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.
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I’m just happy we have choice. Imagine if we could only choose one choice.
Yeah I appreciate how our 2 biggest desktop environments are so unique from each other. Imagine if we had just KDE and XFCE or Gnome 2 and enlightenment. We got multiple different desktop environments that go in entirely different directions and smaller desktop environments that make a sort of gradient in between as well.
I like it when developers think outside the box.
WTF ahaha
I never understood this as KDE is clearly much less clunky and less resource heavy than Gnome… until I realized that it is indeed more optimized for keyboard heavy and touchpad only input some people seem to prefer when using laptops.
I still can’t get my head around why anyone would voluntarily use a touchpad when they can connect a mouse to their laptop, but I have to conclude that these people exists and are probably better served by Gnome.
Connecting a mouse to a laptop is way less handy (no pun intended or wtv) than just using the built-in trackpad. Not only are the gestures nice, but using them isn’t bad at all, imo. External mice often need a mat, often have long cables that get in the way (though wireless is certainly becoming more popular), and in general take up more space, which kinda goes against the portability and readiness of laptops, mostly used in contexts where peripherals are not really something you can have.
I used to think the same until I broke my mouse and went without one for a while and ended up just sticking without one because its a lot more convenient than always bringing a mouse around having to find a good flat surface to use it on. I usually end up using my laptop on my lap or at a small desk where a mouse would be clunky and unnecessary.
I absolutely love KDE Plasma, but I’ve recently moved to Gnome after jumping around a bit and trying both.
On desktop too, but I started using workspaces and that changed my gnome experience entirely. I love the customizability of KDE but the limited nature of Gnome makes me stop tinkering. I have ADHD so I get into the tinkering and just endlessly do it and never get anything done at all.
That’s exactly the reason why I switched to Gnome. If someone would give me an axe and tell me to chop down a tree in 6 hours I would spend 18 hours sharpening the axe and forget about the tree. Whenever I try KDE, XFCE and others I will spend days adjusting things to my liking while on Gnome I just start working. Sometimes something bothers me on Gnome and I will either just install an extension, or realize it’s impossible to adjust it and I just go back to work.
You should try Apple stuff then. Go Nord Korea too if you like restrictions and limitations to just focus on work.
That’s an unproductive argument
What I’m saying is that just because Gnome is more limited doesn’t make it more productive… if you like customizing things you’ll spend time customizing it, if you don’t like customizing you can still get KDE with the default settings. That’s what I meant in a bad and exaggerated way. Also, Gnome addons sucks… I had so much problems and is a mess.
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.
The thing is, you can’t blame the desktop environment the lack of focus on your work. You can keep KDE defaul look and get used to it, getting yourself limitated sounds a excuse. You can lose the focus with anything on your room too and you are not going to live in a prision to focus on your daily tasks neither.
KDE and Gnome is getting better every year, each one is different and has different options and everything you want to argument but the lack of focus on your work is not because of the bunch of customization options.
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.
None of the points in the comment you replied is about the topic on root of the replies, I replied the two guys talking how they dislike KDE because they get distracted by customization. Go reply someone else if you want to say why KDE or Gnome is better, I don’t want to discuss this I was just saying why saying “I get distracted” is not a valid argument as you can keep KDE with default settings and you can get distracted by anything else on your physical room, “overwhelming” can be anything new to learn if you don’t know where the options are placed, and to do work and daily tasks you don’t need to configure anything on any distro with KDE. Plus KDE also has a system-wide dark mode. Again, I don’t want to discuss about why KDE or why Gnome, just test and use the most you like but don’t tell me KDE is distracting you from doing your daily tasks…
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.
I feel a bit repetitive but any KDE distro like manjaro already gives you a nice and working interface, I think it’s the same just KDE has more options, you have a search bar to find the options easily which gnome don’t have so KDE could be easier than gnome to find a option too. If you don’t want to customize your desktop environment you will not do even if it’s KDE, LXDE, XFCE, Gnome… and any desktop environment… for example, on my laptop I have KDE with just a blank bar on the top with the icons system try + apps opened. Nothing more… I use shortcuts to open rofi to open apps and more shortcuts to change between workspaces, it is more simple and fast than Gnome.
Imagine equating using software that doesn’t have much customizability compared to the alternative to North Korea. Some people get way too into this stuff, at the end of the day it’s just what you’re using on a computer and doesn’t matter.
My question to you is… really?