KDE is great! (In screenshots.)
Real talk I've tried to use KDE several times now and I just can't vibe with it.
this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2026
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If I want simple and super stable, Cinnamon. If I want sexy, custom, and slightly less stable, Plasma.
Compiz and Wayfire:
Weirdly, I love KDE, but kinda hate the look of KDE apps. Donโt ask why.
KDE has its origins in being โlike Windows, but with way more shit to fiddle withโ. And since Windows was never good about design, and other KDE predecessors like CDE looked even worse, KDE didn't have a good example from which to learn.
In contrast, Gnome 2 was very obviously inspired by MacOS, and Apple's designers actually knew about the principles of grouping and such basic design stuff that MS never properly learned. Apple spent ages on adjusting the looks of the apps, which I guess Gnome borrowed to some extent.
Iโm the same. I like the workflow of Plasma, I just find it more practical, but Gnome actually feels like an OS made this century. All the KDE software just feels like it was made in the early 00s and since then itโs just been getting hotfixes to keep it going. I wish theyโd just abandon a bunch of their projects and stop spreading themselves so thin.
GNOME apps to me all few like tech demos that look cool but aren't very useful because there will always be a deal breaker of a missinf feature or behavior you can't change
There is something about the slightly bad kerning of QT that gives KDE a vaguely Windows 95 feel. Especially when you start installing extensions that make no attempt to resemble each other; there is nothing I can do to make my CPU temperature meter and my system clock look like they belong on the same computer.
Gnome on the other hand feels like MacOS with meningitis. It's designed to look nice, but not necessarily do anything.
KDE started by emulating the looks and mechanics of Windows, but with even more busy lists and dialogs. While Gnome 2 was very obviously stealing from MacOS.
I still can't bring myself to try KDE again, after having been traumatized by it twenty years ago.
It cuts even deeper than that. KDE took Microsoft's philosophy to the extreme, didn't abandon projects that crashed and burned under Windows, and somehow at long last made many things work.
Explorer was supposed to be an everything-browser. Didn't work out. Microsoft gave up and made a file explorer and separate Internet Explorer. Meanwhile, KDE made Konqueror with KHTML that browsed everything -- sftp, samba, websites, open any file within any Konqueror pane, split your view horizontally and vertically as many times as you god damn like. It was really fucking weird until you got used to it. KHTML went on to become WebKit then Blink; Internet Explorer went on to become a wrapper for Blink.
Windows 98 wanted to put HTML on your desktop as applets or gadgets or whatever. Didn't work. Sucked. Huge resource hog too. Got abandoned for the next ambitious Microsoft project that they never follow through on. Meanwhile that's exactly how Plasma works, and it rules.
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They feel unfinished. I like their apps, but their designs feel like mockups.
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Is there a GUI environment that will turn my desktop into the stupid, goofy virtual reality space a lot of movies in the 90s showed off as being "the future of computing?" ๐ค
I want to build a computer that just mimics the stupid hollywood vision of computers from that time because it would be fun and make me laugh.
KDE can probably do this with enough time and effort.
Not exactly the same but just saw this in another thread: https://a.hollywood.computer/
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Never going back to desktop environments again.
Niri FTW!
Ok, no hate (and with all appreciation for the community due), but since Gnome 3 that's really how I see it. Perfectly ok but a teletubby.
I've been using Mint Cinnamon for years and after having used Plasma on a number of different setups Mint feels so antiquated. It's not even close, Plasma is far superior. It's so much more modern and snappy feeling and you can do so much more with it if you want. Cinnamon makes you have to figure to look in applet settings to then find the setting to modify the start menu. So unintuitive. Among a bunch of other examples I could give
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Oh god, I reinstalled debian a bunch of times friday/saturday.
I ended up on gnome twice, once because I didn't unmark anything properly, and a second time just to see what the unspecified debian UI would look like.
I disliked/managed to use it before. Now it's so fucking macified it makes me want to vomit.
Gnome 3 isn't โmacifiedโ. They've actually thrown away all the good stuff they stole from MacOS in Gnome 2, when they made Gnome 3 with its own blackjack and hookers.
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Gnome, kde, and whatโs the 3rd logo? I suddenly have fomo.
Cinnamon, the desktop environment for Linux Mint.
You might think now that the meme is less important but it was my exact pathway as well.
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