What is the best alternative to&#x20;KDE Plasma?

There are many customization options and possibilities to tweak the desktop, including widgets. See More

34 11

score 46 · Answer 2

KDE

Top Pro

Highly customisable

Top Con

Perceived clunkyness and slowness

Compared to other options, KDE is still perceived slow. Especially, the desktop takes a few seconds to login. Mouse pointer can feel sluggish, or laggy, on older systems See More

Top Pro

Looks beautiful

The design of the three built-in desktop themes; Air, Breeze, and Oxygen, are very beautiful to some. See More

Top Con

KDE is awesome but it is overcomplicated for newbies for sure

Way too many options for newbies to digest before the learning curve is over. See More

Top Pro

Has a file manager that provides a good balance between power and simplicity

Included file manager provides several icon, list and detail views to choose from along with features such as tabs, bookmarks, tagging, previews and metadata, network file access, bluetooth file transfers to/from devices and excellent removable storage integration while remaining fast and easy to use. See More

Top Con

Interfaces are inconsistent and ugly in 4.x

While parts of KDE in 4.x can be very good looking, a common opinion is that the style is too hobbled together with inconsistent icons and styles clashing with each other. See More

Top Pro

Integrated advanced search

Plasma Desktop comes with an integration search system that makes it easy to find local files, emails, contacts, events and more. The file manager supports tagging and rating files as well as full-content searching and the KRunner command window and the Milou desktop widget makes searching for files, emails, applications and other content by name, subject, category, tag, fulltext, etc. very simple. It does this with essentially no noticeable interference with day-to-day usage of the computer, thanks to the scheduling built into the backend system (Baloo). See More

Top Con

HiDPI support is spotty

The log in screen as well as some other components of the OS do not scale properly under HIDPI. Everything in the log in screen will be displayed too small, as well as some areas of the OS. See More

Top Pro

Integrated components

Plasma Desktop generally comes packaged with a full set of applications to get users started, including a file manager (Dolphin), advanced file manager and browser (Konqueror), image and document viewers (Gwenview, Okular), the Calligra office suite, CD and DVD authoring (K3b) and dozens more. The desktop can be installed and used without these applications, but they add significant value for many people. See More

Top Con

Poorly named app menu with too many apps starting with "K"

This is better in KDE Neon with minimalist apps, which indeed in itself points out the problem. See More

Top Pro

Keyboard friendly

Nearly all actions can be driven with keyboard commands. Window management, including effects such as desktop overviews, can be triggered with a keyboard control (or mouse gesture) and some even support filtering results (such as windows shown) by typing. The KRunner tool (default keybinding: Alt+F2 or Alt+Space) provides searching local files, online sources, unit conversions, math and more all from a keyboard driven interface. See More

Top Con

Stability problems

Under certain conditions, most of KDE's components can be highly sensitive to race conditions, which leads to KDE applications frequently crashing, and, on rare occasion, kdeinit itself locking up. See More

Top Pro

Open source

Top Pro

KDE is an evolution on the classic desktop model

KDE 4 is a great evolution on the classic Win95/Gnome/XFCE approach. It's moving in innovative directions while respecting the classic metaphors. See More

Top Pro

Active development

Top Pro

The session manager works perfectly

This is a much better session manager compared to solutions from other Linux desktop environments. See More

Top Pro

Bunch of coherent applications

What make plasma so nice is the galaxy of apps, sharing same look and feel, configuration and behaviour. See More

Top Pro

The search with the Windows Key is as awesome

Top Pro

Adheres to standards

Standards adherence allows for interoperability and shared technology for X Window System desktops, with similar Wayland support being worked on. Applications not written with Plasma in mind work very well in Plasma as a result. The development team has also been instrumental in standard creation and adoption such as NETWM, X11 clipboard, icon themes, mimetype handling, application menu standardization, system tray protocols and notifications and more. See More

Top Pro

Multi-Device "Convergence"

Plasma Desktop provides seamless "zero config" integration of your Android device with your laptop and desktop machines via KDE Connect. Phone calls, SMS messages, cross-device copy and paste, media remote control, cursor control and more are supported. The technology that Plasma Desktop is built on, simply called "Plasma", also provides interfaces for phones, tablets, netbooks, and media centers in addition to the desktop. These additional interfaces use the same underlying frameworks and therefore work well together and have a unified feel to them. They also support a common set of applications across them which adapt to the input methods and screen sizes. See More

As the most popular Linux distribution, there's a wide range of sources for support online if you ever need help, including the Ubuntu Wiki, Ubuntu Forums and the Ask Ubuntu Stack Exchange site. See More

46 11

score 1038 · Answer 3

Ubuntu

Top Pro

Lots of support

Top Con

No rolling release

New Ubuntu versions are released two times a year, during this period almost all software receives only security updates and minor bug fixes. See More

Top Pro

Wide range of software out of the box

The default apps available in Ubuntu cover the gamut of most anyone's needs. From music, video or office applications Ubuntu has an app that will cover the users needs. See More

Top Con

Relatively high system requirements

The default GNOME desktop environment is a resource hog which requires hardware accelerated graphics rendering in order to run smoothly, making out of the box Ubuntu unsuitable for low end systems and older hardware. Even mildly aged hardware, you'll get far better performance out of a lighter desktop environment like LXDE or XFCE. See More

Top Pro

Simplicity

Ubuntu is designed to be used by everyday people. Because of that, Ubuntu has tried hard to make a user interface that's intuitive and looks pleasant and clean. See More

Top Con

Custom PPAs required for most software

To get the most software available, user must add several PPAs to the system. That has major problems: 1) Terminal recommended for adding a PPA, which can scare away users 2) A PPA can potentially distribute malware by creating a "newer" version of a package than available in other PPAs, such as the Linux kernel. 3) PPAs must be recreated and re-added with every major system update See More

Top Pro

Great long term support release schedule (2 years)

This allows for users to always have a new supported release available without long unkown wait times in between. See More

Top Con

Canonical does not respect Ubuntu users' preferences

In 2012 it became impossible in Ubuntu to move the close-window-button back to the upper-right corner of the window, where it always was before. To the questions of their users Canonical replied that they know better than users where it would be convenient for users to have the close-window-button. See More

Top Pro

Use it on almost any device

Not just for laptops - Ubuntu was designed with tablets and touchscreen devices in mind, and with phone support on the way. Ubuntu also has Long Term Support releases, as well as a version oriented toward servers, so you can use the same OS at work or on mobile as you do on your desktop. See More

Top Con

Canonical (author) is proprietary

Canonical is focused on making money so you can see many proprietary offers by them and the OS has built-in trackers (Amazon). See More

Top Pro

Just works out of the box

Lots of support for hardware, lots of pre-installed software, and a smooth install process means less time downloading drivers, less time digging through configuration files, and less time deciding on software to use just to get up and running. It also means less time digging through forums looking for support. See More

Top Con

Unstable

Some people pointed out that updating Arch is a high risk affair. And one should carefully read forums before doing it. The same is true about Ubuntu. Making system updates (like it was with 10.04 to 11.04) that screw so many things up became a routine. Even LTS releases should not give confidence that it will work. See More

Top Pro

Perfect for collaboration on open source projects

This is probably the best option when collaborating on open source projects in hardware. This is mostly because packages and tools are readily available via software center. See More

Top Con

Doesn't shutdown/standby properly on Lenovo laptops (b, e & g series) and desktops (Thinkcentre)

Ubuntu has some serious issue with some Lenovo laptops and desktops. Sometimes, it doesn't shutdown correctly. See More

Top Pro

Good UI for small monitors

Because the menu usually is in the title bar and the launcher auto-hides, the whole screen can be used by an application. See More

Top Con

A tweaked Gnome version

Instead of original Gnome desktop with Ubuntu you get a tweaked Gnome and most of the tweaks makes user experience worse. See More

Top Pro

Flexible

The setup for personal use is simple enough for anyone to achieve, and can easily be modified to act as a server. Programs and all features are easy to find and use, and first-timers can easily pick up on how to use it. See More

Top Con

Extremely un-customizable

Top Pro

Good PPA repositories available

PPA repositories allow you to install the latest version of your preferred software while keeping the rest of the operating system "stable". See More

Top Con

Binary incompatible to Debian

Ubuntu releases are based on Debian testing/unstable, however, unlike other Debian-based distributions they are not binary compatible due to different libc versions, so you can't install Debian packages in Ubuntu and vice versa. See More

Top Pro

UTF-8 is the default character encoding

Beginning with Ubuntu 5.04, UTF-8 became the default character encoding, which allows for support of a variety of non-Roman scripts. See More

Top Con

Redundant

With the removal of Unity, there is no point in choosing Ubuntu over Debian anymore because everything else is imported from Debian to Ubuntu. See More

Top Pro

Cares about stable drivers

Top Con

Includes adware

Advertisers pay to have their links or software preinstalled. Like the links to Amazon installed by default in the dock. See More

Top Pro

Unified search

Type any query into the Dash Home, and search will look through files, stores and web-pages to find what you are looking for. See More

Top Con

Software can be outdated, if not severely outdated

If you try to download "unpopular" software, so you may find you're downloading a version that's several years old. See More

Top Pro

Dedicated software center

The Ubuntu Software Center offers a GUI interface for installing new apps which is extremely easy and welcoming for beginners to Linux. But it should not be used by more advanced users since the method of installing through the terminal is much faster and easier after one is used to it. See More

Top Con

Random system errors may pop up

Top Pro

Company behind it

This means that the system must run well, otherwise they will lose money. There is no better incentive! See More

Top Con

Not so strong at all

Top Pro

Stable

It‘s one of the most stable Linux Distros. See More

Top Con

Company stays behind it

Top Pro

Looks good

Ubuntu looks clean even when running from a LiveCD. See More

Top Pro

Has a clean Gnome interface

Gnome has lot of extensions available and can be custmoized rather easily. See More

Specs

Based On:Debian Stable(core) Testing/Unstable(universe/multiverse)

Default Desktop Environment:GNOME

Release Schedule:Point (5 Year LTS / 6 Month Releases)

Debian offers stable and testing CD images specifically built for GNOME (the default), KDE Plasma Workspaces, Xfce and LXDE. Less common window managers such as Enlightenment, Openbox, Fluxbox, GNUstep, IceWM, Window Maker and others can also be installed. See More

1038 313

score 1092 · Answer 4

Debian GNU/Linux

Top Pro

Wide choice in desktop environments

Top Con

Stable release contains extremely outdated packages

If you want the newest packages, you'll have to do a minimal installation of Debian stable then upgrade to testing or you need to install testing directly: https://wiki.debian.org/DebianTesting. See More

Top Pro

Standard vanilla Linux desktop

Debian runs standard Gnome, XFCE, KDE - it doesn't use its own special desktop environment, which means that users benefit from the work of the whole Linux community, Debian developers can focus on the distribution itself, and any support for your desktop environment on other distributions should work on Debian as well. See More

Top Con

No default support for non-free hardware

Non-free hardware will not work upon install of Debian and the user will need to search out the correct non-free software to install in order to make them work. This can be difficult if one of the things not working is the WiFi connection. See More

Top Pro

Wide choice of hardware platforms

Debian has the widest choice of hardware platforms, including: amd64, armel, armhf, i386, ia64, kfreebsd-i386, kfreebsd-amd64, mips, mipsel, powerpc, sparc, s390, s390x, source, multi-arch. See More

Top Con

Ridiculous package splitting

Even though it makes sense to split devel and the actual binary of an application, the splitting has become as mess in debian and its derivates: for example the nvidia driver is splitted into over 40 different packages: https://packages.debian.org/en/source/sid/nvidia-graphics-drivers See More

Top Pro

Very stable

Debian has a Stable branch, where packages are thoroughly tested before release. Furthermore Debian is know to be the definition of stable when it comes to production systems. See More

Top Con

Internal quarrels harm the project

Instead of working all together to provide the best Operating System, some maintainers are just ignorant and aggressive to new ideas or new maintainers. That led to many crises and controversy in Debian's history. See More

Top Pro

Easy to find help with any problem

Debian is one of the oldest and most popular distros out there. Debian's popularity means that you will always be able to find a solution for your problem just by searching on Google, or if by chance nobody has had the problem you are having it's very easy to ask the community and quickly get a solution. See More

Top Con

Breaks if you suspend/resume

Breaks when you resume the activity on the system. See More

Top Pro

Install and forget

Once installed you can almost forget about it and start to use your desktop for your daily tasks. See More

Top Con

No choices

Debian basically doesn't give you any choices, even dpkg supports this feature with virtual packages: for example, it is very hard to use a different sound system than ALSA, like OSS4 or to use ALSA with pulse audio emulation, and the same goes for different init systems. See More

Top Pro

Highly secure system

Known for being consistent in maintaining a highly secure system. Several other popular distros use Debian as a base or core for their own Linux OS, the security being one of the main factors why it's so commonly used. See More

Top Con

Not designed for general desktop usage

By default, Debian Stable is not that great of a distro for general desktop usage, since the packages are very outdated. You'll have to spend a while configuring the system in order to make it work. See More

Top Pro

Comes with over 55.500 packages

Because of its popularity, Debian has a lot of applications available which range from productivity programs to business software, games and development tools. It comes with over 55.500 packages (software that is precompiled and ready to be installed on a local machine) -- all of them for free. See More

Top Con

Outdated kernel of the live system

Since the LiveCD is based on Debian stable the kernel is old, outdated but stable. See More

Top Pro

Live install images for CDs, DVDs and USB thumb drives

Debian releases live install images for CDs, DVDs and USB thumb drives, for the i386 and amd64 architectures, and with a choice of desktop environments. These Debian Live images allow the user to boot from a removable media and run Debian without affecting the contents of their computer. See More

Top Con

No good choices of fresh desktop environments

GNOME is quite outdated and buggy; KDE is too old, even in Sid it is at 5.14 branch (at Jun 13 2019 Plasma 5.16 is available in many rolling/fresh distros); XFCE behaves like crooked, visual artifacts at the taskbar and so on; Cinnamon as far as I know works better in Linux Mint compared to (almost) any other distro; For other desktop environments (e.g. MATE) can't say - these are too new (as projects) and possibly incomplete, thus might have many bugs. See More

Top Pro

Well-working team

The developer works very well so the the code is one of the best written out there. See More

Top Con

Buggy and non-user friendly

Top Pro

Rolling or Release based

Every Debian Release can either use a Rolling or Release based model. See More

Top Con

Old software is not useful, but is stable

Certainly for the stable and old stable versions. But the testing version has quite up to date software. See More

Top Pro

A lot of ways to install software

You can either use aptitude, apt or apt-build to install software from the Debian package archives. See More

Top Pro

Great for gaming

As Debian is the base for SteamOS and because Ubuntu is based on it, it's almost certain that all Linux games will run properly and require no hacks like creating symbolic links because of some hardcoded paths. See More

Top Pro

Big open-source project

The Debian project is the biggest open source project with over 5000 active contributors. See More

Top Pro

Unique release cycle

The most Linux distros have one or two stages before a release, but Debian has five before a new stable version is released (experimental > unstable > testing > code-freeze/bug hunting > stable). See More

Top Pro

The Debian Social Contract

Guaranteed commitment to adherence to values, principles, priorities, requirements and guidelines by the Debian project See More

Top Pro

Widely supported

Almost any software that is available for Linux provides a Debian package. See More

Top Pro

Strict seperation of non-free software

Debian is one of the few distros that let the user choose if he wants a free system or not. See More

Top Pro

Apt-build

It is possible to rebuild the entire system and optimize it for your hardware.(of course it is not detailed as Gentoo's USE flags) See More

Top Pro

Many ports

Debian supports almost any Kernel maintained CPU instructions set. It has also a few non Linux Ports. See More

Top Pro

A real installer

Unlike other distributions that just extract their Live image, Debian offers a real traditional and modular installer to customize the installation. See More

Top Pro

Debconf

Depending how it is configured debconf does the most of the hard work for you and only asks you with configuration /file conflicts. See More

Top Pro

Supports SecureBoot

You don't have to disable SecureBoot if you use it, which is useful for LiveUSB or dualboot setups. See More

Top Pro

Has small amount of today's bugs (e.g. no duplicate web cameras in Skype - likely not Skype's fault)

But has quite a few bugs from 2016-2017, apparently for long term. See More

Top Pro

Great choise for returning Linux users

If you haven't use Linux for a long time, say 5-10 years, it's a great distro in which you can quickly get in the boat again. You don't have to worry about falling back. Everything is in its place. See More

Specs

Based On:N/A

Default Desktop Environment:GNOME(CLI, Xfce, MATE, Cinnamon, KDE, LXDE & LXQt are available)

Release Schedule:Point(release codename) Rolling(stable, oldstable, testing, unstable)

GNOME doesn't have a taskbar by default, and might be confusing to people migrating from Windows for that reason. It is however possible to install it through http://extensions.gnome.org. See More

1092 188

score 91 · Answer 5

Gnome

Top Con

No taskbar by default

Top Pro

Easy to use

GNOME 3 has been designed to make it simple and easy to use. Press a button to view your open windows, launch applications or check if you have new messages. See More

Top Con

Some areas are unpolished and lack features

Some aspects are still unpolished and lack features - the gnome design team works well, but seems to not be taking input from the outside world. See More

Top Pro

Very productive

With a clean layout and well-thought keyboard shortcuts, Gnome 3 is simply the best for people looking to be productive with their computer. See More

Top Con

Extension system is basically unsupported

Backward compatibility is not guaranteed and extensions seems like second class citizens in the GNOME environment. See More

Top Pro

Great for high dpi displays

Adjustable scaling factor makes it great for high resolution laptops and far away TVs. See More

Top Con

It tries to reinvent the wheel

It isn't a traditional interface. Very different to adjust to. See More

Top Pro

Does not get in the way

GNOME 3 lets you do the things you want without getting in the way. It won't bother you or badger you with demands, and it has been designed to help you comfortably deal with notifications. See More

Top Pro

Adheres to standards

Allowing for interoperability and shared technology for X Window System desktops. See More

Top Pro

Online account management

GNOME 3 integrates with your online accounts, so that all your data can be accessed from the same place. See More

Top Pro

Powerful search

A powerful search feature lets you access all your work from one place. See More

Top Pro

Customizable with easy-to-install extensions

With the right plugin enabled in your browser (comes with Firefox by default) you can browse and install with two clicks the many Shell Extensions available from http://extensions.gnome.org. These are listed automatically based upon the version of Gnome Shell you currently have installed. See More

Top Pro

Touchscreen friendly

It works well with any touchscreen-enabled system, including newer laptops, even to the point of including a well-designed on-screen keyboard. See More

Top Pro

Keyboard friendly

It's (mostly) usable without touching a mouse, so you can keep your hands on the keyboard. Shortcuts can be defined in the gnome setting. There are even more shortcuts available when using the gesetting or dconf tool, e.g. switch to desktop 5 to 9. See More

Top Pro

Easy theming

Changing the look (and feel) of Gnome Shell is easy, shell theme, icon, windows and graphical elements (gtk). individually for each user. Mostly its installing some packages or unpacking some archive to a themes folder and using selecting the new theme in e.g. gnome-tweak-tool. There a lot of really good theme on deviantart. See More

Top Pro

Fallback mode offers a classic look

For people looking for older, more classic looks, Fallback mode offers just that. Ubuntu users can have this option by installing a package called "GNOME-Session-Fallback." In the future to be released GNOME 3.8, the Fallback Mode will not be included, so this is really not a long-term solution. See More

Since it's built on the strong Ubuntu base, KDE Neon works seamlessly with a huge variety of hardware. See More

91 26

score 580 · Answer 6

KDE Neon

Top Pro

Works out of the box

Top Con

Steep learning curve for beginners

It's a really sparse, bare-bones system, no automatic driver install for example. It can be quite hard for someone not used to Linux. See More

Top Pro

Configurability

KDE Neon uses KDE as its desktop environment, which is highly configurable, but also has great defaults. See More

Top Pro

The best looking Linux OS

It really is a great and stunning looking OS. See More

Top Pro

Works well on low-end computers

Specs

Based On:Debian>Ubuntu LTS

Default Desktop Environment:KDE

Release Schedule:Semi-Rolling

Mint is highly recommended for both users coming from Windows, as well as users coming from Ubuntu, but unhappy with Ubuntu's recent, rather dramatic interface changes. Mint provides an updated interface with a look and feel similar to Gnome 2, with an application menu reminiscent of the Windows 7 Start Menu, with categorization and search. See More

580 129

score 947 · Answer 7

Linux Mint

Top Pro

Familiar user interface

Top Con

The Linux Mint website once provided malware

The website for Linux Mint was hacked in 2016 and its download links led to a modified ISO, which contained malware. See More

Top Pro

Already functional out-of-the-box

Mint comes bundled with software for browsing the web, editing pictures, browsing files, watching videos and even a full office suite (LibreOffice). An average user can use Mint right away after a fresh install, using all the software that comes with the distribution to complete most of their daily tasks. See More

Top Con

Outdated software centers

Many of the offered options are older versions. See More

Top Pro

Compatibility with Debian and Ubuntu software builds and repositories

Mint gains a very strong package ecosystem and software manager of Debian, including more than 30,000 packages available from the Debian repositories. See More

Top Con

System updates can lead the system to being unstable

While a new installed system is stable, after an update, there is a slight chance of something not working. See More

Top Pro

Complete and stable

It's based upon Ubuntu LTS or Debian. It depends on which one you select - Linux Mint or Linux Mint Debian Edition. The Debian Edition is even more stable. See More

Top Con

Upgrade process between version can be painful

The Linux Mint team offers a method to upgrade the OS between versions but they tend to recommend clean installs, which isn't always suitable for everyone. However, following the upgrade process currently is less than straightforward and is easily capable of leaving your system in a confused state. See More

Top Pro

Provides LTS (long term support) versions

Long Term Support versions are versions of software that are continuously updated for an extended period of time, even after newer versions are launched. LTS versions will typically get feature additions and enhancements for an extended period of time, then security updates up until its End of Life. An LTS release should typically be considered good for at least 5 years. See More

Top Con

Does not handle multiple languages well

Top Pro

Easy installation and configuration

Linux Mint uses the same installer as Ubuntu. It is very easy to use for beginners, and also allows more advanced users to choose their own partitions. Linux Mint's Cinnamon desktop is highly customizable and can be made to look however preferred. See More

Top Con

Cheap Windows substitute

Mint tries to be like Windows when it could be different and provide options. See More

Top Pro

Good community support

There are several different ways to get support for this distribution, including the forums, their IRC channel, or their github repositories if you think their software isn't behaving as it should. See More

Top Con

Political

Clement Lefebvre, the lead developer of Linux Mint said “I don’t want any money or help coming from people who support the actions of the Israeli government.” See More

Top Pro

Dedicated upgrade process

The Linux Mint team is very dedicated to upgrading and improving Mint, to the point where the releases are fairly predictable. They are also dedicated to their users, meaning that they are responsive to critiques, suggestions, etc. See More

Top Con

The Update doesn't work sometimes

Sometimes the update failed to configure a package. See More

Top Pro

Mint 19 forces unwanted updates

Since version 19 Mint adopted Windows 10's policy to force the user to install unwanted updates and even if the user deselects them and marks them not to be installed, they're still being installed. See More

Top Pro

There is a "system restore" tool to restore the OS if something breaks

This tool backs up the core OS files to an external drive with an option for full encryption. See More

Top Con

Looks ugly

The default theme and wallpaper looks outdated and bland. Luckily that is easy to change in the settings. See More

Top Pro

The easiest option ever

The distro is the easiest operating system to run ever. See More

Top Con

Many proprietary (closed-source) packages

By default, Linux Mint includes almost all the proprietary packages just to improve the user experience. See More

Top Pro

The OS is great for both beginners and advanced users

The OS has different update settings for different users and has easy manual within the OS. See More

Top Con

Linux Mint tries to force people to use less powerful custom package management system

The custom package management system is slow, frustrating, and forces you to select and install one package at a time. Can't select a whole load of packages and then run the installations in one go. See More

Top Pro

Supports proprietary software

Linux Mint does maintain a free software environment, however, it does offer full support to proprietary software (Chrome, Skype, Teamviewer). See More

Top Con

Too many kernel crashes

Top Pro

Not from a big company

Linux Mint is not Canonical, while based upon Ubuntu. See More

Top Con

Very boring

Top Pro

Has more desktop options

You can choose between Cinnamon, MATE and XFCE. See More

Top Pro

Pretty desktop

Linux Mint has a quite pretty default desktop. Cinnamon is adopted by other distros also. See More

Top Pro

MATE desktop (as an option)

MATE is a classic desktop as opposed to the newer "Unity" desktop. For people who prefer the classic style this is one of only few modern distributions with still active MATE desktop development. See More

Specs

Based On:Debian>Ubuntu LTS

Default Desktop Environment:Cinnamon, MATE, Xfce

Release Schedule:Point( 2 Year LTS / 6 Month)

Every aspect of GNOME 3 has been crafted to fit together as a harmonious whole, so that it offers a consistent and integrated experience. See More

947 244

score 545 · Answer 8

Gnome 3

Top Pro

Clean UI

Top Con

Slow

GNOME 3 desktop environment is kinda slow on some Linux distributions See More

Top Pro

Powerful search

A powerful search feature lets you access all your work from one place. See More

Top Con

Continuous customization and extension issues

They need to sort out their continuous customization and extension issues, which are why many people still prefer KDE or other Desktop environments. See More

Top Pro

Simple and easy to use

GNOME 3 has been designed to make it simple and easy to use. Press a button to view your open windows, launch applications or check if you have new messages. See More

Top Con

Some settings are not where the user would expect it

E.g. it is not possible to change the keyboard auto-repeat delay or rate from the usual All Setting > Keyboard like, for example, in Unity. Many settings are considered "tweaks" and require installing a separate utility to adjust. Further still, some settings are buried in a dconf database. See More

Top Pro

Does not get in the way

GNOME 3 lets you do the things you want without getting in the way. It won't bother you or badger you with demands, and it has been designed to help you comfortably deal with notifications. See More

Top Con

Longtime support is hard since every few years GNOME changes its own standards

Everytime something is complete GNOME breaks itself: Icon naming changes almost every 3 years : once gtk icons were named stock_edit then gtk-edit then edit-edit and currently edit-edit-symbolic App icons change also every few years currently they get renamed to an android like scheme eg: org.gnome.Photos.svg instead of gnome-photos.svg however this breaks all common standards esp. since filenames on linux are case sensitive. GNOMEShell extension also break on almost every release. Currently Gtk3 has been stabilized however they are already working on GTK4 and 5 so in the worst case your desktop will need to run and support 4 GTK-toolkits at the same time. See More

Top Pro

Great for high dpi displays

Adjustable scaling factor makes it great for high-resolution laptops and far away TVs. See More

Top Con

Extensions can break whole Gnome desktop

Gnome extensions have a lot of freedom to customize the desktop, and it means that extensions can break your desktop leaving you unable to use your computer. Also extensions can significantly slow down whole desktop. See More

Top Pro

Highly customisable

Gnome Extensions offers an easy way to extend the built-in functionality. See More

Top Con

Full screen start menu

This may be fine if your screen is really small, but on modern fullhd desktop it looks ugly and distracting. In addition to very ineffective display of items on screen - much more could be placed on one screen if there were less empty space around and between icons See More

Top Pro

Easy theming

Changing the look (and feel) of Gnome Shell is easy, shell theme, icon, windows and graphical elements (gtk) individually for each user. Mostly it's installing some packages or unpacking some archive to a themes folder and using selecting the new theme in e.g. gnome-tweak-tool. There are a lot of really good themes on DeviantArt. See More

Top Con

Extension system is weakly integrated into the environment

Backward compatibility is not guaranteed and extensions seems like second class citizens in the GNOME environment. See More

Top Pro

Keyboard friendly

It's (mostly) usable without touching a mouse, so you can keep your hands on the keyboard. Shortcuts can be defined in the gnome setting. There are even more shortcuts available when using the gesetting or dconf tool, e.g. switch to desktop 5 to 9. See More

Top Con

Poor 'drag and drop into application' capability

Difficult to drag and drop a file into an open application. See More

Top Pro

Adheres to standards

Allowing for interoperability and shared technology for X Window System desktops. See More

Top Con

Native Gnome dock isn't scalable

The native Gnome dock isn't scalable, which means if you want to change its size you have to download a customized theme for the shell and hope it has the appearance you want. Honestly again just like the icon issue it wastes way too much of the screen on high resolution monitors. See More

Top Pro

Online account management

GNOME 3 integrates with your online accounts, so that all your data can be accessed from the same place. See More

Top Con

Tightly coupled to its window manager

If you're looking to run an alternative window manager, like XMonad, you're pretty much out of luck. See More

Top Pro

Very productive

With a clean layout and well-thought keyboard shortcuts, Gnome 3 is simply the best for people looking to be productive with their computer. See More

Top Con

Rather insane method of wallpaper slideshows

Most DEs and WMs allow the user to simply point to a directory, and use pictures from there. Gnome 3 requires the rather asinine idea of building an XML file to accomplish the same thing. See More

Top Pro

Wayland support

Gnome is the first desktop environment that uses Wayland as default instead of X server. X server is only optional currently. See More

Top Con

Some GUI controls are much larger than on other desktops

This is wasting screen space on non-HiDPI monitors. See More

Top Pro

Great task manager

The GNOME Task Manager is great, showing all open processes with every needed detail. For each process you can see the amount of memory and processing power that it's using, along with the process priority. See More

Top Con

Icon scalability and sorting

The icons in the "apps view" area don't have any additional sizes, the current ones are much too large to be effective for the screen space they use. Also, there is no native way to sort them in Gnome, only a very limited extension. Which means you're pretty much always better off using the search bar if you can. See More

Top Pro

Integrates with most Google Services

You can use your calendar, drive, contacts and most of Google services with Online Account option. You can show your Google Calendar events on the Gnome's default calendar app, Nautilus (Default file manager of GNOME) almost fully integrated with Google Drive and even you can read your PDF's with Evince (the default built-in PDF reader in GNOME). See More

Top Con

Default alt-tab behaviour is cute but extremely annoying for fast keyboard users

Top Pro

Gnome-Tweak-Tool is great

Gnome may seem bland out of the box but, the Gnome-Tweak-Tool is awesome. The Gnome-Tweak-Tool allows for easy desktop tweaks and other control functionality, and that these features can be activated with just a click. See More

Top Con

Has several dead userspace features that are supplemented by community supported extensions

Has several dead projects that are supplemented by community supported extensions. Unfortunately, the gnome updates often break these extensions. Example: GSConnect. See More

Top Pro

Touchscreen friendly

It works well with any touchscreen-enabled system, including newer laptops, even to the point of including a well-designed on-screen keyboard. See More

Top Con

Depends on systemd

Some people don't like systemd but it is part of most modern distros anyway. See More

Top Pro

Highly stable

Gnome isn't obviously devoid of flaws, but it's pretty stable - especially in comparison with the KDE Plasma Desktop, which can literally fall apart after installing upgrades (and show a considerable number of error messages) or for whatever reasons - after turning on the computer you can end up without (Plasma) desktop altogether, which I believe IS quite unproductive. It is also noteworthy that many other major desktop environments are based on Gnome, and among these are: Cinnamon, Pantheon and (now dead) Unity. See More

Top Con

You can't put icons on the desktop

Top Pro

It just works

You don't ever "need" tweaks. Unless your device is too outdated, it just works out of the box. Touchscreen, 4k TV, anything just works. See More

Top Con

Not truly tunable

Customization is very limited. See More

Top Pro

All the major players in the Linux ecosystem have finally collated on Gnome

Red Hat default = Gnome Fedora default = Gnome Debian default = Gnome Ubuntu default = Gnome Opensuse default = Gnome This doesn't mean the others go away, it just means there is a colossal community and industry backing behind Gnome. The point whether or not it being technically the best option is now off table and irrelevant. It is now the de facto standard. Like it or not. See More

Top Con

No support for fractional scaling

Unlike Qt, GTK has no support for it. See More

Top Pro

High resultion screens, multi monitor, content creation

If you depend on high resultion screens, multi monitor, or content creation programs you want Gnome. See More

Top Con

You can't put icons on the desktop

Top Pro

Graphic apps 'feel smoother' on gnome than on KDE plasma

Graphics apps 'feel smoother' on gnome than on KDE plasma. Example: Gimp and inkscape, probably because they are developed in gtk+. See More

Top Con

Remove more features than add

Top Pro

Beautiful interface

Very very beautiful interface See More

Top Con

Depends too much on extensions to customize basic settings

Top Pro

Hamburger Menus

If you use a Mouse you fell like a second class user. See More

Top Con

Shell-Style ≠ Widget-Style

The GNOME-shell is unable to use the current GTK style for its interface thus making it hard to get a consistent user interface. See More

Top Con

Non-intuitive use paradigm

It doesn't feature an always-on dock and fixed amount of usable desktops, doesn't support tray icons for background programs. The main interaction with running programs bases on clicking and dragging (to a desktop) preview thumbnails. See More

Top Con

Inconsistent desktop

As of GNOME3, some applications have ClientSideDecorations while other use normal Titlebars, this also affects usablity since both Decorations do different things if you left, right, or double click it. Same goes for Menubars. Some Apps follow the GlobalMenu in the GNOMEShell while others don't. See More

Specs

Type:stacking

License:GPL

Default Desktop Environment:Gnome 3

openSUSE makes use of a GUI tool called YaST to install and setup an openSUSE system. YaST is very easy to use and makes the process of installing and maintaining an openSUSE installation a breeze. See More

545 175

score 430 · Answer 9

OpenSUSE LEAP

Top Pro

Easy installation and administration

Top Con

Poor support for nVidia drivers in Tumbleweed

No native driver support and nouveau may be broken, especially for KDE, and not suitable for some GPUs. See More

Top Pro

Extremely reliable

The packaging team is dependable resulting in system updates that come in a timely fashion and systems which rarely, if ever, break due to packaging. The versions of software that are selected and the configuration of them is typically extremely high quality. See More

Top Con

Limited community support

The community is fairly small, and there is no indication on the forums regarding when a issues will be solved. See More

Top Pro

One-Click install

Much better system then other distros for installing any package. It is as simple as clicking on one button and typing in your password. Adds a repo to your system keeping everything updated at the same time. See More

Top Con

Short lived distro

Every release lasts 18 months only before needing a major upgrade. See More

Top Pro

Easily get packages from other sources

SUSE Build Service offers packages from the same sources as Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, SUSE Linux Enterprise and other distributions. This is the most underused package tool in Linux today. See More

Top Con

Old kernel by the Leap version

Kernel in Leap 42.3 is in version 4.4, that's pretty old. See More

Top Pro

Probably the best KDE desktop experience

Both Gnome and KDE desktop options are well polished to fit with the opensuse theme and environement, so either desktop is a great choice. See More

Top Con

Some clear differences from other Linux distros

This might be a systemd issue or OpenSUSE specific, but changing certain text files does not update things. They must be edited in YaST, or in /etc/sysconfig/ See More

Top Pro

Convenient package management with Zypper

Fast, reliable, powerful and almost impossible to leave a broken system. The Yast interface will also give you access to a Zypper GUI if you are uncomfortable with the command line. See More

Top Con

Bloated and slow

Top Pro

"Tumbleweed" Rolling Release

Regular and easy upgrades to stable and well tested software. See More

Top Con

Startup takes a long time

Top Pro

Very stable

Stable, reliable, rock solid. See More

Top Con

Complex permissions policy

Top Pro

Supports RPM packages

Popular format shared with distros like Fedora, RHEL, Scientific Linux, Mageia etc. See More

Top Pro

Amazing choice for both newbies and power users

OpenSUSE is very easy in terms of installing packages, administration and customization, yet very powerful in the same. Every user should find his own piece of cake in this OS. See More

Top Pro

Outstanding community support

OpenSUSE has a VERY active user community. Questions on forums are generally answered in minutes. See More

Top Pro

Dedicated professional community

Directions on other desktop Linux's often force you to use GUI packages or have steps that introduce security issues. OpenSUSE has a professional community and directions are usually geared toward GUI and CLI with similar steps. See More

Specs

Based On: SLS Linux > Slackware > SuSE

Default Desktop Environment:Plasma, GNOME, Xfce, LXQT

Release Schedule:Point (1 year minor releases, 3 years major releases)

CentOS favours stability over being up-to date. For this reason it ships with packages that may be up to two years behind in order to ensure stability over everything else. Using older versions for packages means that they have been thoroughly tested and used in production for quite some time, and are ensured to play well with each-other. This strategy has paid off quite a lot in the past. One example is the Heartbleed bug which left CentOS unaffected since it was using a two-year old OpenSSL library which did not have the bug. See More

430 143

score 128 · Answer 10

CentOS

Top Pro

Greatly favours stability over anything else

Top Pro

Applications don't have to take into account potentially breaking changes in libraries

Since CentOS backports all updates and bug fixes to older versions in order to maintain package compatibility across releases, applications hosted on Red Hat Linux don't have to worry about potential breaking changes in libraries they use, especially language libraries. See More

Top Pro

Built-in disaster recovery solutions through clusters

CentOS has several built-in solutions for disaster recovery. For example, it comes with pacemaker which can be configured to manage multi-site and and stretch clusters across multiple geographical locations for disaster recovery and scalability. It can also be configured to trigger notifications when the status of a managed cluster changes by using enhanced pacemaker alerts. See More

Top Pro

Built-in support for containers

Comes with built-in management tools for containers (Atomic CLI, Cockpit) and a container runtime in the form of Docker engine. See More

Top Pro

Good long term support

Top Pro

Supports multiple PHP versions

You can install multiple PHP versions and have them available for different users. See More

Specs

Based On:Red Hat Linux>Fedora

Default Desktop Environment:GNOME

Release Schedule:Point (Concurrent with RHEL)

Uses stable, plain-vanilla packages from upstream. See More

128 27

score 92 · Answer 11

Slackware

Top Pro

Stable

Top Con

Not User Friendly

Top Pro

Package management

Uses standard tar archives with shell scripting as packages. See More

Top Con

Large size live ISO

One need to vain 3GB+ data for downloading one slackware ISO. See More

Top Pro

Ideal to learn more of Linux

Top Pro

One more distro which is init based

Some users don't like to install systemd based distros because they increase booting and processing speed. See More

Top Pro

Strong adherence to UNIX Principals

Top Pro

No systemd

Top Pro

Oldest surviving linux distro

Specs

Based On:Softlanding Linux System

Default Desktop Environment:KDE SC

Init-System:SysVinit

Release Schedule:Point

It doesn't require much more than a POSIX shell and dialog/Ncurses. See More

92 22

score 15 · Answer 12

Console TDM

Top Pro

Very lightweight

Top Con

No customization

Apart from changing the console colors there isn't much you can do. See More

Top Con

Very old

The display manager looks ancient and will look ancient due to the lack of customization. See More

15 0

score 50 · Answer 13

SDDM

Top Pro

Supports both X11 and Wayland

Top Con

Customizing is hard

Customizing this login manager is hard since you need to know QML very well. See More

Top Pro

SDDM can provide full eyecandy

SDDM themes can include animated videos/gifs, background music/sounds, and any combination of the various QML animations. See More

Top Con

A bit bloated

It requires Qt which is a huge dependency compared to other login managers. See More

Top Pro

SDDM can start each DE

Unlike GDM which is stubborn in many ways, SDDM can start both Wayland and X11 sessions and any matter of valid session type, even if it's something obscure like Windowmaker. See More

Top Pro

Recommended for Plasma 5 and LXQT

QML-based display manager. Successor to KDE4's KDM. See More

Top Pro

Security

It doesn't support XDMCP. See More

Slim's documentation is well organized and detailed, every concept is thoroughly explained and it is very helpful for both advanced users and beginners. See More

50 8

score 273 · Answer 14

Slim

Top Pro

Well organized and thorough documentation

Top Con

Dependency injection is too weak

It is not really dependency injection, but just a configurable container. See More

Top Pro

Open source

The Slim Framework is open source and is released under the MIT public license See More

Top Con

Very little consistency among different versions

There have been quite some changes that break the compatibility between Slim 2 and Slim 3. Even if you learned how to work with the Slim 2, you will find that Slim 3 requires re-training. See More

Top Pro

A good starting point

Slim is minimal and that is a good thing if you want to start from there. It can be easily extended and even supports popular packages that are used in Laravel (like Illuminate\Database (eloquent)) for example. See More

Top Con

Needs strong bases to create dependencies

The dependency container schema of Slim is one of the biggest PROS and CONS of the framework. It is true that this schema brings so much flexibility to add anything, but another thing that is true is that you need to have strong bases of patterns, and an extensive knowledge of your libraries to convert it into a Slim dependency. See More

Top Pro

Hooks for executing code at different points in its life-cycle

Slim supports code hooks for executing functions at different points in time during the application's lifecycle. See More

Top Con

Too minimal

While it's true that Slim is a microframework, it's still too minimal. When used for throwaway projects or simple prototypes, it's perfect. But in the long run, it becomes less and less useful and you end up in implementing a full custom framework in trying to tackle all the missing features. See More

Top Pro

Supports tie-ins for Rack-like middleware

Rack is an interface used in Ruby frameworks used to group and order modules, which most of the time are Ruby classes, and specify between them. Slim uses a simple concept for it's middleware. By wrapping HTTP requests and responses it unifies the middleware into a single method call. See More

Top Pro

Useful classes

Contains classes for managing requests, responses, cookies, logging, views, HTTP caching, and more. See More

Top Pro

REST based

REST fans will love the REST based architecture. See More

Top Pro

Flexible

Slim doesn't demand that you stick to a fixed folder structure. As long as you load Slim the right way you can do anything from there the way you like it. See More

Top Pro

Supports Php 5.3 and PHP 7

Top Pro

Extremely lightweight

Paired with swoole it's a micro service powerhouse. See More

Top Pro

Extremely customizable

You can add any dependency, package or class that you want to use as a contained dependency. See More

Some greeters such as the Unity Greeter look absolutely beautiful on LightDM. See More

273 39

score 130 · Answer 15

LightDM

Top Pro

Beautiful interface

Top Con

Not really lightweight

How lightweight it is depends on the used greeter, but they all require much more dependencies than other lightweight greeters like XDM or SLiM. See More

Top Con

Poor/missing documentation

Top Con

No Wayland compatibility

This means no wayland session can be launched at all using LightDM. See More

130 22

score 4 · Answer 16

Entrance

Top Con

Edje is hard to master

EDJE *.edc files are CSS-Like code that is hard to master: https://www.enlightenment.org/_legacy_embed/edcref.html See More

Top Pro

Does not need Systemd

So it can be used on other unix-like operating systems besides linux without the need for linux bindings. See More

Top Pro

A Sandbox

Entrance is probably the most configurable and themeable display manager available. See More

4 1

score 7 · Answer 17

CRUX

Top Pro

Ports

it uses the BSD ports system as package manager See More

Top Con

KISS

You have to do everything by yourself there are no helpers! See More

Top Pro

Very BSD/UNIX-like

Top Pro

Learning

Nice if you want to learn some stuff about Linux See More

Specs

Based On:N/A

Default Desktop Environment:N/A

Init-System:BSD-style initscripts

Release Schedule:Rolling

GDM is dull, but it just works, and it is highly stable. It's easy to switch between environments, and it integrates really well with Fedora or other Gnome Distros. See More

7 2

score 51 · Answer 18

GDM

Top Con

Depends on GTK and its dependencies

Top Pro

It just works

Top Con

Tied to Gnome

You basically have to use Gnome or one of its forks to use it properly. See More

Top Pro

Always signs the GNOME keyring

Works with any desktop. Some display managers such as SDDM don't open the GNOME keyring at login. See More

Top Con

Ugly UI

Top Pro

Not so difficult to customize

You just have to know which files to edit and you can do quite a lot. See More

Top Con

Really hard to customize

You'll have to recompile Gnome's resource files in order just to change the login background. See More