Gnome has a completely different workflow than KDE. Gnome is the reason why I use Linux. If I had to use KDE I would stay with Windows, the workflow has the same logic, is almost the same, except that with Windows I have no restrictions with applications.
Can you explain that? How is the workflow like Windows?
All I can see is some superficially Windows like defaults (good for newbies) in the initial look.
KDE has a lot of stuff very different from Windows - or at least Windows at the time I switched. Transparent sftp in all applications, highly customisable (I currently use window tiling, have a small icon only task switcher I hard use, window titles in the panel, I use multiple desktops, KRunner to launch/switch apps.....), very different file managers from windows, a excellent text editor that integrates nicely with everything else.
I agree, especially when it comes to window management and virtual desktops. I have been running Linux desktop since the late 90s and used A LOT of different desktops and window managers. I remember when gnome 2 came out and everyone hated it! (sound familiar?)
For work, I have my desktop running gnome and I have a macbook that I also use when traveling or at the office. I find my productivity on mac os drops with its absolutely terrible window management and terrible virtual desktop implementation. I instead run fedora in a UTM VM fullscreen and only use mac as a "host" for the VM.
Gnome (with version 3) required a change in how you use it as a desktop. In gnome 2 days, I used to have a grid of virtual desktops and maybe always assigned email to 1, chat to 2, etc. The task bar was heavily used and important.
But with Gnome > 3, I really love the dynamic virtual desktops. Every task I am working gets is own virtual desktop. As I finish a task and close windows with that task, that virtual desktop goes away. If I have a long running multi-day task, that virtual desktop with windows associated with it stay open for that whole duration. Only things related to that task are on the virtual desktop. I might have 25 browser tabs open in total, but 3 of them are tied to a specific task on the firefox window on desktop 2, 5 are tied to another firefox window on desktop 5 and so on.
Everything is _very_ keyboard driven, and I don't ever touch a mouse to interact with gnome itself.
This makes task switching really nice. There is no need for a tab bar with 50 items on it, or a browser window with 50+ tabs open.
One thing I do miss from some of the older window managers, is the ability for the window manager to do grouping/tabbing. I'd prefer if now application implemented tabs, and instead the window manager did it.
It's great that it works for your workflow. The problem is that GNOME is very opinionated in that the workflows they enable are the right workflows for everyone, and resist any configurability that would actually make it usable for the rest of us.
Of course, one can always use a different DE, but there's always friction in not going with what the distro you're using picked as their default (and tends to support better in practice). I think a lot of GNOME hate is coming from the users who feel that a DE that does not adequately reflect their workflow is being pushed on them so aggressively by their distros.
There is likely no desktop environment that's more customisable while at the same time being full batteries included as KDE is. And I've probably tried them sll: Gnome, XFCE, Enlightenment, Cinnamon, Mate, i3wm...
If there's a flow you've grown accustomed to, you can most probably replicate that in KDE.
I use Gnome (and Sway, depending on which computer I'm on). I use Gnome because it works great with wayland, and I just need to get work done, and Gnome does a pretty alright job of staying out of the way. KDE's integration with Wayland feels too clunky for me at this point. Plus I get rendering artifacts on the edge of the screen when I use plasma with screen scaling.
I believe improving Wayland support was one of the major goals of Plasma 6. So if it was just the Wayland integration putting you off, then maybe consider trying Plasma again soon.
I experience some random visual bugs occasionally with Wayland, but yes generally it's decent. But I could understand if someone would want a more stable experience.
Isn't it great, that unlike Windows or Mac, we have a choice! We don't have to try to create something for the lowest common denominator of user, and we can find something that works really well for us, individually.
I like its simplicity and the straight forward workflow it provides. Years ago, I used to use KDE and enjoyed it but these days, I want something that is functional while being vanilla and standard as possible and personally, that's what GNOME gives me.
Fair enough. I guess I have a hard time understanding why you wouldn't be interested to make the workflow fit better for yourself on a device you spend hours per day using.
It's just a personal thing. I try to stick to using tools that provide me the best defaults + being open source. I don't want to spend time customizing my desktop or getting overwhelmed by the amount of different choices I have available. Don't get me wrong, KDE is a beautiful and great project, it's just that, a very personal thing.
I can't agree with this more and that's the beauty of KDE. If I'm sitting down using this thing 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, little niceties and optimizations go a long way to making me happy and productive. And it doesn't take very long to make these little tweaks.
You install a distro that includes Gnome. Did your distro choose not to package a taskbar extension? That’s a good hint your distro is not intended to be an end user distro.
Well it's not a hyperbole, my productivity would suffer immensely if I had to use GNOME. And since GNOME doesn't offer much customisation, I couldn't make it work better for me, which is why I use Plasma. That doesn't mean I hate GNOME or something and I'm glad it exists for the people who do like its approach.
In what ways does Gnome hamper your productivity? Are you really using the DE a lot?
Most of my day is spent in applications. I launch an application and that's where I'm spending my time. I'm not using the desktop environment all that much. I really don't find much difference working in Windows, macOS, KDE or Gnome or even iPadOS as far as interacting with the graphical environment goes.
Yes, absolutely. Perhaps not directly with the DE itself, but the DE affects how I work.
On Plasma, I have it set up so I have all title bars hidden and I use custom keybinds to close, minimize and maximize windows, which saves screen space and reduces clutter. On GNOME you cannot minimize windows at all if I remember correctly.
I have virtual desktops disabled and only use one desktop to manage all of my windows, while GNOME fundamentally works around using multiple virtual desktops as far as I know.
GNOME doesn't have a system tray, which I find essential. For example, I can see just by looking if Discord has an unread notification. Or I can close OBS to the system tray without quiting the application, which reduces visual clutter. I know you can add this with an extension, but I'm just referring to vanilla GNOME.
I often use KRunner to temporarily write something while still seeing the contents of my screen, while GNOME's equivalent is full screen I believe.
I'm sure there are many other ways, but these are the ones I can quickly think of.
> On GNOME you cannot minimize windows at all if I remember correctly.
This is incorrect. You can minimize windows on Gnome, but the button to do it is hidden by default. It can be re-enabled in Gnome Tweaks, and there is also a keyboard shortcut (Super+H) for minimizing.
Gnome is however indeed fairly workspace-centric.
As for customization, out of the box Gnome is quite rigid, but its extension ecosystem far surpasses that of KDE. You can use extensions on Gnome to for example get a dock or system tray back.
Oh, I didn't know that shortcut for minimizing. Is there a reason the button is hidden by default?
I never really understood how to efficiently use virtual desktops or what their benefits are compared to one desktop. Would you mind to explain?
Well, I would imagine that is because you generally only need extensions on KDE for niche things, while GNOME needs extensions for more 'basic' things. Obviously you don't need an extension for a system tray if one already exists by default.
> Is there a reason the button is hidden by default?
Because GNOME developers mindlessly pursue "minimalism" with religious zealotry, finding an outlet for their frustration of not being good enough to work for the Church of Apple.
I think I see one difference - I'm not trying to use each environment the same. My iPad wants everything to be full screen, so that's how I use it (although I have been playing with Stage Manager). Windows has good support for tiling now, so I use that. On Gnome I lean into the workspace stuff. KDE I don't know as well, so I use the mouse for just about everything.
I enjoy learning the ins and outs of the different environments and frankly I wish the differences ran even deeper. I often think about how fun it would be if Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, BeOS, SGI IRIX, OS/2, Sun CDE, and all the other systems were still being developed. But then the Electron / web app people would probably still try to pave over everything cool and unique on each system to run one mediocre app everywhere.
I understand that GNOME has a clear way how it wants you to use the desktop, but I don't like that way for the reasons I described. And it's not just a 'different' way, I feel like I lose functionality and flexibility in a lot of regards. Although, I guess it's hard to say for sure since I never used GNOME for an extended period of time.
That's the beauty of different systems. You always lose functionality no matter which way you switch. A Windows user might miss PowerShell + COM on Linux. A Linux user would miss having access to the filesystem on iOS. An iOS user misses the ubiquitous URL scheme for sharing code and data when they switch to Windows or Linux. I still miss Rexx and the object-oriented workplace shell of OS/2.
I'm sure if you gave GNOME an extended trial, you would adapt and find some things you actually prefer.
> This type of hyperbole is what feeds the DE wars.
You not liking something is not the same as it not being "usable." You simply don't like it as much.
Your comment would be a lot less interesting if it were written without hyperbole. It would simply be "I don't like GNOME as much as KDE." And no one would really care about that, it wouldn't be a notable comment.
You're the only one who takes this 'war' seriously. The rest of us here are adults who can appreciate all desktop environments, even if we don't personally like to use them.
My entire point is that both desktops can be appreciated for what they are. I can use KDE or GNOME, I just prefer GNOME. I would never call KDE unusable, because it works just fine for those who like it.
People who go around saying they "can't use GNOME" because it's "not customizable" without ever even trying would be the ones that are not appreciating all desktops, like an adult.
No one here said that GNOME shouldn't be appreciated. Just because I said GNOME is unusable for me personally doesn't mean I can't appreciate it.
I have tried GNOME before, thanks for your assumption, so I know for a fact it's less customisable than Plasma. But less customisation doesn't equal less value anyways, so I don't even know what your point is.
> except that with Windows I have no restrictions with applications.
what you do get with windows is a UI that changes, resets, and ignores your previous customizations with every os update, which you cannot stop/prevent. even group policy hacks and regedits wont always save you. LTSC is apparently a thing but you cannot pay anyone money to actually get that license as an individual user.
dark patterns to prevent users from creating offline, local-only accounts. you have to yank the ethernet cable now during initial setup to get the option not to log in to your ms cloud account? (or some insane nonsense like that)
plus more cloud services that i didnt ask for with each update, more things bloating ram and disk/cpu on startup, more telemetry. and ads. always. more. ads. ads in the browser, ads in the start menu, ads in the widgets.
windows decided one day to auto-update and fuck up my linux dual boot setup.
after more than two decades of windows following DOS, i couldnt do it any more with this omnipresent Windows SaaS shit.
tried Mint and Manjaro for a while, then switched to EndeavourOS + KDE/Plasma and never looked back. everything is just faster on linux and nothing changes out from under me in the past 3 years of daily rolling updates.
I honestly love the variety of options, everyone can find something suitable for themselves!
Personally, XFCE is a good fit for me often (especially on older devices), or maybe something like Cinnamon since it mostly gets out of the way and lets me work. Then again, I also enjoyed Unity when it was the default in Ubuntu, unlike a lot of folks hah.
