it plainly though: there’s a reason GNOME is reorganising, and why it’s all about the money, dum-dum-didi-dum-dum. I think that it would be great if GNOME managed to restructure to facilitate more developer time, because the lofty goals they have set means having to put some elbow grease in it. The same goes for KDE.
Yes, it’s the funding issue again. It’s all about prioritization. With the economy being what it is, money doesn’t stretch that far anymore either.
With all this in mind, I think we should all show some appreciation for the good work of the folks who make GNOME and Plasma. We are given two great options, with each their approaches, that show us what true competition looks like, and they are really giving it their all - despite what some people may be saying.
We should do better to remind ourselves this
If you want stability you can choose Xfce. You’ll don’t need extensions because of easy configurability.
Man… I’m doing to switch to Linux full time soon. I really love the Windows 10 desktop interface. (Don’t judge me) It’s flat. It’s fast. It’s intuitive. It’s got good ergonomics.
KDE allows me to reproduce that to a certain point using third party extensions. However, KDE plasma has way, way too many configurable options. And I’ve had my whole interface break just by changing the themes to the ones provided by default. There’s too much stuff to configure. It breaks easily too and trying to come back often means nuking your whole home directory and start over. And when you go use someone else’s PC, you’re almost certain they’ve modified their desktop to a point you can’t even recognize anything.
Gnome is simple to a fault. What you see is what you get. The user is limited to what they can configure but your environment stays the same and you get the same experience from one PC to another. You know what to expect. And it just fucking works.
This is what Linux needs. One single user experience for all. It needs a champion to sell it to normal less tech savvy people. As much I love KDE and QT, Gnome is the way to go.
There’s also XFCE and LXQt, if you want simple, easy-to-use environments.
My elderly, non-techy mum has been using XFCE over a decade across three different distros (Mint, Xubuntu, Zorin) and her experience has been consistent all these years, with no major issues or complaints. If my mum can use Linux just fine - so can anyone else (who don’t have any specific/complex hw/sw requirements that is). I don’t see how much further intuitive it needs to get.
KDE, Gnome, XFCE, LXQt etc all have their own place and audience. There’s no need to have one experience for all - in fact, that would be a huge detriment, because you can never satisfy everyone with a one-size-fits-all approach. Take a look at Windows itself as an example - the abomination that was the Start Menu in Windows 8 (and the lack of the start button) angered so many, to the point that Microsoft had to backtrack some of those design decisions. Then there was the convoluted mess of Metro and Win32 design elements in Win 10, and finally the divisive new taskbar in Win11… you’re never going to make everyone happy. And this is where Linux shines - all the different DEs and WMs offer a UX that suits a different audience or requirements. And we should continue to foster and encourage the development of these environments. Linux doesn’t need to be like Windows.
What I’m saying is, Linux needs a champion. It needs a default DE to be the face of Linux everywhere if we want to advertise it and make it to mainstream. Too many different options will confuse people.
If you want your environment to be consistent between desktops, keep it mostly stock. The default KDE themeing and setup is pretty damn similar to Windows 10, and I’ve kept it stock ever since I started using it ~1 ½ years ago.
Sure. But the problem with KDE is just how much stuff you can configure. It’s too much and it’s prone to breaking things.
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KDE is for Kids. GNOME is for Grownups.
I cannot even begin to describe what a dumb take this is. I really hope i’s satire
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*he says as GNOME is literally THE desktop to go against EVERY OTHER DESKTOP on Wayland issues and to keep on delaying major fixes further for bullshit reasons. Delaying or not adding features users want, for ideological reasons is the exact reason that Wayland is still not ready even though development started in 2008.
“KDE is for kids”
No, KDE is for people who want a desktop which is “Simple by default, powerful when needed”. Or people who simply prefer it.
I also like how you compare DE performance and decide KDE is worse than Gnome? Like what? Are you stuck on KDE4?
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5.3 and 5.6 are both ancient :/
I’ve been running KDE for years.
On a:
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Thinkpad T400 (2009, 2.3GHz dual core)
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Toshiba Satellite (2009, 1.2(?)GHz single core)
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HP Pavilion (unknown year, model, clock speed)
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Framework 13 (2020, 4.9GHz hexa core)
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AMD A10-7700K desktop (3.4GHz quad core)
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AMD Ryzen 3 2200G (3.6GHZ quad core)
With the compositor enabled.
These all ran it smoothly. The only slow part was the loading on some of these machines.
And KDE is absolutely usable by default, it resembles a Windows desktop.
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KDE Plasma 5.6 is from 2016, genius. It is very old.
5.27 is the current version Debian is on.
And I’ve run KDE Plasma on a lot of hardware, a lot of it very old, and it’s been fine, if with slightly slow loading times (I daily drove that single-core potato I mentioned for about a year on Plasma).
I’m very sorry it felt sluggish for you but that’s likely down to your specific hardware configuration, drivers, GPU vendor + display server combo, etc. Plasma is not that bad for most people. You just got unlucky.
EDIT: Actually, if you actually somehow installed 5.6 on modern Debian with modern Qt frameworks etc, that could be why it was so slow. Could have been a fucked install.
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An integrated GPU isn’t great, but it should run alright still. I think I disabled the dedicated GPU on the Thinkpad I was running and it still ran smoothly.
I don’t know what your circumstances were with your specific laptop, but to paint KDE as, well, shit, just because it ran badly when you tried it is not cool. Especially in the face of other people who have had fine performance on the slowest of potatoes.
Maybe your CPU’s iGPU is a poor bin, maybe you ran up against a bug in something which fucked performance, maybe your HDD was failing or just slow (if it was mechanical), who knows? Point is your one laptop is not representative of all laptops.
Display server = Xorg/Wayland, not the monitor…
Is there any particular reason you felt the need to resort to insults? I like KDE for a reason, because it does what I want and it runs well. I’m not blindly devoted to it like it’s some kind of religion. Hell, I actually prefer GTK as a library over Qt due to it’s C-based nature and I used to daily drive Cinnamon, then MATE.
KDE release nomenclature is also easy. Higher number = newer.
I… know the Plasma 6 release is new? Why is that relevant? We’re both talking about Plasma 5, and Plasma 6 is basically just mega-improved Plasma 5 anyways.
You know what, if you want, tomorrow I’ll get you a video of Plasma running on my single core 1GHz potato laptop if you like.
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Gnome does break extensions from time to time. They extension developers just fix it.
Gnome is not a good fit for everyone. KDE is good for people who want high levels of customization and Xfce4 is good for people who want a simple configurable desktop.
There is also gnome soft forks like Cinnamon that try to create a Win 7 feel. My point is Gnome is good for me and others but it doesn’t work for everyone. To say it is the only option is wrong.
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Pano clipboard broke
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Gnome 43 is old at this point. That’s why nothing breaks.
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The only time extensions break is when the release is very new or when an extension is not maintained
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That’s not a design goal of Plasma. They add features instead of fixing the existing ones. Its a little better now but KDE is just not what I want a computer to be.
At least they don’t remove perfectly good ones 🤷♂️
