Yet another personal opinion of desktop environments on Linux.

First off I want to reiterate that I am expressing my own personal opinion as someone who is merely a long time user of Linux, and not as an advocate or developer, or anything like that. Though I am back in school with the hopes of teaching computer science someday, at the moment I am nothing more than a hobbyist at best when it comes to operating systems and the like.

Alright, in this little stream of thought, I want to touch my opinion on desktop environments. Again something totally original when it comes to Linux blogs and the like, but hey. I need content to write about.

XFCE

I will start with what DE I personally prefer to use myself, and that is clearly XFCE, if you read the header there. This is the little DE that just won’t die for me. I have tried and branched out to so many alternatives but I always, always find myself back in XFCE at the end of the day. Gods know I have tried to move onto something that looks like it has evolved past the mid 2000’s, but this just keeps pulling me right back in.

I am joking at that, of course. You can make XFCE look rather modern with the right amount of tweaking, and even some distros have taken the initiative in doing that for their users. (My distro Fedora definitely not being one of those. Bog stock, just how they like it). And though they move at a glacial pace, the XFCE developers are indeed continuing to progress, keeping the feel of it familiar as it was the first time I glanced at it in 2006, while updating it to something modern like GTK 3 which they just hit! …Ok, like 8 years after GTK 3 became a thing. It’s Progress!

So why do I use such an old thing? I can narrow that down to two key points. The first one being consistency. XFCE has a pretty solid set of core features and functions that have remained in the same light since I started using it. There have been updates and additions, it isn’t a time capsule locked in a particular part of computer history, but unlike things like Gnome, XFCE has never changed how I have learned to do something or taken away functionality. My workflow has remained consistent

The second thing is modularity. XFCE is truly adaptable, and I know it is going to sound like I am ragging on Gnome, but they do it right. There is allot of ways to customize the DE to fit your workflow just right, you can change it dramatically from the default and not expect it to fight you for breaking the designer’s choice. Unlike the history I have seen with extensions in gnome were it feels like they are constantly being broken to fit the vision of the Gnome team, making it such a chore to get where you want.

And I am not going to say that XFCE is perfect, it definitely has its own bumps. I’ve had my fair share of frustrations with it.. Getting a good, compatible theme working can be a nightmare, for one. But it is flexible enough to work with that you can smooth things out with relative ease.

Gnome

Since I already started to already poke, it is fitting that I discuss Gnome next. I was never a big fan of Gnome in the old days,the interface just wasn’t to my liking, but I cherished allot of applications that had sprung up around it like Rhythmbox and Nautilus, and I used the majority of such apps back then when I was using Windowmaker and XFCE.But when Gnome 3 came out that swapped places entirely.

I love the Gnome 3 interface, it matches my desire to have a minimal desktop perfectly. Or as they put it ‘it gets out of your way so you can work’. This is something that has always neem vital to how I set up my workspace, and why I have always favored the more lightweight, less flashy environments. So that means I am totally a Gnome convert, right? …the short answer? No.

I have tried so hard to like Gnome, I have put the effort into customizing and getting familiar with it. Even looked past its bloat and instability issues because I really like the desktop. I even liked the integrated title bar that makes use of all that dead space up there, though still not a fan of hamburger menus. It is probably the most re-visited DE I have, next to XFCE. There are some glaring issues with the Gnome experience that I can’t get over, though.

First and foremost is some of their development choices. To me it just feels like the actively fight anything that goes against the vision they have in mind for their desktop. I understand the needs to have standards and guidelines, it is important! When you start breaking and going against the established workflows of people who have been using these things for years, that is when it begins to grind my teeth. For example, system tray icons. Sure they are a relic if a bygone age, but they still have some uses and there are some applications that depend on the. They felt they were unnecessary and removed them, delegating their responsibility to third party extensions, which have broken several time because it feels there isn’t much effort to keep compatibility. The whole extensions system in itself is a hot mess of ‘will it work or will it break’.

The same thing happened with desktop icons, they decided it wasn’t necessary and removed them without consideration for people who might still depend on them to meet their workflow. This forced Ubuntu to stay several versions back on Nautilus, just to keep compatibility people asked for. And that brings me to my other issue the dumbing down of applications. Nautiluswas an absolutely fantastic file manager, for the time it was feature rich and comparably better than KDE’s Konqueror or other competitors at the time. Was even used by many other smaller Des, but then they went and ‘cut the fat’ simplifying it to the point that it looks akin to the old MacOS Classic’s finder. Square with icons in it. What happen to the versatility and functions? You will have to look for that elsewhere, they didn’t find them necessary. Other things followed the same dumbing down process with equally simple names turning them into generic ‘functional-enough’ apps.

I know that did up turning a little harsh, and I probably pissed off half the Gnome users out there, but bear in mind that I really DO like the desktop from a design point. My issue is with the development direction. I am open to new ideas on how to do something, but I am not so fond of it when I am told how I must do something. I feel with such an immensely large and popular project like Gnome, they overstep their bounds at times. XFCE in comparison has its faults, but they have made it a point not to take away some people’s preferred ways of doing things or force upon people drastic changes. I never had to worry about finding my desktop icons gone in the latest update, or watching my extensions — these core necessities to customizing my desktop — broken.

KDE Plasma

KDE is a QT alternative to the mostly GTK-based desktops today, it is sort of the poster child of what QT is capable of.

I have always had to make periodic looks into KDE over the years just to check out what these guys are up to as they have always been keen to push innovation. When I came into the Linux scene it was KDE 2 that was there to greet me with a familiar lay out, a wide variety of customization and a solid selection of native applications to compliment it. They kept the momentum up with KDE 3 that added more shine and polish to the experience, adding new features that could keep up with the powerhouses at the time, like the likes of Windows XP and Apple’s shiny new OSX. And with KDE 4 some say they hit a snag, it inherited and expanded on the reputation 3 had for being a heavyweight DE. There was some clunky growing pains but they did continue to push the bar further, adding in things like widgets, introducing the loved Dolphin file manage and laying the foundations for plasma which will become what we have today with KDE Plasma 5.

With Plasma 5, the KDE team took their lessons from the past and refined them into a truly amazing experience, continuing to keep up that tradition of innovating and pushing for a better desktop environment. And without taking away major features that people have gotten used to over the years! It is far more efficient than its earlier iterations, challenging the stigma KDE has gotten for being so ‘heavy’. I have run it with only a little more than XFCE in resources, and well below Gnome at times. I would definitely not consider it for older systems as it could be demanding in other ways like graphical, but for anyone on modern hardware you will have no issues.

Plasma feels the most snappy compared to the other desktops I have tried recently. They did a good job in making the animations feel fluid and natural, and the UI is very clean and modern looking. In its default configuration the average user coming from windows will be able to get right to work with no issue at all. You certainly do not have to stick to default, one of the things KDE has always done well is customization. There is just a staggering amount of options for people, it can almost be intimidating for some. Thankfully one of the more noticeably improvements I see with 5 over the last versions I’ve tried, is that they really cleaned up their settings process. It is well organized, well documented and very powerful. If you can think about it, there is probably a setting for it. People have managed to mimic all sorts of desktop configurations, even as far as some of the more complicated features like the universal menus from MacOS.

I wouldn’t be giving KDE Plasma its full dues if I did not mention the applications the accompany it. A full featured desktop environment was one of the biggest driving points of KDE since the start and it has a huge number of supporting applications to flesh that out. Far too many than I care to list! From utilities and accessories like its brilliant file manager Dolphin, to games and even full on creative and production applications like KDenlive and Krita. Though many don’t get installed by default in your average distros, you can rest assured that any of the QT based KDE applications are going to work flawlessly in Plasma if you choose to use them.

It would be wrong of me to not explain some of the issues I have had with it, though. As clearly, with all the praise, it isn’t my choice DE. It is really close though, I have considered it. As expected with something as featureful as Plasma, I have run into some bugs. A crash or two here and there, Plasma does recover rather well from them though. The biggest annoyance I found was when playing something full screen, like a game, the clock freezes and I lose track of time thinking it is much earlier than it really is. Quite frustrating if you are on a schedule! I am told that the reason for this is because the compositor turns off in order to not hinder the performance of your full screen application. A noble effort to improve people’s experiences! I just hope they will address it someday.

KDE Plasma has come a long way, and it seems to be be getting better all the time. Many people can agree that they got a good thing going there, definitely one to keep an eye on. If it interests you, they even have their own Ubuntu based distro called KDE Neon that will give you the latest and greatest experience.

MATE

MATE started as a continuation to please those who liked the Gnome 2 way of doing things, which didn’t quite grab my attention at first, since I was not a big fan of that style to begin with. But if you think it is old, you should think twice. MATE didn’t limit themselves to just being a Gnome fork, they quickly expanded the project into something wholly its own and has grown to be a pretty versatile desktop with modern features like hi dpi support.

Customization is what I think is one of MATE’s strong points. While at default you do get that old tried and true Gnome 2 feel, complete with double panels and all, but you don’t have to stick to that. It is so customizable that you can easily replicate any workflow you may have used in the past, from the traditional windows taskbar with start menu, to the feel of MacOS. You can even make it function like Ubuntu’s old Unity desktop, it is probably the best modern take on it today.

Another great thing MATE brings to the table is its software package. They have a complete set of utilities and accessories to compliment the desktop. A good example is their file manager Caja, which is forked from Nautilus, keeping a good amount of the look and function while keeping It modern. You’ll see a trend here, Pluma is a fork of gedit, Eye of MATE is a fork of eye of gnome. They are the tried and true Gnome apps split off before they got dumbed down in Gnome 3. Many of them are good enough that they have found their way into replacing some of the aged apps in XFCE for some distributions.

Mate is not without its own flaws, though. It takes a bit of work to make Mate pretty, but that is an issue with something like XFCE as well. You may have to tinker with it a bit to figure it all out as well. UbuntuMATE tries to make this process easier, from what I am told. I also had allot of trouble with it and getting a decent compositor working in a way that I am happy with, that is also an issue I know they are working on addressing.

Sound familiar to my praises of KDE, right? You can see what I value in a desktop, strong customization and good applications. Overall this would easily be something I could call home, if not for already being comfortable in XFCE.

Budgie

The flagship desktop to the Solus project, Budgie has picked up enough momentum to even get their own Ubuntu flavor. This is a relatively new one to the scene, and I was super impressed by it as it has a similar feel to how I have set up my XFCE environment for years. It is simple but gorgeous on the surface, rather easy to pick up and understand from the get go.

One of its defining features with the Raven menu, similar to MacOS’s notification sidebar but with allot more functionality, making it a powerful tool. You get your notifications, as well as many useful and interchangeable widgets, such one I used allot to change my audio outputs on the fly with a click of a button. It goes beyond that as well, as much of your configuration is done here as well.

Budgie isn’t without its faults though. At the moment it does depend heavily on Gnome in the backend, which can make it a little clunky and fat. It also pulls some of its default applications from Gnome, like Files. And where it fell short of being a choice of desktop with me was with its lacking support of multi-monitor setups, which is almost a given with most power users these days.

Thankfully though, it looks like they are planning to address all those issues with the next release of Budgie 11. It has been slow in development, with Solus having some bumps changing project leads, but they are still working on it and hopefully will make headway here in 2019.

I will toss in honorable mentions here.

Cinnamon — I have little experience with this one, but for my time with it I was impressed. It is pleasing on the eyes (especially if you like green), and follows the windows workflow closely, which makes it an ideal choice for someone moving over from that platform.

Pantheon — Another I have only dabbled with, this one having a more “MacOS” feel, making it good for people preferring that workflow, but to imply it is a clone doesn’t do it enough justice. Though it is not as customizable as some other choices, it is very clean and intuitive. Where it excels the most is in the integration they try to promote with it. They encourage their application developers to follow a guideline that helps make everything mesh together nicely and look uniform.

WindowMaker — Yeah not technically a DE, I know! But I had to include it, it is one of my old favorites. Inspired by the NextSTEP OS, if you do not mind your desktop looking like it has fallen straight out of the 90’s, it is a pretty clean and simple workspace that anyone could pick up and master with relative ease. It is a nice blast form the past that still seems to be around today.

There are loads more desktop environments out there, certainly I cannot cover them all. Many I have yet to experience, such as the tiling windows managers that I have heard good things about, but yet to try out seriously as I am an old prude who has been using floating windows for too long. There are some are old oddies still hanging on like Enlightenment, while some new comers to the scene are picking up steam quickly, like Deepin. No matter what your taste there is something out there you will find to your liking, these are just my experiences, so go try some for yourself!