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Plasma is rock solid. Yes, you can break it. And that is called freedom.
If you don't install 30 third party widgets and themes, you'll be FINE, while still being able to make it yours.
That is why I always choose KDE Plasma (we'll see when Cosmic comes).
I love it but I definitely wouldn't call it rock solid. I have occasional small bugs here and there and especially with the Plasma 6 switch I've had the whole desktop going down (and taking all programs with it). That has been fixed though.
It is way to overwhelming for me personally. I need something that isn't distracting.
If Xfce gets good Wayland support maybe I'll try it for fun at some point.
I was not satisfied with Plasma because I would have different window styles etc. With Plasma 6 I removed all themes and all the shit and customized it with builtin features only. It looks so nice and clean and just works like a charm.
ITT: people make up fake desktop war drama between gnome, KDE, and window managers
Listen, its FOSS. Gnome and KDE can have different design philosophys, if they didn't why even be different. You can mix and match what you want and need from both quit a bit. The devs do!
All software has bugs, if your not paying devs or summited merge requests all you can do is ask nicely and fill helpful bug reports.
ITT: people make up fake desktop war drama between gnome, KDE, and window managers
Happens every time. Someone has a criticism of Plasma and the Reddit/Lemmy comment sections devolve into "well Gnome = bad"
This is a submission about KDE and most of the comments are just a circlejerk about hating Gnome. It's pathetic.
I don't understand people who are so emotionally triggered by a DE they don't even use.
Kinda rich dissing KDE for its "unstability" and putting GNOME as its paradigm, the very DE well known to break every major version.
Sometimes this kind of posts/"content" make me feel like I must be the only person in the world who hasn't had major issues with KDE and it's been absolutely flawless lately, specially since 5 - but I then realize people without issues don't complain. It's the people who have issues with something that make the noise and make it a very big deal (and I'd argue most cases are of the PEBCAK type).
If the need is for something simple and stable I'd shoot for something like Xfce - but putting GNOME as the example of "stability" is nothing but laughable.
GNOME doesn't break, extensions do.
They're literally ignoring specs.... and also most of the features of gnome are the extensions, so I'd count that.
If most of the features you use are gnome extensions you shouldn't be using gnome. There are plenty of other desktops that would meet your needs better.
Most? I don't think that someone who installs Dash to Panel would say most of their features are extensions, just some essential ones. I feel like you could go as far as "If any essential features you use are gnome extensions you shouldn't be using gnome."
Okay, I agree with that. CSD/SSD is a great example
Its not as bad as some people make it
Gnome has been rock solid for me and I've only had a handful of issues in over 5 years on Fedora.
Gnome focuses on reliability while KDE focuses on innovation
From my personal experience having used primarily Gnome and KDE, KDE plasma always seems to have weird quirks and bugs upon first install that require fiddling and Google searching or waiting for them to be patched.
I've been using KDE on Fedora for work for a few years now. Several system upgrades staeting from Fedora 36. Recently upgraded to plasma 6 and fedora 40. It is rock solid and very reliable.
And i do use alot of widgets, 3rd party apps, flatpaks, etc.
Plasma has been pretty stable for the last several years I've been using it, especially X11. Wayland is buggier, but not terribly so, and it gets better all the time.
I've switched over to Wayland with Plasma now because it is stable enough for me now, I'm on Nobara.
I don't really use Gnome, so I can't speak to that experience.
If I were to vouch for a DE that is rock stable, it would be Cinnamon. I've never had any problems with Cinnamon. It's not super pretty, and it's a bit clunky, but if I want a DE that just works and gets out of my way, Cinnamon is my first choice.
It's what I use for my business laptop, LMDE with Cinnamon, rock solid.
I should also add that I've always used fully AMD hardware, CPU and GPUs, and never brand new. Always a year or two old, so the Linux kernel has time to address bleeding edge bugs and such.
I think we have to step back once in a while to get a wider perspective.
Both GNOME and Plasma are not just simply desktops. Oh no. They are entire stacks, complete with SDKs, for the user and desktop applications to use. They are orchestrated collections of libraries, services and apps, that together combine to make huge projects.
All of this requires contributions, all of this requires developer time. And in this economy? Open source is taking a kick to the pants.
You also got feature creep and tech debt galore, as well as needing to replace various bits and pieces when things become outdated, deprecated and unmaintainable.
Let's put it plainly though: there's a reason GNOME is reorganising, and why it's all about the money, dum-dum-didi-dum-dum. I think that it would be great if GNOME managed to restructure to facilitate more developer time, because the lofty goals they have set means having to put some elbow grease in it. The same goes for KDE.
Yes, it's the funding issue again. It's all about prioritization. With the economy being what it is, money doesn't stretch that far anymore either.
With all this in mind, I think we should all show some appreciation for the good work of the folks who make GNOME and Plasma. We are given two great options, with each their approaches, that show us what true competition looks like, and they are really giving it their all - despite what some people may be saying.
We should do better to remind ourselves this
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If you want stability you can choose Xfce. You'll don't need extensions because of easy configurability.
It was stable for awhile, but I'm having issues with freezing now.