mister_monster on Nostr: So I got the opportunity for reasons I'd rather not rehash to test out some DEs on ...

So I got the opportunity for reasons I'd rather not rehash to test out some DEs on EndeavorOS today. I've been building my own environment for a long time and haven't tried any of them out in years, some in over a decade. My opinion on them all was basically outdated, I figured I'd write a little review on them for you guys looking to hop into Linux as a desktop or having just started.

First I'll start with the biggest disappointment: KDE Plasma. It sounds good on paper: polished, light on resources, modern, Wayland native. But the damn thing wouldnt stop getting in my way. Kwallet? File extension enforcement on a Unix compliant system? Commonly used buttons hidden by default. Kludgy animations. Just all round insane defaults, making choices for the user that a sane user would never choose, the thing wants you to operate KDE and not your machine. I will never recommend KDE again.

Tried MATE. Just as good as GNOME 2 back in the day, which is a double edged sword. It's just missing a bunch of more modern stuff that makes life easier. No text search in the applications menu. No icon only window panel view. A few little bugs I don't remember in it the last time I tried it. And it was fucking huge compared to every other one I tried, and ate the most RAM.

Tried Budgie. Never tried that one before. It was cool. Light, intuitive, there were a couple of quirks, such as needing to right click on "tray" utilities to get to menus. If you like it you like it. I found it's animations made it feel more viscous to use.

Then I tried Cinnamon. I hadn't used it since the year it came out, I tried it out and switched to MATE, it just didn't seem very good. Boy has that changed. It is by far the best DE I have used, ever. The only bad thing I have to say about it is that the warning and prompt dialogs are a little jarring, the whole screen dims, very attention grabbing and focus breaking. But otherwise a very, very fluid experience, lightweight, snappy, sane defaults and customization options, as of right now I've got nothing else bad to say about it.

Before today the only one I still really liked was XFCE, but I stopped liking it because it is heavier than KDE (!) and every dozen updates or so it is certain to break something. Maybe that's changed too. I don't have the time to try it again.

I stopped using DEs a few years ago when I decided to take the dive into wayland and tiling and all that, and I'd never go back for my own environment, but for people used to a mouse and are used to windows and just want to install something and start using it, I've got to recommend something. That something is no longer KDE. It is going to be Cinnamon, from now until a decade later when I try stuff out again.