What's your favourite Linux/Unix DE/WM and why?

[HitCoder]

Feel free to discuss; if you're a WM user, I'm curious what WM, what extra stuff (like panels, etc) and why

I've been DE-hopping again over the past week and have been unhappy with everything i've tried. I eventually bit the bullet and actually gave Gnome a shot. not perfect but I can seemingly get it to do what I want a little better than the others, but it feels a little hacky in some places.

When I first started, I dived into KDE, which I used 2013/2014, and for a while I was using Zorin OS. I then moved to XFCE in around 2014 to 2016.

I used to use XFCE as it was the most solid and stable desktop I could find and stick with. It isn't the easiest to customize but if you're willing to get your feet wet then it's very customizable.

Over the years I grew unsatisfied with the feel of XFCE, it felt a little clunky and old. I tried budgie for a while as it seemed elegant and minimalist, but I know underlyingly it's just Gnome but stripped down with some different components; the panel is drawn with software and not hardware.

When I used Zorin (which was and still is (probably even moreso now) gnome-based) I found the desktop to be very unstable, which, was the main reason I was deterred from gnome. The second reason I've been deterred from gnome is that it seemed like it had the resource hog of KDE, but also lacked the customization. It seems a lot better now with all the extensions available (eg dash to dock, dash to panel, etc) and more stable, and I don't really want much from it that it can't offer anyway.

overall KDE and Gnome were the least stable desktop experiences I ever had, which is what made me just persevere with XFCE. I think that's why I was interested in Budgie but not interested in trying KDE or Gnome again.

Gnome and KDE seem far more stable now than they once were, and on both Manjaro KDE and Manjaro Gnome my ram usage averages ~3.5gb (with Firefox open, mind you), which, while not ideal, is way better than Windows hogging ~8gb for ""system""

I thought this would be an interesting thing to discuss

[time-killer-games]

I like Xfce and don't really like KDE so much anymore.

[HitCoder]

I come back to this after over a month to add my new thoughts.

It's funny you feel that way about it when KDE has incomprehendibly improved since way back when i used to use it. To the point where its performance is now on the same level as XFCE (but with a little more hardware acceleration), making it lighter than all of the other mainstream options.

And in my usage of it it's stability has improved IMMENSELY. I remember KDE's panels used to crash way back when whenever I tried to tweak anything to preference, making the "easy to customize" factor weighed down by how tedious it was.

My biggest gripe with it now is actually still the animations being slow and feeling sluggish by default, but you can increase the animation speed to do that (albeit I don't really want to, when Gnome and Cinnamon's animations feel snappy and smooth out of the box)

I think that specifically adds the effect of it feeling "flashy"; you're exposed to more effects and "fancy stuff" for longer, making you wait to get things done longer (though only by less than a second, but with workflow motions that are often expected instantaneously it makes things feel irritating)

I might actually be moving to KDE after all these years with XFCE. I don't see a reason to stick to XFCE when I can get the same performance but nicer visuals. The only issue now is the kwin memory leak on nvidia gpus 

[hpg678]

The type of system one has is the most important factor. No doubt that KDE is very attractive and sleek but it is bit of a resource hog.

Gnome is bloated and buggy. Tbh i hate the sidebar but i do get the idea of being 'different'.

By far XFCE is the most suited to use on all manner of systems, whether they be old or modern.

[HitCoder]

No doubt that KDE is very attractive and sleek but it is bit of a resource hog.

I know I'm extremely late to seeing this but that used to be the case but not so much any more.

KDE uses around 750mb of ram - with LatteDock installed mind you, which is 300mb ram overhead

XFCE uses around 500mb of ram for me, in comparison.

I'm happy with KDE ever since the extremely recent updates making it much more slimmed down and stable.

[hpg678]

No doubt that KDE is very attractive and sleek but it is bit of a resource hog.

I'm happy with KDE ever since the extremely recent updates making it much more slimmed down and stable.

truth be told, i haven't used KDE for years. It was always XCFE for me even when my system got upgraded. I am inspired to give it another go.