I wanted to get a feel for everyone’s thoughts on desktop environments (or window managers if you don’t use a DE). I’m new to Lemmy, so apologies if this is too low-effort a post.
Personally I’m running KDE on my main computer, but I have an Arch virtual machine I use for more experimentation. That VM has seen KDE, i3, and will probably see hyprland at some point soon
I use a window manager, Openbox. It's great once you have your personal config file and shortcuts! Also, I can't be sure but I think @mutoroglin@feddit.nl recently switched to Hyperland lol
Gnome. It just seems simple, elegant and smooth. It does what I need from a DE (not that much, I do a lot in terminal and Emacs). It has good keybindings out of the box and good virtual desktop mechanisms. It was also the first DE with good Wayland support. At first I was unsure if I liked Gnome's concept and restrictions, but I've grown to like it fast.
I've switched to LXQt recently. I like KDE and use mostly Qt apps, but KDE itself has too many features I don't really need. So far so good, I can't say I miss anything.
I'm using xfce. It's on endeavros as I like to belong to the arch crowd without working with the lengthly set up from scratch.
I prefer xfce as anything of note is accessible with a few minor exceptions due to endeavros security concerns such as Bluetooth which requires a quick systemctl command.
I started off with it after discovering ubuntu and trying the xfce version. I liked it and went through a few distros including crunchbang with openbox but ultimately xfce is a very straightforward experience for me and fairly customisable. The only drawback is it doesn't look like some of the awesome screenshots I've seen of i3 or other tiling managers but as a teacher I don't do development or have that much knowledge to tinker so xfce is my go-to.
I used to build e17 / Enlightenment on Arch for years, was kinda cool and I learned a lot about building packages, but now I don't care anymore and I just use gnome. Or rather I'm using Firefox and a terminal and that's pretty much it. Oh and Gimp every once in a while. But most of the time it's fullscreen Firefox so who cares what de is behind it as long as it just works
Sway. I look around every few months but nothing usually, um, erm pendulates my interest. I have hyprland installed...but my config file breaks with every update, and it's rice first, function later. I'm an opposite-ricer. I like to strip all decorations.
Just keep the config file(s) handy and always be playing with them. Join IRC #sway@Libera. Oh...and you can use the majority of the i3wm docs outside of anything doing with output or input. While I love man pages...I prefer web content for my docs.
I enjoy gnome with the arcMenu extension https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/3628/arcmenu/
I will include usually some other extensions, but arcMenu is what makes the experience a lot better than the stock one for me.
I am a die hard Cinnamon guy. I used to like MATE and then I played with Linux Mint for a short while and Cinnamon became my thing. Cinnamon works really well in Arch too. I just wish that its window manager, Muffin, would support Wayland. I really want to drop xorg like a bad habit.
I'm not an Arch user (I stayed in Fedora because convenience at the time), but I use Qtile these days. I have my own little scripts for making the colorscheme the same as the wal colorscheme.
I use Cinnamon which is quite a niche I think, but I really like the minimalistic design. My main requirement for a DE is for it to not get into my way.