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 GNOME.
Great wallpaper. This is the original artist: https://www.deviantart.com/arsenixc
Yes! There are several variations of it and I use dwall to change them according to daytime.
Now you’re making me wish Mike Ferrari would port Living Worlds to a KDE wallpaper plugin.
I enjoy having dynamic wallpapers from this package.
Kde, let me change everything every time I get bored instead of switching to a whole different WM.
Valid!
Yeah, but it still bloated KDE anyways.
On other side - if you like it, stick with it.
I did a pretty selective install, with the bare minimum and installed only what I needed after. So no bloat here. At least I use every piece of software I intended to have installed. But I get what you mean, a basic kde install with all meta packages is pretty heavy
long time i3 user, now switched to sway
I’ve seen people mention Sway every once in a while. What’s the benefit over i3 if you don’t mind me asking?
it comes down to wayland, i3 only supports Xorg, sway only supports wayland.
as far as features goes sway was built to be pretty much a drop in replacement for i3 with a few improvements.
Well, the benefit is Sway being on Wayland which is slowly but surely replacing Xorg (i3 is on Xorg). Xorg is in maintenance mode now and Wayland is being actively developed. I think Wayland can be considered the default now, since major DEs like KDE and Gnome have switched to it. One thing that gets mentioned a lot when talking about the benefits of Wayland (and therefore Sway) is better multi-monitor compatibility. So if you’re running i3wm with two or more displays (running with different frame rates) you might want to switch to Sway or anything running on Wayland.
Wayland
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.
XFCE is also very light on resources and it looks better than LXDE so I always install XFCE on old laptops.
Arch now has a guided installer that makes it just as easy as any other distro
Oh it’s using calamares now? That’s my idea of guided!
I have Plasma installed on my Arch based installation, but I hardly use it since I also have i3 installed which I adore.
My i3 setup looks very similar to my Plasma setup, I prefer window managers because they are more productive to use.
I have tried tiling WM’s but they are not for me. KDE Plasma offers the right balance of customisability, look consistency and features to always come back on top again. It’s been my go-to desktop environment since KDE3.
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
Lol read this comment first then understood the last sentence after a short stroll. Take my up vote!
I’m surprised you mentioning that after I only sent that twenty times :-D
Hah! Lemmy.world issues maybe?
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.
I just started using sway as well! Care to share any tips, tricks, or your favorite config snippets?
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.
XFCE on Arch…been using it for years.
i3 with dmenu and polybar. Such a great and efficient setup for school and work, love it.
That’s the setup I tried to get used to. I miiight still have it, although it was on my testing VM so I think I have reinstalled since then
I just jumped up on the Hyprland band wagon (4 weeks ago). Very pleased with it so far!
I just use GNOME with a few extensions. Works fairly well for me.
KDE on Mandrake/SuSE back when they were on version 1/2, GNOME on Debian/Ubuntu until 2016, a little bit of Enlightenment for the quirky days, XFCE instead of Enlightenment when I had to do actual work on a lighter machine, and now have been using GNOME daily for 4-5 years. For me it’s customizable enough, and I prefer the design to KDE these days (KDE has too many different margins and paddings for me to handle).
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Longtime cinnamon user here. I’ve also spent significant time in i3, plasma, and mate on variously specced systems. I’ll probably end up switching to gnome at some point though, whenever I finally commit to de-xorgifying my pc.
