Linux

I recently started using KDE with i3 as the window manager - I've long been looking for a full-fleged DE with good window tiling, and KDE + i3 does that so well and is so easy to set up it's like they were made to work together. So I just use Kubuntu and add i3 on top of that, easy peazy

I probably switch what I'm using every few months. The thing I cannot live without though is tiling support, whether just inherent to the window manager I'm using or an extension, I find it painful to use a computer for anything serious without one now.

Currently using KDE with the Bismuth extension (Fedora Kinoite) which isn't perfect but not bad. I'm eyeing Hyprland up from afar but as an Nvidia user I have too many issues on Wayland at the moment.

I'm more of a window manager person myself (Qtile to be precise), and I imagine that's not really what you're looking for here, but DE-wise from what I've tried I like KDE and XFCE the most

I've been using i3 for the past 8 years or so, and can wholeheartedly recommend it (or it's cousin Sway if you're in Wayland-land) if you're into tiling window managers (there are dozens of us!). I find them invaluable for their keyboard-centric operation, and also massively sweet on ultrawide monitors. Light on resources and minimalistic too.

As far as distributions go, I've been on Arch for the past several years. I think there are some (unofficial) spins for most Linux flavours with i3 out-of-the-box.

I used XFCE for a long long time before I went to tiles, which is a decent more traditional Window Manager, with a more lean focus than some of the others. Fairly customizable. I still use some of the system apps from there from old habit.

I wouldn't get too tied up into what window manager is default in any given distribution. At least for me, part of the joy is finding a combination of software (including the desktop environment/Window Manager) that works for you specifically. And there are plenty of live CDs (or usb images now I guess) with various WMs that can be used to take things out for a spin without commiting to installing it. :) Here are various Ubuntu flavors for instance.

I tried many but for me, Linux mint cinnamon worked. It was traditional, but still had pkeyof customisation options. Also, to top it all off, it's light enough and works on a 13 year old pc I've got here.

@bigbox with ZorinOS you won't feel the difference when coming from spydows. As soon as I made the switch to Linux I tested over 15 distros and I ended up with ZorinOS Core.

I've been using linux on and off since my first experiments with zipslack back in 2000-2001, and full time since 2006. I've bounced around distros, tried countless DEs and WMs, and I have to say, Mint Cinnamon was the first where I didn't have to immediately change the theme/icons/color schemes/etc. to make it look decent (in my opinion). And add to that a more traditional desktop paradigm at a time when others (unity, gnome 3) were trying something else, and I was a convert, and still use it to this day, some 8+ years later.

I’m not experienced in all the options, but am quite happy with Cinnamon on Mint. I tried ElementaryOS first, 18 months ago, but it wasn’t quite right. Cinnamon had given me a few points to tweak, but not too many that I’ll be sucked into it. I can do what I want on my computer and don’t feel like the OS ui layer is in my way.

It thoroughly depends on how much you're willing to configure

I think right now EWW + hyprland is the new hotness, if you're willing to edit text files and scripts

If not, go KDE if you like windows, gnome if you like mac.

For some reason I find stock GNOME UIs appealing

I run tiny core linux for the UI personally

Probably any distro that ships KDE Plasma 5 as default - I'm stuck with GNOME for now as I need to use Evolution for work (EWS mail accounts), but if I had the choice I'd probably be on Plasma.

I just switched to Fedora 38 with KDE and it's been great! It's using Wayland now too, so it's been really smooth and stable. My last distro was Manjaro with KDE, but I started having issues with the lastet round of updates and wanted to switch to something more stable. I really don't like gnome as it feels to "basic". Sure it looks nice, but for me it feels like it's missing some important features that are just there with the default KDE layout.

Maybe it's just that it's familiar, but Zorin OS has always had the most "it just works" GUI to me. It's clean, stable, and provides many sensible presets if you prefer windows environments, mac environments, old school gnome, etc.

Aside from being very pretty it also has great UX and linux beginner onboarding features. For example if you try to open an exe file for the first time, it explains that this is a Windows-specific file and sets up Wine for you.

A lot of people recommend Fedora and PopOS for people getting into Linux but honestly Zorin Core has always been my #1.

GNOME with Dash to Panel is my favorite GUI, but I've been warming up to KDE since their Wayland VRR implementation is complete and working while GNOME keeps waffling over something as stupid as "omg what if we have to show a VRR toggle in the settings??? our users will be CONFUSED!!!!". While GNOME is very smooth and functional with extensions, this stupid limited mindset of the core developers prevents it from being a good choice for gaming. Mutter-VRR fixes it and actually works very well, but they keep breaking it with updates.

Distro? Probably Debian, because it has all the desktop environments. If you want, you can have Plasma, Gnome, Xfce, Cinnamon, and MATE all installed at the same time and switch between them at will. Most distros seem focused on one specific DE, which if I'm not mistaken means switching to another involves reinstalling the whole operating system.

The big downside of Debian is that the software in it tends to be very out of date. You'll get security updates and the occasional bug fix between Debian releases, but that's about all you'll get.

You can get a rolling-release experience by running the “unstable” version, but as the name implies, upgrades will sometimes fail or break something, and you need to know your way around the system in order to recover from that. Not a problem if you want to learn to be a Linux sysadmin anyway, but if you want your system to Just Work™, then unstable Debian is unfortunately not for you. It's a trade-off, as with most things in life.

Fedora or OpenSUSE with Gnome. Stable, GUI friendly, and simple.

I liked zorin os

This is subjective. For me, anything with Mate as desktop environment. Currently using Ubuntu with it.

I'm a conservative user. I don't really care about whistles and bells, nor appeal to novelty. I want something that works and that I'm used to.

I'm most comfortable using Manjaro Cinnamon right now. It was familiar enough coming from Windows.

I kept wanting to try the new GNOME, but it kept failing me on fundamentals - I.e, refusing to rebind certain keys, constantly failing plugins (such as the one to merge window title bars with the topbar), and bugs gallore.

So for years, I was a GNOME 2->KDE refugees, with only minimal complaints. KDE is nice.

But now it seems GNOME has finally stabilized and conceded enough to user wishes that it's useful again. And with those things done, I'm now quite enjoying it.

I like qtile because it's configured in python. I used archlinux as os. It's hard to move to another distro after using archlinux for 15 years.

Yeah, this may not be helpful for you but the best GUI is a tiling window manager (compositor?). Using it for 2.5 years, never looked back. I really recommend Hyprland for everyone to try, it's the perfect thing we've ever needed.

Currently I am using Cinnamon with Debian and quite like it. Previouly I enjoyed XFCE, espacially on slower laptops. Never really liked GNOME or KDE Plasma though. GNOME has too many animations and feels slow. At the same time its not very customizable. KDE on the other hand feels slow as well and though it is kind of fancy it seems not to be my taste and I did not like the way you customize either. That is not so important to me anymore. So please don't read from this that Cinnamon or XFCE would be great for customization. I would not know it.

Garuda is the first distro to really excite me visually since the KDE3 days. I just wished it booted faster.

i use fedora, but any gnome distro with this guy's themes https://github.com/Fausto-Korpsvart/Gruvbox-GTK-Theme looks great, bunch of other variants as well outside of just gruvbox