5 ms·

Just switched over from gnome. Overall, I'm happy. Gnome is configurable, but in a way that isn't really well integrated. It seems buggy to me, but I think it'

Just switched over from gnome. Overall, I'm happy. Gnome is configurable, but in a way that isn't really well integrated. It seems buggy to me, but I think it's because my preferences aren't standard. For instance, I like having my dock on the left, and I like top bar stuff to be in the dock, so the dock is the only thing that can take up screen space, and I like the dock to disappear when I'm not using it. Simple, right? Can't do it in the regular configuration. Can do part of it in tweaks, which is a separate configuration app, but then some of it requires extensions. So, that's 3 places to go to What's it called when hiding complexity makes it more complex? So, that gets me there, but then the dock fails to hide half the time on zoom calls. And when I unlock the screen, I can see the empty space where the top bar used to be for a quick flash before the full sized app window goes back to where I left it. So far, I don't have those issues with KDE. I don't like the annoying and krappy branding with the launcher icon and more than half the apps having a K in the name, but you can change the launcher icon and use whatever apps you want.

kccqzy 1y ago
> Can do part of it in tweaks, which is a separate configuration app, but then some of it requires extensions. I'm not sure why you think requiring extensions is a bad idea. I have tried out at least 20 GNOME extensions (and kept maybe a third), and I appreciate the flexible underlying architecture to allow extensions to flourish. With extensions, the same GNOME can have Windows XP style taskbars or Mac-style docks or i3-style tiling or anything in between. Certainly it would be a more refined experience if the core developers took care of every single possible customization users could want under the sun, but at some point it's more effective to outsource that to other developers. Either that or you end up with Apple-style highly uncustomizable experience designed by a UX designer, which is not what I want. Extensions are a pragmatic choice.
- cosmic_cheese 1y ago
  Supporting extensions is great, but it needs to be done properly. GNOME doesn’t provide a proper extension API which forces devs to muck with GNOME internals, which makes extensions much more flakey than they need to be and causes them to break every other GNOME release.
- mcdonje 1y ago
  Extensibility can be nice, but the experience has a lot of friction. If you want something that isn't bog standard, you need to get or make an extension. Making one is more work than what I can do from basic configuration settings in KDE. I want to spend my time on other projects. The marketplace suffers from the same problems as most marketplaces. Plenty of unmaintained extensions. No guarantees of quality. Now I need to do research on extensions instead of just changing a configuration setting. The existence of extensions allows gnome devs to figure they don't have to support basic features because someone will make an extension for it. Extension configurations don't live in the same place as standard configurations. The experience is fragmented and has friction.
  - pmontra 1y ago
    Well, I never wanted something standard so I always configured my desktop. My current GNOME desktop looks more like KDE than GNOME. I gave a try to KDE in 2014. It seems that it has been the wrong time to be there. I switched to GNOME Flashback (the one that looked like GNOME 2) and updated to 3 only when there has been the right extensions to make the desktop look like what I want it to be. Neither Apple nor Microsoft figured out what I want, so I use something else. Actually Microsoft have been closer to that with XP and 7 but it's Windows. I migrated to Linux in 2009.
- andrea76 1y ago
  I've used gnome for 7 years in Fedora. Often certain extensions stopped working betweenv after Fedora big upgrades (i.e. from 32 to 33). The JavaScript engine that runs extensions had many memory leaks bugs so I had to kill the gnome-shell process on a TTY session. After 7 years I was fed up and switched to KDE and never looked back
- kokada 1y ago
  The last time I used Gnome as my primary desktop (that was still in the Gnome 3 days) extensions broke at every update. I was still using Arch Linux at the time, so it was annoying because every ~6 months a few of my extensions would be broken for 1~2 weeks. AFAIK Gnome extensions still doesn't have a stable API, so this issue is still present today.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- leleat 1y ago
  The problem is that the extension experience can be really bad. There is no extension API; instead Extensions have (almost) full access to GNOME Shell's code. This makes them incredibly powerful and flexible... but also fragile. Extensions can crash GNOME Shell/mutter. On Wayland that means your entire session goes down with GNOME Shell. Extensions can interfere with each other, and if you are an extension developer, you may need to update (or at least check) your extension every 6 months (GNOMEs release cycle).
  - skydhash 1y ago
    Extension lives in the same memory space as the shell, so it’s up to the developer to restrict themselves to not touch internal API. Also, GNOME give you plenty of warning in the changelog (and the changes are usually small).
- codr7 1y ago
  They also make the core more complicated; what I have seen of Gnome internals is pretty messy imo. There's no free lunch in software, every choice is some kind of compromise.
import 1y ago
I also don’t like the branding and icons tbh but it brings a lot consistency in terms of overall experience.
politelemon 1y ago
When you say switched from gnome, is it on the same os?
- mcdonje 1y ago
  Yes, debian. Although I had previously been using gnome on other distros, like ubuntu.
- nixosbestos 1y ago
  Yes, changing distros to change DEs is simply nonsensical behavior. If one's distro doesn't support multiple DEs then it's probably time to reconsider if taking reddit's advice on the ArchLinux-spin of the quarter is actually a good idea.
  - matheusmoreira 1y ago
    > ArchLinux-spin of the quarter What's the point of this? People should just use the real Arch Linux.
    - ahartmetz 1y ago
      Not sure what the point is, but "creating your own OS" by forking Debian / Ubuntu / Fedora / Arch and changing the wallpaper (only slightly hyperbolic) still seems to be somewhat popular. One of the best outcomes was RebeccaBlackOS, which ended up being an early testbed for Wayland on the desktop.
robertfw 1y ago
KDE won me over for the simple fact that it's highly configurable, and that configuration is all driven out of one UI tool. Gnome drove me nuts with molding it into the shape I wanted.
- xedrac 1y ago
  My only problem is it seems to be buggy still. I just tried it on Fedora 42, and I configured the panel to my liking. Now I cannot get the panel to auto hide or dodge windows, no matter what I try. sigh
unilynx 1y ago
I think the 'K-thing' was a big and helpful part of getting early volunteers onboard to build apps for KDE. They really seemed to enjoy rebuilding existing applications into a K-version. So I guess you just have to live with it, but consider it a way to honor the original contributors who build all the K(DE)-versions of the common apps
Synaesthesia 1y ago
I feel the exact same way about the dock. That's.one thing I like about Ubuntu, their dock just makes sense for me. It's on the left by default and always visible (which is how I like it). But of course you can have it auto-hide. Fun fact about Linux "docks". The reason why they can't do the exact effect Apple uses to auto-scale their dock on mouseover is that Apple patented that particular effect.
donatj 1y ago
I ran Linux for a time in the late aughts and came to prefer Gnome to KDE at the time because it just felt more polished. I switched to macOS for many years now, but recently started playing with Linux again on a Thinkpad I got a deal on. Modern Gnome feels unreasonably uncomfigurable without extra tooling, and even with it the options I want are difficult to make work correctly. I want my window controls on the left, and I want global menu. This was pretty standard and reliable in Gnome ten-fifteen years ago but now both options barely work. What the heck happened. Both of these worked pretty flawlessly in Unity. I'm still pissed at Ubuntu for killing it.

kccqzy 1y ago

> Can do part of it in tweaks, which is a separate configuration app, but then some of it requires extensions. I'm not sure why you think requiring extensions is a bad idea. I have tried out at least 20 GNOME extensions (and kept maybe a third), and I appreciate the flexible underlying architecture to allow extensions to flourish. With extensions, the same GNOME can have Windows XP style taskbars or Mac-style docks or i3-style tiling or anything in between. Certainly it would be a more refined experience if the core developers took care of every single possible customization users could want under the sun, but at some point it's more effective to outsource that to other developers. Either that or you end up with Apple-style highly uncustomizable experience designed by a UX designer, which is not what I want. Extensions are a pragmatic choice.

cosmic_cheese 1y ago
Supporting extensions is great, but it needs to be done properly. GNOME doesn’t provide a proper extension API which forces devs to muck with GNOME internals, which makes extensions much more flakey than they need to be and causes them to break every other GNOME release.
mcdonje 1y ago
Extensibility can be nice, but the experience has a lot of friction. If you want something that isn't bog standard, you need to get or make an extension. Making one is more work than what I can do from basic configuration settings in KDE. I want to spend my time on other projects. The marketplace suffers from the same problems as most marketplaces. Plenty of unmaintained extensions. No guarantees of quality. Now I need to do research on extensions instead of just changing a configuration setting. The existence of extensions allows gnome devs to figure they don't have to support basic features because someone will make an extension for it. Extension configurations don't live in the same place as standard configurations. The experience is fragmented and has friction.
- pmontra 1y ago
  Well, I never wanted something standard so I always configured my desktop. My current GNOME desktop looks more like KDE than GNOME. I gave a try to KDE in 2014. It seems that it has been the wrong time to be there. I switched to GNOME Flashback (the one that looked like GNOME 2) and updated to 3 only when there has been the right extensions to make the desktop look like what I want it to be. Neither Apple nor Microsoft figured out what I want, so I use something else. Actually Microsoft have been closer to that with XP and 7 but it's Windows. I migrated to Linux in 2009.
andrea76 1y ago
I've used gnome for 7 years in Fedora. Often certain extensions stopped working betweenv after Fedora big upgrades (i.e. from 32 to 33). The JavaScript engine that runs extensions had many memory leaks bugs so I had to kill the gnome-shell process on a TTY session. After 7 years I was fed up and switched to KDE and never looked back
kokada 1y ago
The last time I used Gnome as my primary desktop (that was still in the Gnome 3 days) extensions broke at every update. I was still using Arch Linux at the time, so it was annoying because every ~6 months a few of my extensions would be broken for 1~2 weeks. AFAIK Gnome extensions still doesn't have a stable API, so this issue is still present today.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
leleat 1y ago
The problem is that the extension experience can be really bad. There is no extension API; instead Extensions have (almost) full access to GNOME Shell's code. This makes them incredibly powerful and flexible... but also fragile. Extensions can crash GNOME Shell/mutter. On Wayland that means your entire session goes down with GNOME Shell. Extensions can interfere with each other, and if you are an extension developer, you may need to update (or at least check) your extension every 6 months (GNOMEs release cycle).
- skydhash 1y ago
  Extension lives in the same memory space as the shell, so it’s up to the developer to restrict themselves to not touch internal API. Also, GNOME give you plenty of warning in the changelog (and the changes are usually small).
codr7 1y ago
They also make the core more complicated; what I have seen of Gnome internals is pretty messy imo. There's no free lunch in software, every choice is some kind of compromise.

import 1y ago

I also don’t like the branding and icons tbh but it brings a lot consistency in terms of overall experience.

politelemon 1y ago

When you say switched from gnome, is it on the same os?

mcdonje 1y ago
Yes, debian. Although I had previously been using gnome on other distros, like ubuntu.
nixosbestos 1y ago
Yes, changing distros to change DEs is simply nonsensical behavior. If one's distro doesn't support multiple DEs then it's probably time to reconsider if taking reddit's advice on the ArchLinux-spin of the quarter is actually a good idea.
- matheusmoreira 1y ago
  > ArchLinux-spin of the quarter What's the point of this? People should just use the real Arch Linux.
  - ahartmetz 1y ago
    Not sure what the point is, but "creating your own OS" by forking Debian / Ubuntu / Fedora / Arch and changing the wallpaper (only slightly hyperbolic) still seems to be somewhat popular. One of the best outcomes was RebeccaBlackOS, which ended up being an early testbed for Wayland on the desktop.

robertfw 1y ago

KDE won me over for the simple fact that it's highly configurable, and that configuration is all driven out of one UI tool. Gnome drove me nuts with molding it into the shape I wanted.

xedrac 1y ago
My only problem is it seems to be buggy still. I just tried it on Fedora 42, and I configured the panel to my liking. Now I cannot get the panel to auto hide or dodge windows, no matter what I try. sigh

unilynx 1y ago

I think the 'K-thing' was a big and helpful part of getting early volunteers onboard to build apps for KDE. They really seemed to enjoy rebuilding existing applications into a K-version. So I guess you just have to live with it, but consider it a way to honor the original contributors who build all the K(DE)-versions of the common apps

Synaesthesia 1y ago

I feel the exact same way about the dock. That's.one thing I like about Ubuntu, their dock just makes sense for me. It's on the left by default and always visible (which is how I like it). But of course you can have it auto-hide. Fun fact about Linux "docks". The reason why they can't do the exact effect Apple uses to auto-scale their dock on mouseover is that Apple patented that particular effect.

donatj 1y ago

I ran Linux for a time in the late aughts and came to prefer Gnome to KDE at the time because it just felt more polished. I switched to macOS for many years now, but recently started playing with Linux again on a Thinkpad I got a deal on. Modern Gnome feels unreasonably uncomfigurable without extra tooling, and even with it the options I want are difficult to make work correctly. I want my window controls on the left, and I want global menu. This was pretty standard and reliable in Gnome ten-fifteen years ago but now both options barely work. What the heck happened. Both of these worked pretty flawlessly in Unity. I'm still pissed at Ubuntu for killing it.