this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2026
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Often times when there was a big new update for GNOME, I'd try it out, decide I still don't like the concept and go back to plasma.
I don't get the appeal of that desktop. Even the tiniest changes need gnome-tweaks? Why isn't that stuff part of the base settings? But ok. You can't ungimp GNOME. The usage concept is baked into it. Fine. But why?
I mean there must be people who want this and nothing else, otherwise people wouldn't use it.
I like GNOME's workflow, more importantly it breaks less often than KDE does for me. My fiance's computer uses KDE because it has a more Windows-like UI, it's also the one that runs into weird graphical glitches and issues.
Examples, we plugged the new TV into it to watch something recently, since then the lock screen started glitching the fuck out having two different clocks flickering overtop of each other, even back on the original monitors.
New headphones didn't work right away because it had defaulted to an incompatible audio stream, changing it was buried under three different menus... we knew it wasn't the headphones because they worked fine with my computer, using GNOME. I've never had to dig through settings like that to use headphones with any other OS or desktop environment, but I did with KDE.
From the sheer amount of people that recommend KDE I have to assume that for most people it works, and that's great. My experience is that it's buggy and fiddly to use, GNOME for me is not. It's what I use on my main computer so that I don't have to troubleshoot stupid shit when I get off work. I like the less cluttered UI and the multi-desktop focused layout, plus it feels WAY more polished than KDE which has always felt jank to me.
For me it kinda always went something like this:
"Hey can I have window labels on my taskbar? And maybe quicklaunch. Also can I type in paths in the file manager?"
KDE: "Sure no prob."
GNOME: "You are an enemy of Christ."
I don't really like to talk about it on here because people are very hostile towards GNOME and its users, but I used it (extensionless, tweakless) for about 4 years up until recently. Very comfy and efficient workflow in my opinion. I think a lot of people don't take the time to understand how it works, they get frustrated and want their alt-tabbing and minimizing back. Either way I don't really care. No emotional attachment to any DE, and I use neither GNOME nor Plasma right now.
What do you use currently? I've been using GNOME for a few years now, but I like to try new things (then switch back to GNOME, naturally.)
Currently using niri. It's not easy to explain, but you could say it takes GNOME's concept of infinite horizontal workspaces and applies it to individual windows.
That's one I've been meaning to try out. Do you use Niri with Noctalia or some other Quick Shell implementation with it? I've been looking at Noctalia and DMS.
Yeah, I briefly tried out Noctalia, Caelestia and DMS and chose DMS. They all feel a bit too bloated for me, but on this PC I can't be bothered to setup all the utilities manually. It has worked just fine but I can unfortunately feel the QT framework.
Because putting QoL improvements and having an effective workflow behind a bunch of plugins that break on the tiniest Gnome update is all part of the user experience I guess. I've given it several tries over the past 20 years or so, but each attempt eventually ended in utter disappointment.
I don't believe you. Gnome 2 was pretty much universally loved (hence the existence of Cinnamon, which is a direct descendant), and people were pissed about the tablet-oriented Gnome 3. You'd know this if you used Gnome 20 years ago.
As KDE user, Gnome 2 was the best Gnome has ever been, (Cinnamon is a good offspring of it though). I used the carp out of it. I cried and drank myself to sleep for days after Gnome 3 replaced it.
I have even bigger hopes for COSMIC. If DE any can run a black sword through Gnome 3, it will be COSMIC.
Well, my apologies for misremembering the exact Gnome 3 launch date. Turns out that was 15 years ago instead of 20. You caught me red-handed sir.
I used gnome then, when Ubuntu would send you free CDs and GNOME was poo-flavoured. It was harder to set things up then, and I kind of see why people gave up and used some hack of the windowing kit from GIMP. Much has happened it 20 years though. KDE got worse (imho, but we have Trinity), GNOME stayed worse, and Linux became easy and mainstream.
I guess I'm one of the few people who matches gnome pretty well. I actually appreciate that the default is 90% of what I need, and don't mind if the last 10% is maintained outside of the core project. Scope creep and all that.
You don't even have a reliable way to keep track of your disk usage anymore. That was the final drop for me when they removed "Other locations" where I could see how much space was left. The Disk Usage Analyzer app is a complete mess and don't give an easy "you got 10 gigs left mate." I had to resort to the terminal to get good accurate measures. Now I have a percentage in my taskbar in Plasma.
GNOME used to be good until version 2. Then the developers went insane and all subsequent versions of GNOME feel like they've been designed by someone who has never worked in his life.
Honestly I am on gnome, because I do not know shit about linux. I did not even know what gnome or plasma were, when I started, barely still understand the difference even now. I just picked some distros that were recommended for a total noob coming from windows, and stuck with the one I liked the best.
My conspiracy theory is that it is pushed so much by Red Hat because they have optimized it to be as boring and distraction free as possible to increase productivity in an enterprise context. It is useless outside of that.
That's what I like about it. I use my computer to use applications and it gets out of the way.
kde plasma does not get in your way, though
Not that I don't understand this in general, I just find it harder to actually do normal computer stuff I do. No dock, very little info in the top taskbar. That's why I said an enterprise context specifically. You'll usually open an app or two and leave it at that, maybe occasionally switch desktops to go to your second of 2 apps. Anything more than that is actively a pain. And why not ALLOW changes that don't rely on plugins? That's what really gets me. Maybe the devs believe in the maximizing of space, but then just auto hide the dock by default like macOS or even just turn it off by default instead of not even including it? That's the part that gets to me. And it is sure not using that lack of features to optimize responsiveness or lower storage size. It's the most thicc DE out there.
Different strokes for different folks, I guess.
For me the info I want is behind the Super key. Show open apps? Super. Show the dock? Super. Search? Super. Mostly I use the dock for occasionally opening the Apps menu or the System Menu to connect something Bluetooth or change network settings. I agree it could go, but then any casual users might get lost looking at an entirely blank screen.
GNOME is very opinionated about the desktop design, which maybe explains the plugin situation, why they were the first(?) to drop X11 etc. And there's always KDE, XFCE and others.
I didnt try KDE and only used GNOME and XFCE, but i guess it's easy and clean side. I immediately get a hold of most applications, and everything feels polished without touching anything. And when i want to get something specific, i'm generally fine with complex tweakings, so the weird ways of finetuning it don't really bother me.