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LifestyleProductivityDesktop Environment

What are the best desktop environments?

76
Options 
Considered
6.6K
User 
Recs.
39 mins
Last 
Updated
Things To Consider

Linux desktop environments are the graphical interfaces used to interact with the operating system.

It's important to note the difference between desktop environments and window managers. Window managers only take care of application windows themselves - how they look, what buttons are shown (minimize, close), how they are arranged, etc.

A desktop environment on the other hand includes more of a complete suite of managing a desktop. For example, a system tray, system menus, backgrounds, icons, and a task bar. They often include applications as well.

Desktop environments usually come with a window manager of their own, but the window manager of any desktop environment can be substituted for another.

A good Linux desktop environment enable interacting with the operating system easily and efficiently. It should offer a intuitive, efficient interface for getting things done that can be easily customized to fit everyone's needs.

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31 Options Considered

Best desktop environmentsPriceLicenseProgramming Language
89
Xfce
FreeGPL, LGPL, BSDmostly C
85
Cinnamon
FREEGPLmostly C
82
KDE Plasma
FREEGPL, LGPLMainly C++
79
GNOME
FREEGPLC
79
Lumina
FreeBSDC++
See Full List
89

Xfce

My Recommendation for Xfce

My Recommendation for Xfce

Add Video or Image
All
92
Experiences
42
Pros
19
Cons
30
Specs
Chloe Montanez
Slimothy
Top Pro
•••

Works on a wide variety of platforms

Xfce can be installed on several UNIX platforms. It is known to compile on Linux, NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, Cygwin and MacOS X, on x86, PPC, Sparc, and Alpha. See More
WonderfulCeraon
Holo Deck
Top Con
•••

Now with Client Side decorations

Recent development versions introduce GNOME-ClientSideDecorations for some Xfce applications. Like on GNOME this breaks the overall consistency of the desktop. Eg: GNOME and some Xfce applicaions will use GNOME based interfaces like CSD's and popovers while the most other will use normal titlebars and popupmenus. This also makes it almost impossible to use Xfce >=4.15 components on traditional Window Managers like: Openbox, Fluxbox or IceWM. See More
gevis
gevis's Experience
I switched to XFCE4 from Gnome2 when the support for Gnome2 was discontinued and used XFCE4 for about 4 years. Still recomend it though swiched to Awesome WM. For more details see my comment below. See More
Specs
License:GPL, LGPL, BSD
Programming Language:mostly C
Widget Toolkit:GTK+
Available on:*nix
See All Specs
TallCrius
ImpartialRuohtta
Vin S
Top Pro
•••

Low system resource consumption

Not just helpful for older computers where few system resources are available, but also simply for those who want to get the most out of their systems. See More
SociableAjtzak
Francisco
Holo Deck
Top Con
•••

Missing some basic functionality for a desktop environment

Xfce is missing essential functionality like a file-archiver, polkit-client or even a bluetooth or wifi managers, so you have to find alternatives for those applications (eg: by stealing them from MATE or GNOME, which adds additional dependencies that will bloat Xfce and makes it easily even heavier than GNOME). See More
Jonathan Schoreels
Jonathan Schoreels's Experience
XFCE is light, highly customisable and you can easily import/export configurations. It's THE desktop environment if you need stability between your OS, over cool and flashy features See More
Chloe Montanez
Laura Kyle
Slimothy
Top Pro
•••

Highly customizable

Xfce offers plenty of settings, and even things like theming XFWM is a simple task (it's just a handful of images.) Many possible permutations of window colors, borders, fonts, etc. Compositing can make it look downright sexy. See More
TirelessAhriman
Top Con
•••

Does not support HiDPI

Xfwm for example does not support scaling. See More
Ray
Ray's Experience
I keep coming back to XFCE because it's so lightweight, functional, and stable. The performance is rock solid for old machines and there's no DE that comes close to it. See More
Chloe Montanez
Chris DeAngelis
Top Pro
•••

Rock solid stability

Xfce will never be the cause of your crash. See More
RationalMelinoe
Top Con
•••

Uses many custom GTK widgets

Xfce is using many custom-made GTK widgets(like an custom pathbar, GtkDialog headers, Xfceiconview and more), while this makes it different to other GTK desktops it also breaks certain GTK styles that don't have workarounds for those widgets. See More
Peter J. Mello
Peter J. Mello's Experience
I spend a lot of time in front of computers and part of what makes it rewarding is bearing witness to the progress being made. Xfce has a very limited feature set to begin with, and very little seems to be added to it over time. I'll gladly suffer the occasional hiccups with KDE and have something that looks good and innovates before my eyes than run Xfce and feel like I'm stuck on Windows XP again. See More
Chloe Montanez
Imran Munshi
Top Pro
•••

A true UNIX Desktop Environment

Xfce adheres to the UNIX philosophy, which means it strives for being modular, minimal and expandable. This makes it very much customizable. You can make it as minimal as you want and as heavyweight as you want depending on the features and modules/plugins you use. See More
Holo Deck
Top Con
•••

Configuration is stored in a database

All configuration is stored in xfconf or dconf which is like the WIndows Registry very hard to edit with simple tools. See More
Xfce4me
Xfce4me's Experience
Xfce doesn't look the sexiest out of the box...but it's a tinkerer's dream. It can look like anything. Plus it's fast and super-stable. See More
Endi Sukaj
UpbeatNgintaka
Top Pro
•••

Does what it's meant to do easily and efficiently

XFCE is a desktop environment first and foremost, it does not waste time being overly flashy or by being bloated with features. See More
JoyfulAmatsuMikaboshi
EnchantingAnanke
Francisco
Top Con
•••

Terrible project infrastructure

The whole project is split across various sites so contributing is really hard. You also need to register on every site separately. See More
ExceptionalAengus
ExceptionalAengus's Experience
Was my favorite until they decided to go with big, fat, ugly CSD (client-side decorations). Breaks everything from usability to visual style and uniformity. See More
Rodlin
Slimothy
Top Pro
•••

Designed for productivity

It loads and executes applications fast, while conserving system resources. See More
thermoplastics
Top Con
•••

Very slow developement

XFCE tends to be extremely slow in it's development as it has been known to span years between major releases. While this means there are not many disturbing changes to the DE, it also means that new features that are requested take some time to appear. See More
Phillip Smith
Phillip Smith's Experience
A simple light, highly customizable desktop, my favorite for old machines, my 2nd favorite overall, See More
Tom Raleigh
Slimothy
Rodlin
Top Pro
•••

Adheres to standards

A priority of Xfce is adherence to standards, specifically those defined at freedesktop.org allowing for interoperability and shared technology for X Window System desktops. This interoperability is particularly significant for users looking to, e.g., run alternative window managers. See More
Chloe Montanez
thermoplastics
Top Con
•••

Screen tearing issues

The built-in compositor for Xfce does not handle VSync, meaning that it does not address screen tearing for those with Intel integrated graphics. A third party solution will have to be used for those that do want VSync such as using Nvidia proprietary drivers to handle VSync or installing a third party compositor such as Compton. See More
ImaginativeAmeNoUzume
ImaginativeAmeNoUzume's Experience
fast, stable, few bug See More
Phil Mulley
Top Pro
•••

Low resource usage combined with flexible configuration

See More
Paolo
thermoplastics
Ryan
Top Con
•••

Looks dated

It just looks like a 20 year old desktop in its stock form. However, it is possible for you to to give it a more elegant look using themes, icons and other customizations. See More
cosmo
cosmo's Experience
It's hardly any more resource-efficient or any faster than KDE, and it has a fraction of the features. If you're looking for something truly lightweight, I recommend using LXQt instead. See More
Chloe Montanez
Imran Munshi
Top Pro
•••

Window manager (XFWM) is a compositing WM by default

By having a compositing WM as the default WM makes way for a lot of visual tweaks and tricks that can and do make Xfce look great. You can adjust the transparency, shadows, borders, etc. and many other advanced tweaks are also available. See More
Mohsin Javed
Top Con
•••

Sessions cannot be disabled

There is a known bug where sessions keep getting saved involuntarily. So even when you try to clean your saved session it will be reproduced the next time you login. See More
rubenJS
rubenJS's Experience
Although it is a decent and well functioning DE despite being very light I cannot recommend it due to the lack of HiDPI support. This is because XFCE is still in GTK2. The disorder and various licenses, a general lack of coherencem also make it not so appealing. It is also not as full featured as I would like it to be. See More
Laura Kyle
VigorousAjbit
Top Pro
•••

Best for newcomers

Any one new to Linux feels comfortable using it. See More
thibdb13
Top Con
•••

Not a full DE

With a pure Xfce environment you cannot do as much as with Gnome or KDE. See More
WiseHathor
WiseHathor's Experience
Simple but powerful interface, fast, effective, customisable, pleasant to look at, does not get in the road of using my applications. See More
JM80
Hypersphere
Top Pro
•••

Excellent panel management and selection of panel applets

Xfce provides excellent management of panels and a rich selection of panel applets. See More
Monika
TirelessAhriman
Top Con
•••

Xfwm theming is limited

For example, unlike metacity/marco/miffin it does not support different styles for window types. See More
Diego Rodrigues
Diego Rodrigues's Experience
The best and only DE for me. Sure I use Openbox or Fluxbox every now and then. But as far as DE's go there is only one for me. See More
Barbara Glowa
Top Pro
•••

Well defined Session Manager

See More
Monika
CrediblePhilomelus
Top Con
•••

GConf

It's the same Windows Registry clone as GNOME. See More
DreamerPoludnica
DreamerPoludnica's Experience
Lean, mean and simple to use desktop especially on old- hardware. See More
Jonathan Schoreels
Top Pro
•••

Easy to export or import configurations

See More
teadan
JoyfulEkecheiria
Monika
Top Con
•••

It doesn't support fn button for laptops

You can easily enable it, but it's not on out-of-the-box -> read comment. See More
EnthusiasticPassalos
EnthusiasticPassalos's Experience
extremely fast to use on old comps too See More
EnchantingAnanke
Top Pro
•••

HiDPI support

After release 4.14 Xfce supports HiDPI. See More
thibdb13
Top Con
•••

Not good for different users' locales on one system

When you have users with different personal locales, XfcE has problems using the right locale for the right user. See More
Tim Etler
Tim Etler's Experience
I started using XFCE when I was using an older computer that benefitted from its speed and simplicity, but since then I've stuck with it since it's a really no nonsense, customizable, and stable desktop environment. For me, there haven't been many compelling new features of other desktop environments that make up for the complexity, so I'm happier with XFCE. My favorite feature is probably the Whisker Menu panel on the taskbar. It lets you search for programs to run and you can customize it with various regexes to run whatever commands you want. I set mine up to open folders and run the calculator and stuff at the touch of a button. See More
Alex
ExcitedPorphyrion
Top Pro
•••

Has a convenient launcher and a Genmon plugin

See More
CalmHubal
OpinionatedVacuna
Top Con
•••

Has become a GNOME2/MATE clone

It has lost its way since 4.4 and is now just another GNOME2-like desktop. See More
SophisticatedChronos
SophisticatedChronos's Experience
lightweight, customizable, sleek based on openbox See More
yerbestpal
Top Pro
•••

4.14 has beautiful and functional notifications

See More
Chloe Montanez
Imran Munshi
Top Con
•••

Looks ugly out of the box

Out of the box, Xfce is the one of the ugliest if not the ugliest DE out there. It definitely can become the most beautiful and gorgeous DE after a bit of tinkering and theming, but the default theme is not that good. See More
PersistentHuitztlampaehecatl
PersistentHuitztlampaehecatl's Experience
sometimes buggy - The filemanager thunar some responses slowly or even wrongly See More
Alex
SplendidManyu
Top Pro
•••

Manages multiple displays with choice of monitor for desktop icons

See More
Monika
CrediblePhilomelus
Top Con
•••

Will become more interconnected an less modular

Isn't as modular anymore as it was 10 years ago. In the future (4.16) they will also introduce GTK Client Side Decorations to all setting dialogs so you will have some problems with using a different Window manager or when using xfce components outside of Xfce/GNOME. See More
Buster Blue
Buster Blue's Experience
Because XFCE is so focused on customization, it forgets to be coherent. It's great that I can change so much of XFCE to fit my tastes if I want to, but it's not great that I NEED to do so in order to get a competent desktop environment. I shouldn't need to fiddle with settings for so long to get an acceptable system. XFCE should know what a good setup looks like, and start out that way. A more intrinsic issue with XFCE is integration. The desktop environment feels like it's held together by staples and a glue stick. Different features were thrown in without an apparent concern for their chemistry with other elements, and there are often many different ways of doing the same thing, but without there being clear places where each of the ways fit best. XFCE is, in a way, the anti-Gnome, but unfortunately, work needs to be done before it can properly represent the other side of the coin. See More
ColorfulKokhKox
Top Pro
•••

Easily Customizable as compared to other DEs

See More
TequilaSunrise
Top Con
•••

One pixel wide window borders

The non-configurable, one pixel wide window borders make resizing difficult. Work-arounds exist but those are clunky at best. See More
davidak
davidak's Experience
Solid Desktop Environment See More
Vin S
Laura Kyle
VigorousAjbit
Top Con
•••

Lacks modern design and effects

No support for transparency, effects in opening or closing a file browser, or other effects like cube or cylinder, unlike, say, KDE. See More
CompetentBorvo
CompetentBorvo's Experience
Mint Xfce version for many years on Lenovo X220 lptop. Best experience, fast, no issues See More
WhiteLilac
EarnestHermus
Top Con
•••

Lack of useful tools

See More
PerseveringGatumdag
PerseveringGatumdag's Experience
It used to be good until client side decorations ruined it. You might as well abandon Xfce and go back to using the deprecated LXDE or just a window manager. See More
Anon
Top Con
•••

Openbox doesn't support Wayland

See More
SincereGalene
SincereGalene's Experience
I can coloring and make transparent every panel , modify and create icons as I like and want. See More
Madsen Altamirano
Top Con
•••

Officially is no Longer the Champion of Lightweight Memory Usage

According to multiple credible sources in the Linux world and the KDE developers, XFCE now uses more memory than Plasma 5.17, due to Plasma bringing better and faster updates. Even the XFCE folks admit XFCE is somewhat getting out of hand. I suppose this was tested on a minimal install of Plasma, without the entire KDE ecosystem. So if you are concerned with memory usage and use a "build-it-yourself" distribution like Arch, avoid XFCE and install Plasma by itself. See More
EnchantingVaisravana
EnchantingVaisravana's Experience
It has verything what is need with half of memory usage. I really don't understand what people see in Gnome3. It haven't noticed any feature which xfce don't have. See More
Alex
IndependentSuwaliyat
Top Con
•••

Poor support

It can take years for the devs to answer to bug reports. See More
StudiousChalchiuhtotolin
StudiousChalchiuhtotolin's Experience
Fast , Good for Old pc See More
KindPercunatele
Top Con
•••

Breaks standards

Sine 4.16 the developers ignore standards like the freedesktop icon naming scheme. Instead they now follow GNOME with rDNS icon naming breaking dozens of icon themes. eg: gnome-calculator.svg becomes org.gnome.Calculator.png rDNS naming also uses uppercase letters in filenames which is a bad idea on unix systems. See More
ConfidentArethusa
ConfidentArethusa's Experience
XFCE had reliable multi-monitor support well in advance of my previous favourite, KDE. Subsequently I like the light-weight nature and generally high performance of XFCE. See More
teadan
Alex
IndependentSuwaliyat
Top Con
•••

No sound effect

Xfce does not support freedesktop sound themes. See More
EarnestDaikokuten
EarnestDaikokuten's Experience
I am a big fan of multiple workspaces with individual backgrounds See More
Nedas Kuzas
CoherentInara
Top Con
•••

Focuses on artwork/eyecandy instead of usability

Sine 4.14 there was a shift to focus more on artwork than usability. See More
SkillfulAngraMainyu
SkillfulAngraMainyu's Experience
light weight, stable,battery friendly See More
CoherentInara
Top Con
•••

Not modular anymore

Until 4.10 xfce was the modular desktop and you could xfce apps and components outside of xfce, but nowadays all components are interconnected. See More
SociableAjtzak
SociableAjtzak's Experience
I hate it, it is either lightweight and unusable or usable and heavy. There is absolutly no point for calling this a lightweight desktop environment instead they should use the term the incomplete desktop environment since your have to install blueman, xarchiver, networkmanager and dozens of other applications to get a full functional desktop system. See More
DrHiro ひろ
Top Con
•••

Out-dated

Development are often too slow and unable provide necessary functionalities. See More
Jo Lux
Jo Lux's Experience
Highly custom See More
teadan
CharmingPolyhymnia
DetailedAsag
Top Con
•••

Too lightweight

Feels too lightweight and doesn't have enough packages and applications. See More
UnbiasedMarqod
UnbiasedMarqod's Experience
I always used Xfce applications in my window managers but now they have become interconnected like gnome or kde applications. See More
LoyalFaustitas
LoyalFaustitas's Experience
Although the initial installation dose not have many defaults applications and looks old, the xfce desktop environment is highly customizable and lightweight. I recommend this for users who are not satisfied with default environments and do not want to complicate things with Openbox. See More
VivaciousArges
VivaciousArges's Experience
Lightweight & fast. See More
SplendidManyu
SplendidManyu's Experience
I've tried virtually all of the linux desktop environments and several window managers, and Xfce remains my top choice. It is eminently customizable, highly intuitive, and supremely functional. Moreover, it now includes excellent management of multiple monitors, whereby desktop icons can be placed on the user's choice of displays. See More
FantasticUkeMochi
FantasticUkeMochi's Experience
yes See More
DetailedAsag
DetailedAsag's Experience
Feels too lightweight and doesn't have enough drivers and packages See More
DelightfulArnakuagsak
DelightfulArnakuagsak's Experience
mon expérience...sans fin See More
ProudScylla
ProudScylla's Experience
Most User Friendly See More
LogicalJuventas
LogicalJuventas's Experience
The best there is! See More
CalmAinina
CalmAinina's Experience
Used to be lightweight but now is just as resource hungry as Gnome or KDE. Just upgraded to Debian 10 with Xfce and memory consumption at idle is 500MB, of which ~100MB used by nm-applet - I knoe, Network Manager is Gnome's not Xfce's but still. For those of you who say 'unused RAM is a wasted RAM', try browsing the web using any of the Chromium-based browsers with many tabs open! See More
BraveTongoenabiagus
BraveTongoenabiagus's Experience
It is Very Lightweight See More
TrustingEkwensu
TrustingEkwensu's Experience
Fast, simple, highly customizable See More
Hypersphere
Hypersphere's Experience
I've tried virtually all of the linux desktop environments and many window managers. My top choice among these remains Xfce. It is eminently configurable, highly intuitive, and superbly functional. Moreover, it now includes excellent management of multiple monitors, enabling the user to choose any display for placement of desktop icons. See More
HideSee All
85

Cinnamon

My Recommendation for Cinnamon

My Recommendation for Cinnamon

Add Video or Image
All
63
Experiences
26
Pros
25
Cons
11
Specs
Rodlin
Top Pro
•••

Designed for traditional desktops

Intended for large-screen, non-touch devices that extend traditional concepts with functionality and good looking aesthetic. See More
teadan
ConvivialMegaera
Top Con
•••

Cumbersome main menu

Main menu takes a lot of space and is cumbersome to navigate. See More
Buster Blue
Buster Blue's Experience
My 2nd favorite desktop environment, after Gnome. It might not seem similar to Gnome on the surface, but the similarities become clear with time. The unique workflow that Gnome enabled was my favorite part of using it, and a similar workflow can be captured in cinnamon with a few settings changes. Most of the noticeable differences between the 2 are where cinnamon opts to favor tradition, and Gnome felt that it could do better. See More
Specs
License:GPL
Programming Language:mostly C
Widget Toolkit:GTK+
Available on:*nix
See All Specs
thermoplastics
Rodlin
Top Pro
•••

Fast, elegant and stable interface

Cinnamon uses a traditional desktop userflow that most computer users are familiar with. See More
Monika
rubenJS
Top Con
•••

Conservative design and UX choices

Tries to be too much like traditional Windows (XP, Vista, 7). See More
Elias Van Ootegem
Elias Van Ootegem's Experience
When looking for the best desktop environment, there is no right/wrong answer. It all depends on what you're looking for. If you want something light and fast, I'd recommend something more like a window manager (i3/swayWM) instead of a fully fledged DE. In my experience, cinnamon is stable, not too resource hungry, widely available and easy to use. It certainly is one of the more classical desktop environments, but rather than looking for some novel approach to an existing problem, there is something to be said to stick to a paradigm that has proven its worth over the last 3 decades. See More
JM80
thermoplastics
Madscientist
Top Pro
•••

Very easy to customize

It's very easy to customize using the built in theme and applet tools. It automatically installs themes and desktop/panel applets for you, so you mostly won't have to go search online for them. See More
Hypersphere
Top Con
•••

Needs more choices for useful panel applets

Cinnamon still lacks some useful choices for panel applets. For excellent management of panels and a rich choice of useful panel applets, I rely on Xfce. See More
StudiousOizys
StudiousOizys's Experience
I use Cinnamon on Debian stable ... It is here very stable, no freezes, highly customizable and pretty ;-) See More
Laura Kyle
VivaciousCymopoleia
Top Pro
•••

Lots of downloadable free themes

Plenty of themes, ready and free to be downloaded and applied with just a couple of clicks in a few seconds, with the file sizes mostly around 0.5 - 1MB. See More
MeticulousGunAna
TirelessAhriman
Top Con
•••

No traditional menu available

There is no mouse driven cascade menu, the only menus you'll get are big fat XP-like menus with scrollbars! Any X11 window manager has a better menu available than cinnamon. See More
rado84
rado84's Experience
The most stable and versatile desktop environment. Almost no limitation as to what can be customized. See More
teadan
Paolo
Green Luo
Top Pro
•••

The keyboard shortcut design is very friendly to users with Windows background

Your win+E, win+D etc are still working after migrating to Cinnamon from Windows. See More
Monika
WorthyTaevataat
Laura Kyle
Top Con
•••

Few themes

Rather than using actual GTK theming, Cinnamon appears to vye for its own strange infrastructure that isn't compatible across any other desktop. See More
jonjar
jonjar's Experience
Best environment for someone that is used to Microsoft Windows. See More
WhiteLilac
Smurphos
Locke
Top Pro
•••

Nice themes and extensions

Very easy to make this desktop your own both in terms of looks and functionality. See More
CrediblePhilomelus
Top Con
•••

Shell-style ≠ widget-style

The Cinnamon-shell is unable the use the current GTK style for its interface thus making it hard to get a consistent user interface. See More
PerfectBaalat
PerfectBaalat's Experience
most straightforward and at the same time good looking, and at the same time, low resource consuming, attributes make cinnamon the objectively best desktop environment...gnome/KDE plebs go in the mud. See More
thermoplastics
Phillip Smith
Top Pro
•••

Very well supported

Has a great community and is very well supported through Linux Mint website. See More
CrediblePhilomelus
Top Con
•••

Not Standalone

It still uses many GNOME applications to make it a complete Desktop Environment. See More
HonestTepeyollotl
HonestTepeyollotl's Experience
Several years running Cinnamon, have tried other desktops but their toolset is always missing crucial features. See More
Laura Kyle
Doug Minske
Top Pro
•••

Stable DE

See More
cosmo
Top Con
•••

Uses GTK

Nowadays, GTK is designed with GNOME, and only GNOME, in mind. Non-GNOME applications which attempt to utilize it suffer as a result. See More
ExcitedAngerona
ExcitedAngerona's Experience
I work with this in Linux Mint, and it work mostly good. See More
teadan
Paolo
Holo Deck
Top Pro
•••

Traditional desktop with the recent features

Cinnamon is a modern desktop that has the latest features, but at the same time it sticks to its way as a classic desktop and ignores trends/hypes like client side decorations or popover menus. See More
ExcitedAngerona
Top Con
•••

Sound Settings not automatic

On Windows, for example, you can unplug a speaker and it will switch back to the laptop-speaker. In Cinnamon, you have to do it manually. See More
VivaciousLupercus
VivaciousLupercus's Experience
Cinnamon is highly customizable and extremely versatile. It is able to emulate a Windows machine, a Mac, and anything in-between. Regarding system resources it is sort of a welter-weight. It would be a total toss-up between Cinnamon and Budgie if it weren't for the themes. See More
WhiteLilac
Smurphos
Top Pro
•••

Actively developed with useful new features in each release

E.g vertical panels are now there. See More
Diego Cardinali
Top Con
•••

Bloated, and yet missing Gnome and Plasma's many features

See More
ElatedIkatere
ElatedIkatere's Experience
Excellent, flexible, not too heavy on resources, not very buggy, though Nemo can be trouble sometimes. See More
EagerAdrasteia
Top Pro
•••

You can easily get it to look like Windows

You can get it to closely look and behave like Windows with considerable ease. This is a good thing for those switching from Windows, because it gives them a familiar environment, cutting down on the learning curve a bit. Among the popular DE's this is the one that gets you closest with great ease. See More
Marián Marcinko
Top Con
•••

Conservative management without more creativity

It is almost the same management like in 20-years old GNOME 2 environment. Although some elements are new. See More
cosmo
cosmo's Experience
This is basically an alternative configuration for GNOME, and suffers from treatment as a second-class citizen by GTK developers. See More
teadan
PleasantApsat
Top Pro
•••

Best for users coming from Windows

Will look familiar to windows users making the transition easier. See More
ResoluteMyesyats
ResoluteMyesyats's Experience
Most intuitive desktop out there and simple for new users. I use it with Antergos because it was better than Mint and I have use of the AUR repository with Antergos. See More
Hypersphere
Top Pro
•••

Cinnamon provides control of icon placement on multiple monitors

Cinnamon provides control of the placement of desktop icons on multiple monitor setups. This feature has been buggy, but in my testing of Linux Mint 19, this feature appeared to be stable. Thus, Cinnamon joins KDE and Windows in enabling this capability. For example, in a setup with 2 or 3 monitors, you can put the desktop icons on the right-hand monitor. With other DEs, the icons always move to the left-hand monitor. See More
Phillip Smith
Phillip Smith's Experience
This is my go desktop, stable and for me everything just right about it See More
Endi Sukaj
HonestKekuit
Top Pro
•••

Vertical panel already available

See More
VivaciousTaraxippus
VivaciousTaraxippus's Experience
With some tinkering you can make cinnamon look like mac OS. Stability is 95%. Perfect for linux newbies as well as for pros who like the clean, polished look of Windows. See More
rado84
Top Pro
•••

Can run apps meant for any other desktop environment

Cinnamon can run any app meant for any other DE, meaning the user can have apps for XFCE and KDE simultaneously and they will run as smoothly as if they're being run in the corresponding DE. See More
DecorousZeus
DecorousZeus's Experience
cinammon used by linux mint and itss fantastic! See More
teadan
DecorousZeus
Top Pro
•••

Pretty design

See More
PositiveSwayxtix
PositiveSwayxtix's Experience
OK zbest See More
VivaciousLupercus
Top Pro
•••

You can easily get it to look like a Mac

See More
ShakiestNerd
ShakiestNerd's Experience
Since I must switch between Linux and Windows a lot (work still requires Win 7), it is nice to have a Linux desktop that is not radically different from that of Windows. See More
HilariousAdgilisDeda
Top Pro
•••

Works well with cairo dock on bottom and cinnamenu on top

See More
PreciseThor
PreciseThor's Experience
I've tried many, Cinnamon is the most comfortable one. See More
Nedas Kuzas
NonchalantAverruncus
Top Pro
•••

Supports Widgets

You can place widgets on the desktop like a calculator or the weather. See More
KindKukulkan
KindKukulkan's Experience
Nice traditional desktop See More
CoherentInara
Top Pro
•••

Addon manager integrated

It includes an addon manager for themes, widgets or plugins so you don't have to manually download them and place them in the theme directories. See More
ToughUranus
ToughUranus's Experience
The fps in games is lower than other interfaces See More
NonchalantAverruncus
Top Pro
•••

Titlebars

It does not use GNOME's Client Side decorations. See More
EnchantingHuitztlampaehecatl
EnchantingHuitztlampaehecatl's Experience
Solid, reliable and user friendly. Thanks to Microsoft for introducing the utterly bloated Windows 8 and 10, as I wouldn't have discovered Cinnamon otherwise. See More
Monika
NonchalantAverruncus
Top Pro
•••

Uses X11

It uses the traditional and well supported xorg server. See More
LivelyToci
LivelyToci's Experience
CInnamon was my 1st Linux desktop when I switched from Windows 7. The similarity with Windows desktop made the switching quite comfortable. My earlier experiences (long ago) with Linux had been rather awkward (Red Hat v.6 or 7, at work) but Cinnamon really made me welcome to Linux. The #1 choice for all refugees from Windows! See More
NonchalantAverruncus
Top Pro
•••

You can disable overlay scrollbars

Cinnamon has a GUI option for that. See More
RealisticTusholi
RealisticTusholi's Experience
Easy to customize. Nemo is the best File Manager by far. System Setting all in one place and easy to navigate. See More
Monika
ResponsibleAhuraMazda
Top Pro
•••

Conservative look

Looks like Windows XP, Vista/7. See More
Ajay Kumar Rawani
Ajay Kumar Rawani's Experience
Awesome ! See More
Monika
Ryan
Rémy GARRIGUE
Top Pro
•••

Lots of configuration options

Both Gnome and Cinnamon got the same looking configuration panel. There are 40 sub-panels in Linux Mint Cinnamon's, whenever there a far less with Ubuntu Gnome 3's. Windows, notification, smart corners, windows overlay, connection windows... you can have those in Gnome, but that requires compiz and other stuff. See More
nanon
nanon's Experience
Tries too hard to be like Windows, always runs in software rendering mode on Linux Mint, and it isn't quite as good as Xfce or MATE. See More
EnthusiasticHouyi
EnthusiasticHouyi's Experience
Great desktop experience with some little bugs See More
HideSee All
82

KDE Plasma

My Recommendation for KDE Plasma

My Recommendation for KDE Plasma

All
105
Experiences
53
Pros
28
Cons
23
Specs
Marián Marcinko
Alex Summers
Slimothy
Top Pro
•••

Highly customizable

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

Lost its way

On KDE3 you could fully customize every KDE application eg: you could move toolbars to all corners, add toolbar entries and all applications followed one interface guidline by having menubars, toolbars, statusbars etc. However since KDE4 some applications like Dolphin miss those features and it goes even further with the newer QML based applications. See More
HumorousPyrrhichos
HumorousPyrrhichos's Experience
very customizable and with no limits you can make it look like anything See More
Specs
License:GPL, LGPL
Programming Language:Mainly C++
Widget Toolkit:Qt
Available on:*nix
Alex Summers
Slimothy
Wolf D. Zieger
Top Pro
•••

Looks beautiful

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

Hard to customize

For example to create a Qt theme you need to learn Qt and C++. To create a plasma theme you have to use SVGs that follow a strict standard. For creating login themes you need to know QML. Icon themes for KDE are big and complex around 1000 different icons in ~8 sizes. See More
Prince Cooper
Prince Cooper's Experience
Awesome full fledged DE out of the box. KDE developers do take critisism, listen to the community & always strive to improve the DE regularly. See More
Laura Kyle
Doug Minske
Top Pro
•••

Enjoyable to use

Thanks to looking awesome, and being customizable and flexible. See More
WhiteLilac
schlaumeier
Top Con
•••

Difficult to turn off some transparency

Some of the transparency settings for Plasma can only be removed by changing away from the standard theme altogether. A bit disappointing as so many other things are configurable to the deepest detail and transparency in the wrong place can make reading menu entries for example difficult at times. See More
Mathieu Jobin
Mathieu Jobin's Experience
Powerful and light at the same time. Rich environment, many apps. Simply the best out there. See More
CompetentJanus
thermoplastics
Slimothy
Top Pro
•••

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

The 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, excellent removable storage integration, and an optional terminal panel while remaining fast and easy to use. See More
Alex
RationalMelinoe
Top Con
•••

Shell-style ≠ widget-style

The Plasma-shell is unable the use the current Qt style for its interface thus making it hard to get a consistent user interface. See More
DaringYeongdeungHalmang
DaringYeongdeungHalmang's Experience
dumbed down applications that are hard to navigate due to no interface guideline(every app looks and feels different. See More
Endi Sukaj
Laura Kyle
Mark Ackerman
Top Pro
•••

Fast and efficient

Looks great! Dolphin file manager is without a doubt the best fully functional and easy to use and multitask with. See More
Monika
HilariousPeitho
Top Con
•••

Drains your battery

There is a lot of stuff on KDE the will drain your battery more quickly than on other desktops. For example, it uses many SVGs which have to be rendered before display, kwin also needs a working compositor. See More
DecentBeaivi
DecentBeaivi's Experience
It is a lot stabler than it was a year ago to the point where it actually feels like a relatively polished desktop environment. However, it's RELATIVELY polished. Things still crash from time to time but, in those cases, it's just a crash. I just restarted the program and carried on with my day. Also, it is probably the most feature-filled DE's I've ever used See More
thermoplastics
Aaron Seigo
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
Endi Sukaj
Madscientist
Top Con
•••

Too complex

Shows too many options at once often time, making it more complex than simplistic. See More
CuriousAmphictyonis
CuriousAmphictyonis's Experience
Nice and clean theming Great functions, ressource friendly and stable (Plasma 5.14 on OpenSuse Tumbleweed) See More
thermoplastics
Bruno Friedmann
Top Pro
•••

Many coherent applications

What make plasma so nice is the galaxy of apps, sharing same look and feel, configuration and behaviour. This helps with making for a uniform looking desktop. See More
HumorousRobigus
Top Con
•••

Weird behaviour of PowerOff/Restart/LogOff buttons

No matter what button you press you get the same screen where you actually have to choose what you want to do See More
DiligentDecima
DiligentDecima's Experience
I've been using KDE since 3. I'll admit version 4 was rocky. However, Plasma 5 is hands-down the single best desktop environment I've used. It may even top OS X Aqua. I'm able to be very productive when I need to be, and there are plenty of fun "toys" (games and puzzles) included with KDE to occupy free time. All in all, in my opinion KDE is the bar that all other desktop environments should be measured against. See More
Michael Gratton
Spam Us
Aaron Seigo
Top Pro
•••

KDE is an evolution on the classic desktop model

KDE is a great evolution on the classic Win95/XFCE approach. It's moving in innovative directions while respecting the classic metaphors. See More
Monika
Alex
Top Con
•••

Add-on installation can be tricky

Adding themes and widgets can be tricky. See More
ThoughtfulCinteotl
ThoughtfulCinteotl's Experience
One of the best equipped Desktop Environments with lots of options. Despite being called heavy, it can be configured to run efficient on weaker hardware (without effects, with software rendering, or even without compositor). This is not possible in Gnome See More
Endi Sukaj
Fabricio Daniel Meloni
Top Pro
•••

Very customizable

One of the best aspects of KDE is that it gives you Lego-like tools called widgets. You can combine the widgets in the way that better fits you and get a Mac OS desktop layout, a Gnome 3 desktop layout, a mobile device desktop layout or a completely new desktop layout that works for you. See More
Monika
Alex
Top Con
•••

Some applications warn when running as root

This can be distracting to the user. See More
MaybeGreatReviewer
MaybeGreatReviewer's Experience
KDE Plasma is great for customization and integrates with other KDE applications. See More
Slimothy
Aaron Seigo
Rodlin
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
WhiteLilac
ConvivialMegaera
Top Con
•••

Swollen look out of the box

In default theme elements are extremely large, which makes screen feel smaller than it really is. Some of the things are not easy to fix - even compact main menu still has awful huge paddings and header font size in calendar is ugly. See More
ExceptionalAengus
ExceptionalAengus's Experience
Simply the best. I've tried everything else short of tiling WMs like i3. Looks the best, runs better than most and has a uniform visual style THAT DOESN'T INCLUDE UGLY GNOME-ESQUE CSD! See More
raist356
Top Pro
•••

Integration with mobile devices

KDE Connect allows integration of the computer and mobile devices on the same Wi-Fi network. See More
Marko
thermoplastics
Chris DeAngelis
Top Con
•••

Perceived clunkyness and slowness

Emphasis on perceived. It's a myth from the days when SSDs, gigabytes of ram and cpus above 1GHz and more than one core were a fantasy. On anything semi modern (i5 2500k, 8 gb memory and 256 gb ssd is total overkill and that's a 5 year old system) it's as fast as anything. See More
VigorousSisyphus
VigorousSisyphus's Experience
Its very sleek, loads fast, and works perfectly! See More
thermoplastics
Stuart Kearney
xaman84
Top Pro
•••

Comes with a suite of powerful applications

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
Monika
KindheartedNootaikok
Top Con
•••

No native package manager frontend

KDE discontinued all of its native package manager frontends like: Kynaptic, Muon or Kpackage and fully relies on PackageKit, however, PackageKit was mainly made with the RPM (Red Hat Package Manager) in mind and does not support all the features of more advanced package managers like dpkg or emerge/portage. See More
AgreeableNergal
AgreeableNergal's Experience
absolutely love the amount of customization this baby had to offer!! See More
raist356
Top Pro
•••

Great for developers

Provides its own IDE for C++, Qt, HTML and through workspaces allows better organisation of work. See More
ExcellentEros
Top Con
•••

Only one theme

Sue you can install a few other Qt themes but the all will have issues with some parts of KDE like QML based interfaces since they are all optimized for the breeze theme. So in the end you have to love or hate the only fully working one UI theme(breeze , that you can adjust with color themes and a few settings). See More
cosmo
cosmo's Experience
Beautiful and incredibly user-friendly! The development community behind it is amazing as well. See More
Paolo
Aaron Seigo
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
Michael Gratton
Top Con
•••

Held back by dedication to emulating Windows

One of KDE's pros is that it works similarly to 90's-era desktop environments such as Windows. However this holds it back from being able to present something that works intuitively for people who aren't familiar with how computers back in the 90's worked. See More
InterestingNjordr
InterestingNjordr's Experience
Immer wieder andere ausprobiert . und immer wieder zurück zu KDE gekommen. See More
thermoplastics
Aaron Seigo
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
PracticalVastospati
Monika
AwareIrpa
Top Con
•••

Bloated on some distributions

Although the Plasma desktop itself is by no means bloated, some distributions delivers KDE versions with a ridiculous amount of bloat. See More
DrHiro ひろ
DrHiro ひろ's Experience
Trying too hard to make it looks cool but it just doesn't improve on productivity at all IMO. See More
Francisco
Андрей Шевчук
Top Pro
•••

Low system resources consumption

Not as lightweight as XFCE, but pretty close (like +100MB in real use). See More
Monika
TruthfulOyamatsumi
Top Con
•••

Sound output problem

You need to go in sound settings to switch between speakers and HDMI display sound. You can't switch easily just from sound widget located in task bar. See More
EnergeticMelete
EnergeticMelete's Experience
Kde plasma is a powerful desktop come with a cute looking (like windows but better) and you can change almost every thing like colors and icons. I just love it! See More
Monika
RobustIshara
Top Pro
•••

Simple by default, powerful when needed

For the new Linux users (coming from Windows), they'll find everything easy and simple to use. But for old and experienced Linux users, they can customize the interface as they want. See More
Simona
RobustStheno
Top Con
•••

Too buggy

It has still a lot of bugs, like losing the function for the meta key, which can be a pain to set-up again in the first place. See More
CreativeJuthrbog
CreativeJuthrbog's Experience
interesting great app like compiz See More
Endi Sukaj
ArticulateAsaruludu
Top Pro
•••

Not based on GTK

A lot of users don't really like GTK's style and way of doing things. See More
thermoplastics
Pedro Miranda
Top Con
•••

Difficult to use on virtual machines on version 5

KWin compositing is restricted to xrender on virtual machines which makes the default booting process difficult as 3D graphics needs to be turned off from the VM itself. See More
DependableAmanikable
DependableAmanikable's Experience
The Best. See More
Nikhil Prabhu
Top Pro
•••

Innovative

Has a lot of good features preinstalled (Android integration with KDEConnect, etc.), and comes with lots of improvements and new features with new releases. See More
GDSkills 168
Top Con
•••

Sometimes taskbar doesn't appear

See More
HumbleChiminigagua
HumbleChiminigagua's Experience
Now very stable and fast, ok for low resources pc s See More
DiligentDecima
Laura Kyle
David Valdivieso
Top Pro
•••

Activities (evolution of multiple desktops)

You can really separate your work environment from personal environment. Applications can be 'pinned' to a single Activity (spreadsheet for work, game for personal) or shown on all Activities (web browser, for instance). See More
Simona
HumorousRobigus
Top Con
•••

Poor support of 4K screens

Even scaling doesn't help. Many places keep small font or icons. See More
TactfulManyu
TactfulManyu's Experience
Stable, beaultiful, customizable and powerfull. See More
Kristaps
raist356
Top Pro
•••

Separate LTS version

KDE has an LTS version for people expecting stability. See More
DecorousAhti
Top Con
•••

Limited in themes, especially the most modern ones

Most of the themes are created for the GTK world, it means GNOME. KDE Plasma is very limited when compared to the whole quantity of GTK2 and GTK3 themes available. See More
AwareIrpa
AwareIrpa's Experience
Very customizable. Plasma works perfect for my workflow See More
Monika
raist356
Top Pro
•••

Touchscreen support

Works well with touch devices and allows customization of gestures for them. See More
RationalMelinoe
Top Con
•••

Kirigami is buggy

The newer QML based interface is too much tied to the breeze style. So if you use another style(like Qt's default Fusion) you will have a mixed desktop interface of fusion and breeze. It also fails at certain points to set the correct color in a widget so if you use a dark theme you will often face dark text on dark background issues. See More
Phillip Smith
Phillip Smith's Experience
Like this desktop, but I prefer simpler desktop, but if you want all the bells/options/menus/whistles then this maybe the one for you, warning it is resource heavy. See More
CompetentJanus
Top Pro
•••

Easy-to-use software center

Apt, snap, and packagekit all show up in the built in software center. Updates show as an icon in the system tray from all sources. See More
WiseVedenemo
Top Con
•••

Not for production

May be extremely buggy and there are unnecesary configurations which takes away time to do actual work. See More
ColorfulAnhur
ColorfulAnhur's Experience
Very customisable and good looking See More
Pixel
Top Pro
•••

Familiar interface for transitioning Windows users

See More
Gabriel Ruţă
Gabriel Ruţă's Experience
Great Experience with Plasma Desktop. See More
TirelessAhriman
Top Pro
•••

No crude RegEdit clone needed

Configuration is stored in plain text files. See More
OptimisticPanacea
OptimisticPanacea's Experience
very cool See More
AdventurousNuwa
Top Pro
•••

You can chose available Icon/Cursor/Workspace themes right in settings

See More
CromulentPherousa
CromulentPherousa's Experience
I just want it more lightweight or have a option to make it light weight See More
DecentPalatua
Top Pro
•••

Powerful window management with configurable rules

Hiding a particular window's decorations, automatically or with a keyboard shortcut, showing a window on selected or all desktops, and lots of other rule-based features are easily configurable directly from the window manager's UI without scripting. See More
Michael Willenburg
Michael Willenburg's Experience
It's a huge memory hog See More
Monika
Alex
ReverentAhBolomTzacab
Top Pro
•••

Compiz and emerald compatibility

Eye candy visual effect with compiz and emerald. See More
IndustriousSharraItu
IndustriousSharraItu's Experience
Extremely customizable See More
FascinatingAnshar
FascinatingAnshar's Experience
Best DE because of the extensive customization. See More
Diego Cardinali
Diego Cardinali's Experience
It's really lighter than it seems, even though it's one of the most advanced desktop environments See More
IndependentBeag
IndependentBeag's Experience
It is just..... beatiful, customisible, endless possibilities, its just the best DE on the world! See More
echopy
echopy's Experience
highly customizable!!!!! See More
BrilliantAoide
BrilliantAoide's Experience
Cool by default and highly customizable. See More
Pietro Mele
Pietro Mele's Experience
Tried many desktop environments, and always go back to KDE. On a modern computer it is fast, on an old one LXQT may be better. See More
ResponsiveBrigantia
ResponsiveBrigantia's Experience
Looks great, feels great, very customizable See More
Kajika
Kajika's Experience
By far the best all around experience among all the DE I tried. See More
DebonairRaediengiedte
DebonairRaediengiedte's Experience
the best See More
HumorousRobigus
HumorousRobigus's Experience
Very bad support of HD res screens See More
ExceptionalHarmonia
ExceptionalHarmonia's Experience
Very beautiful See More
Ganton
Ganton's Experience
It does its work every day, and with the Breeze Dark theme it's very elegant. See More
MemorableNemain
MemorableNemain's Experience
One of the best Fedora desktop environments. Matured. See More
SkyFire
SkyFire's Experience
KDE is in my opinion the best DE in the Linux world. By default is set to copy Windows User Experience but it's very customizable. only con is System requirements. but that's not a problem if you have good Dual core processor and 4+GB of RAM See More
niingu
niingu's Experience
I enjoy using a minimal DE...so KDE is out of the equation. To bloated with unnecessary things. See More
IncrediblePereplut
IncrediblePereplut's Experience
Its good for me. You must try See More
Marc-Antoine Manningham
Marc-Antoine Manningham's Experience
This desktop is fast as anything, customizable to death, is efficient and beautiful. What we need more? See More
NobleGlaucus
NobleGlaucus's Experience
Nice layout See More
GDSkills 168
GDSkills 168's Experience
Best for Windows users migrating to Linux See More
ArtisticAtai
ArtisticAtai's Experience
the only graphical interface in which you can both work and play games (speech is about wine), it has flaws, but in this it is the best See More
nelson
nelson's Experience
Excessively bloated DE See More
FriendlyPamola
FriendlyPamola's Experience
it's absolutely fantastic See More
EfficientAmun
EfficientAmun's Experience
best performance and good looking See More
InterestingNiamh
InterestingNiamh's Experience
This is a fat and bloated environment. Always has been. Throw in Gnome too, because it's ass is just as fat. See More
DaringGlaucus
DaringGlaucus's Experience
Baloo is the devil himself and must be stopped, disabled and killed. Chopped to pieces, burned, dismembered, drawn, quartered, hung, stabbed, shot... But after you get rid of baloo KDE is pretty nice. Slow and bloated, but unmatched in it's comprehensive suite of software. See More
HideSee All
79

GNOME

My Recommendation for GNOME

My Recommendation for GNOME

Add Video or Image
All
91
Experiences
31
Pros
29
Cons
30
Specs
Endi Sukaj
Slimothy
Rodlin
Top Pro
•••

Clean UI

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
teadan
SiamSami
Top Con
•••

Slow

GNOME 3 desktop environment is kinda slow on some Linux distributions. See More
OptimisticSirsir
OptimisticSirsir's Experience
GTK based amd Wayland support See More
Specs
License:GPL
Programming Language:C
Widget Toolkit:GTK
Default Desktop Environment:Gnome 3
See All Specs
Slimothy
Rodlin
davidgumberg
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
Monika
Endi Sukaj
Holo Deck
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
Madis
Madis's Experience
GNOME looks futuristic and Androidy, while being easy to use and customizable through extensions. I recommend using it plainly (no dash-to-dock, minimize/maximize and overlay menu) to get the real feel of it. See More
Slimothy
Rodlin
davidgumberg
Top Pro
•••

Powerful search

A powerful search feature lets you access all your work from one place. See More
Paolo
MightyPolyhymnia
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
cosmo
cosmo's Experience
Simply put, GNOME is obese. It's clunky, overweight, and plagued by health problems. Despite its incredible financial backing, GNOME somehow manages to be the most unstable and sluggish desktop environment available on Linux. Still, I'm willing to admit that it's pretty damn attractive (as long as you don't try to do anything productive with it). See More
Chloe Montanez
Marián Marcinko
cubethethird
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
teadan
ConvivialMegaera
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
ProudOri
ProudOri's Experience
It looks very elegant, seamless, stable and not pretentious. I don't like much customization. It has all I need. See More
Chloe Montanez
Marián Marcinko
Mart Van de Ven
Top Pro
•••

Highly customisable

Gnome Extensions offers an easy way to extend the built-in functionality. See More
WorthyTaevataat
Mots
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
DedicatedChrysus
DedicatedChrysus's Experience
Standard on most Linux desktops and very easy to use. See More
joelthelion
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
Nikhil Prabhu
Top Con
•••

Poor 'drag and drop into application' capability

Difficult to drag and drop a file into an open application. See More
ExceptionalAengus
ExceptionalAengus's Experience
Slow and cumbersom while simultaneously lacking 80% of the features every desktop should have. And no, user-maintained "extensions" are no substitute. Also, window decorations are HUGE and very ugly for no reason. See More
Slimothy
Rodlin
davidgumberg
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
Capuccino
Mantas Zimnickas
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
ConfidentWaygl
ConfidentWaygl's Experience
30 years ago I did my first steps on UNIX workstations. In these times, there were already fancy window managers like mwm (using motif) or more abstract approaches like twm with reduced configurability but a rather clear look. I have tried different things but eventually always came back to use GNOME. For me, Gnome 2 was the perfect solution and I felt it as a lost to migrate (via UNITY) to Gnome 3. Today I am happily adapted to Gome 3 and like the sobberness of the look as well as a modern look. It is perfectly stable, runs on weker machines (I use it a lot on chromebooks with crouton) and supports an efficient workflow. Nautilus was always and still is the reference file manager, most Gnome apps do a decent job and are very usable. See More
EmbiggenedAverruncus
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
Paolo
MightyPolyhymnia
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
Affan Saleh
Affan Saleh's Experience
Nice look very clean, using gnome 3.26 with i5 gen8 very fluid. Only running under Wayland. Never facing any problem. Only there are no material design themes. Should learn from windows 10 for colors. See More
Slimothy
Rodlin
davidgumberg
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
Tom Raleigh
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
Ricardo Rodrigues
Ricardo Rodrigues's Experience
Highly used, very stable and extensible. See More
Chloe Montanez
Johan Helsing
Top Pro
•••

Great for high dpi displays

Adjustable scaling factor makes it great for high-resolution laptops and far away TVs. See More
teadan
DecorousAhti
Top Con
•••

Removes more features than it adds

See More
Jesse Mini_King
Jesse Mini_King's Experience
Just the best overall IMHO. It's a mix of MacOS and Windows OS features. Good enough to win as the default desktop environment of the two biggest distros, Debian/Ubuntu and Red Hat/Centos. See More
Chloe Montanez
Andreas Rabus
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
Alex
Mots
Top Con
•••

Some GUI controls are much larger than on other desktops

This is wasting screen space on non-HiDPI monitors. See More
Buster Blue
Buster Blue's Experience
Gnome proves that the UI model popularized by Windows, while good, isn't the peak of desktop design, and does so without much regard for the standards that the model set, to the benefit of Gnome. See More
Endi Sukaj
Daniel Hulse
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
Marián Marcinko
thermoplastics
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
IncrediblePamola
IncrediblePamola's Experience
Es gráficamente lindo, es práctico, y muy intuitivo See More
WiseVedenemo
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
CharmingPolyhymnia
LuckyViduus
Top Con
•••

You can't put icons on the desktop

You have to enable the ability to add icons and files onto the desktop with Tweaks that you have to install. See More
ReveredTsukiyomi
ReveredTsukiyomi's Experience
Fat, blown, buggy, slow, eating all resources but less and less functionality. See More
Andreas Rabus
Tae
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
JM80
Erik
Top Con
•••

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

See More
BraveTlaltecuhtli
BraveTlaltecuhtli's Experience
Intuitive, beutiful, and with nice extentions. While not as customisable as many others, I feel it is already enough. See More
teadan
Federico Montemaro
Top Pro
•••

Beautiful interface

Very, very beautiful interface. See More
Monika
WorthyTaevataat
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
NonchalantAverruncus
NonchalantAverruncus's Experience
The only thing the GNOME devs did over the last two decades was to fragment the X11 desktops and linux. See More
Slimothy
Rodlin
Top Pro
•••

Adheres to standards

Allowing for interoperability and shared technology for X Window System desktops. See More
Monika
Jeremie Lesage
Top Con
•••

Not truly tunable

Customization is very limited. See More
Lewis Crichton
Lewis Crichton's Experience
GNOME. Hated it, now I love it. See More
Ray
Serhat Gülaştı
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
CrediblePhilomelus
Ken Kinder
Top Con
•••

No support for fractional scaling

Unlike Qt, GTK has no support for it. See More
DaringZhurong
DaringZhurong's Experience
The best for pructivity, simple and stable. For who need to focus in work. See More
Madis
Paolo
Endi Sukaj
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
Ilya Petrov
Top Con
•••

Depends on systemd

Some people don't like systemd but it is part of most modern distros anyway. See More
KnowledgeablePamola
KnowledgeablePamola's Experience
Future ui,highly customizable See More
greyfade
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
Monika
Anon
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
DignifiedCharybdis
DignifiedCharybdis's Experience
Stability and usability for new to advanced users. See More
Monika
Paolo
MightyPolyhymnia
Top Pro
•••

High resolution screens, multi monitor, content creation

If you depend on high resolution screens, multi monitor, or content creation programs you want Gnome. See More
LuckyViduus
Top Con
•••

You can't put icons on the desktop

See More
ProfessionalBasmu
ProfessionalBasmu's Experience
It allows you to focus on the task and not worry about customising it. It looks good, modern and unique, while being enough customisable. Once you get used to it and think about it, you will feel that the work flow makes so much sense. It took me about a week to get used to it. Now, I don't like any other desktop environment. See More
Monika
Chloe Montanez
HonestPholus
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
teadan
VivaciousWala
Top Con
•••

Sacrifices usability for one style

There's one style (adwaita) and that's the one supported style. See More
OrganizedLanCaihe
OrganizedLanCaihe's Experience
Great DE! See More
CrediblePhilomelus
Top Pro
•••

Hamburger Menus

If you use a Mouse you fell like a second class user. See More
Monika
CaffeinatedMelinoe
Top Con
•••

Made for touchscreens

It's very uncomfortable to use with a mouse and a keyboard. See More
ReveredCerberus
ReveredCerberus's Experience
Form over function, not even capable of providing working icons on desktop, as anyone expects after Windows 3.1 See More
DedicatedChrysus
Top Pro
•••

Tons of extensions at extensions.gnome.org

You can add infinite customizations with extensions See More
Monika
PersonableEupheme
Top Con
•••

Heavy-weight, PC unfriendly desktop

Heavy-weight on disk space, on package number, on dependencies, on CPU resources, on RAM, on GPU, with a style better tailored to mobiles. See More
HumblePerses
HumblePerses's Experience
After using Deepin DE 15.11 for a while and absolutely adoring it, I decided to make a mistake by updating to DDE 20 beta. (Bear with me) It certainly wasn't and still isn't for me, so I started searching for a new DE to fit my more minimalist needs. I didn't want customization options, I just wanted a nice looking desktop environment that works and gets out of the way so I can get to doing the things I wanna do, instead of trying to rice it all day. GNOME 3 was the answer to all of my prayers. While it may not be by definition "minimalist" it certainly is much more simple than most other DEs out there. Furthermore, the keyboard controls are absolutely fantastic, I love the fact that I barely have to touch my mouse. It is a beautiful desktop environment that I would argue is more beautiful than DDE 20 beta at this point. It's not for ricers, however. But I like that. See More
Monika
teadan
Salvatore Rubino
Top Pro
•••

Original idea

It's not another desktop experience based on "windows experience" . It's original. The creativity of developers is great. See More
DecorousAhti
Top Con
•••

Depends too much on extensions to customize basic settings

See More
Eric Waters
Eric Waters's Experience
I've been a fan of Gnome Shell since it first came on the scene, and it's still my go-to desktop for any reasonably modern system (although I prefer XFCE for older computers). It's smooth, attractive, and easy to use once you adjust to its slightly different paradigm. See More
Anon
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
Monika
Paolo
MightyPolyhymnia
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
SkyFire
SkyFire's Experience
Gnome 3 is a Very slow, and bloated DE. it's designed for touchscreens and desktops in the same time. It never ends well!!! (windows 8) it's weird to use, it doesn't have any desktop icons if you don't download extension. that's bad See More
nerd
Top Pro
•••

Extensive

Can be customized by lots of add-ons and themes for gnome-shell. See More
Nedas Kuzas
CapablePerkunas
Top Con
•••

Deprecated

Is replaced by Gnome 40. See More
niingu
niingu's Experience
It has its good and bad sides...but overall I consider it the best - side by side with XFCE. See More
HumblePerses
Top Pro
•••

Great for minimalists

It may only do several things, but it's very good at each one of those things. You won't get lost in customization menus, and you certainly won't have an stability issues as long as your hardware is made within the last 10 years. See More
s twenty
Top Con
•••

Out of Date

Gnome 3 is out of date now that Gnome 40 exists. It's still great, but the new version's switch to GTK4 and improved (IMHO) UX make 3 feel obsolete. See More
Michael Buchman
Michael Buchman's Experience
My default desktop environment for almost 10 years. See More
s twenty
Top Pro
•••

Reall the only original and complete Desktop Environment

The Gnome-Shell paradigm is wildly different from Windows, and isn't all that much like OSX either - it's a different workflow that, if it appeals to you, is a dream to use. Every other DE is either like Windows, like OSX, or like OpenBox. See More
Monika
RationalMelinoe
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
TrustingAwilix
TrustingAwilix's Experience
Very clean and sobrius See More
teadan
ReasonableChione
Top Pro
•••

Now lighter than xfce

Gnome by default is slow. But after some tweaks, gnome becomes lightweight and also much faster than xfce. It is also more user-friendly. See More
Madis
Richard England
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
EmpatheticLachesis
EmpatheticLachesis's Experience
Have had not problem with it. See More
Chloe Montanez
Laura Kyle
Holo Deck
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
Capuccino
Capuccino 's Experience
I used to hate GNOME, but when 3.30 released most of the problems people cite here is obsolete now. While it still has some flaws, its a desktop intended for users that wants something that just works - not something you need to still customize for you to work with. See More
InterestingNiamh
InterestingNiamh's Experience
Gnome has become fat and bloated and is just as bad as KDE. I won't miss them at all. See More
HideSee All
79

Lumina

My Recommendation for Lumina

My Recommendation for Lumina

Add Video or Image
All
18
Experiences
4
Pros
9
Cons
4
Specs
Alex
SOLAR VERSION 3
SuaveAwilix
Top Pro
•••

OpenSource with no copyrights

The whole desktop is licensed under 3-clause BSD license which gives you complete freedom for any reuse See More
CaffeinatedMelinoe
Top Con
•••

Poor support by distributors

It is unavailable from the most distributions so you have to build it from source. See More
PleasantPolemos
PleasantPolemos's Experience
it is the best See More
Specs
License:BSD
Programming Language:C++
Widget Toolkit:Qt
Available on:*nix
Monika
RationalMelinoe
Top Pro
•••

Does not depend on toolkits

The desktop works without Systemd, ConsoleKit, PolicyKit or even D-Bus. See More
Svjatoslavs Krasnikovs
CrediblePhantasos
Top Con
•••

Not really beautiful

Functionality comes first. See More
TruthfulMenuo
TruthfulMenuo's Experience
Finally a desktop environment that works See More
Monika
RationalMelinoe
Top Pro
•••

Lightweight

It's fast and responsive. See More
Monika
ClassyNinhursag
Top Con
•••

Unthemeable for usual users

As all Qt desktop environments themeing is hard since you need to know C++. There is a workaround using qss, however, it's not as powerful as GTK/CSS, Enlightenment or Windows theming. See More
HumorousDerzelas
HumorousDerzelas's Experience
it is the best because it doesn't depend on dbus or systemd and it is lightweight See More
ClassyNinhursag
Top Pro
•••

No dconf or gconf

All desktop configuration files are simple plain-text files on the back-end. See More
teadan
PerseveringGatumdag
Top Con
•••

Uses qt

See More
SplendidMellona
SplendidMellona's Experience
I mean there is a reason an unoffical Manjaro edition was released recently and an Ubuntu flavor in the works too! See More
RationalMelinoe
Top Pro
•••

Filemanager Insight fully supports ZFS

As it was initially developed for BSD-systems its file manager "Insight" supports the advanced ZFS features other Unix file managers misses. See More
Alex
RationalMelinoe
Top Pro
•••

Qt-based

A Qt-based desktop. See More
UnbiasedMarqod
Top Pro
•••

Modular

Since there are no toolkits all applications are just GUIs to common *NIX applications. See More
TruthfulMenuo
Top Pro
•••

Easy to configure

See More
TruthfulMenuo
Top Pro
•••

Completely customizable

See More
HideSee All
78

MATE

My Recommendation for MATE

My Recommendation for MATE

Add Video or Image
All
37
Experiences
13
Pros
15
Cons
8
Specs
LikableHu
KindThoosa
Top Pro
•••

Has window borders

Other than GNOME or Xfce, MATE has not introduced OSX-alike Client Side decorations See More
ConvivialSopdet
EncouragingKyrbas
x.
Top Con
•••

Not for touchscreens

Follows the classic desktop formula. It is also not designed for the use with a touchscreen. See More
ClassyJumis
ClassyJumis's Experience
Solid and stable. See More
Specs
License:GPL
Programming Language:mostly C
Widget Toolkit:GTK+
Available on:*nix
TallNibhaz
CrediblePhilomelus
Top Pro
•••

Many new features

The MATE team added plenty of power user features that were perviously rejected by the GNOME team. See More
Monika
ConvivialSopdet
CoolEris
Top Con
•••

Requires XML for wallpapers

MATE requires an additional XML file for wallpapes to store metadata like effects (for slideshows), its author, license and translations. See More
PersonableSangarius
PersonableSangarius's Experience
It's based on the popular, and conventional, Gnome 2 DE, which I loved, and thanks to MATE, I can continue using a maintained, and up-to-date version of it. It uses Gtk+ widgets, which have a lot of documentation. Many other DEs have features that are too distracting, but MATE is simple, powerful, and has stood the test of time for a good reason. See More
EnchantingFecunditas
Top Pro
•••

Full HiDPI support

All MATE 1.24 components are ported to GTK3 and fully support HiDPI. See More
ConvivialSopdet
Monika
EncouragingKyrbas
Top Con
•••

Some rough edges

Some apps have really rough edges, for example: Caja: by open an SVG-file and get a Dialog with 4 Buttons (Run in Terminal, Display, Cancel & Run) at least two of them make no sense. You can also right click on them to choose the application, however your default application for that filetype is not on this list. Panel: Empty panel applets are about 1px wide so you really can't resize or move them to organize your panel. See More
SkillfulBenthesikyme
SkillfulBenthesikyme's Experience
Práctico, útil, confiable See More
Svjatoslavs Krasnikovs
CredibleAuseklis
Top Pro
•••

Extremely customizable

MATE is customizable from every aspect. And very much stable compared to another Desktop environment. See More
Monika
ConvivialSopdet
RationalMelinoe
Top Con
•••

No official forum

Instead of having an official forum, users are redirected to their distributions support forums. You might get help at distribution specific forums but there is no proper way to communicate with the whole MATE community or its developers. See More
PopularProphasis
PopularProphasis's Experience
Have tried many,will stay with MATE! See More
SkillfulPhobos
Endi Sukaj
Top Pro
•••

Works great on old machines

It uses a traditional Interface and less eye-candy/bling bling than KDE for example which results in very low system requirements. See More
Monika
ConvivialSopdet
Yoshiyuki
Top Con
•••

MATE can not save icon positions on desktop

See More
cosmo
cosmo's Experience
MATE is needlessly outdated. Alternatives like LXQt have achieved similar resource efficiency and performance with significantly better functionality and modernization. Unless you're a fan of antiquated design, steer clear of MATE. See More
SuaveAwilix
Francisco
EvilJim
Top Pro
•••

Very stable

MATE is initally based on the very stable GNOME 2 codebase that was for years the defacto enterprise desktop for every Linux system. See More
TOKYEO
Monika
s twenty
Top Con
•••

It's Gnome 2, which is just a more difficult to use XFCE

Gnome 2 was a more bloated and less useful version of Xfce, and it still is now that it's called MATE. UI feels outdated compared to modern versions of Plasma, Gnome, and even Xfce. See More
OpinionatedYumKaax
OpinionatedYumKaax's Experience
I have always used xfce in the past but with their recent changes I had to find something new. So I tried MATE and stayed on it it is more complete than Xfce, uses the same amount of ram, fully supports hidpi and the development is more rapid See More
SuaveAwilix
Rodlin
Top Pro
•••

Traditional desktop experience

MATE use a traditional desktop layout with panels that can be extended through plugins. It also disables some GTK3/GNOME3 features like: client side decorations and overlay scrollbars. MATE applications have also not introduced touch based ui elements like: popover menus and switch buttons. See More
Phillip Smith
Top Con
•••

Issues with changing users permissions and access

See More
Phillip Smith
Phillip Smith's Experience
I've had nothing but issues with this desktop, it seems to screw up users permissions and access. And can deny root access for no reason. See More
MeticulousGunAna
Robert Orzanna
Top Pro
•••

Distraction-free environment

There is no bling bling on this desktop so you can fully concentrate on your work. See More
Izem Lavrenti
ModestChaac
Top Con
•••

Unfriendly and hostile developers

See More
gwlperl
gwlperl's Experience
MATE has been my primary Desktop for work for over 5 years. I like the best as it has done a great job of "everything working out of the box" and "configuration options are easy and transparent". Until something better comes along.... See More
KindThoosa
Top Pro
•••

Has menu icons

MATE has icons in every popupmenu which makes navigating through them very fast. See More
Diego Cardinali
Diego Cardinali's Experience
Lighter than the more famous destop environments, and yet very easy to customize and full of features See More
Monika
TOKYEO
Philip “xipehuz” Espi
Top Pro
•••

Pays its developpers

Thanks to the Patreon page, money is collected to pay for the developers maintaining and adding new features to MATE. See More
PreciseCerberus
PreciseCerberus's Experience
Rock solid, easy, customizable and no fancy non-useful stuff See More
PassionateAlthaea
Hypersphere
Top Pro
•••

MATE is a serviceable choice

MATE is a solid serviceable choice for a DE. It is reliable and easy to customize. However, it lacks the icon placement in multiple monitors found in Cinnamon, KDE, or Windows. See More
CharmingDekla
CharmingDekla's Experience
Highly configurable traditional desktop environment See More
Francisco
EvilJim
Top Pro
•••

Multiple panels work great across multiple displays

This is very simple, but it is something much appreciate: the panel's window list is per display. So if you move a window over your second display, it gets transferred to the window list on the second display's panel. Multiple display support works very intuitively, right out of the box, with minimal tweaking. See More
AwesomestPeneus
AwesomestPeneus's Experience
light and efficient See More
Monika
PositivePapsukkal
Top Pro
•••

Full and fast

Scales better, full compliment themed applets, easily customization. App/Place/Sys menu and other menus, Mint version set at bottom for new Linux users. OPTION for panel background or follows system(with "controls") for theme matching. See More
DaringGlaucus
DaringGlaucus's Experience
KDE is prettier and flashier, but it's buggy. LXDE and XFCE are lighter but they are harder to customize. MATE is the simplest and most stable desktop environment by far. See More
ImmaculateInanna
Top Pro
•••

Does not need a composite manager

You can use it without GPU hardware acceleration. See More
Monika
AdaptableSzelatya
Top Pro
•••

Follows the GNOME2 HIG

See here. See More
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76

Enlightenment

My Recommendation for Enlightenment

My Recommendation for Enlightenment

Add Video or Image
All
44
Experiences
7
Pros
21
Cons
15
Specs
HumbleConcordia
Paolo
Daniel Presley
Top Pro
•••

Lots of eye candy.

Almost everything is possible in efl. See More
Alex
RationalWhaitiri
Top Con
•••

Poor support by distributors

The most Distributions only ship the basic EFL applications and miss the most utilities like the polkit-client or the graphical network manager so it is better to build Enlightenment from source than installing distribution packages. See More
InsightfulVaisravana
InsightfulVaisravana's Experience
I loved every second of using Enlightenment, it is fast, simplistic, customizable and elegant. I am a huge fan of lightweight and simplistic DEs and this one is the best I've ever used. See More
Specs
License:BSD
Programming Language:C
Widget Toolkit:Elementary
Available on:*nix
See All Specs
Endi Sukaj
Slimothy
Rodlin
Top Pro
•••

Runs on a wide variety of devices

Can run on different devices: ranging from mobile phones, to game systems, laptops and desktop computers. See More
Monika
WorthyTaevataat
Paolo
Top Con
•••

Not for beginners

Due to the nature of Enlightenment not being of any standard, (GTK, QT, etc.), users are having to use specifically specialist tools when developing for Enlightenment. See More
cosmo
cosmo's Experience
Developed using its own graphical toolkit and library collection, collectively known as EFL, Enlightenment is an impressive achievement in the world of desktop environments. Its independence from other projects allows it to have unprecedented flexibility as well as the latest features. See More
Endi Sukaj
Sergio Gameiro Junior
Top Pro
•••

Fast and Light

Very fast and lightweight while still remaining functional See More
CrediblePhilomelus
Paolo
Riccardo Calixte
Top Con
•••

Distro support is mixed or out of date

Some distros provide a recent version, however the most optional apps are missing like: econnman that would complete the desktop. See More
DaringGlaucus
DaringGlaucus's Experience
Love the look, but doesn't come with basic tools expected of a desktop environment. See More
RationalMelinoe
Top Pro
•••

Fast and good with battery life

Great for laptops. See More
Nedas Kuzas
ConvivialMegaera
Top Con
•••

Not ready for use

It's a buggy mess with lots of non-functional components (settings panel is half-working, it's nearly impossible to use its default file manager - it just lacks basic functionality). See More
ThoughtfulCinteotl
ThoughtfulCinteotl's Experience
Light, versatile and customizable Desktop, with an amazing ageless default-design. A rare option with a different approach See More
WorthyCeuthonymus
Top Pro
•••

Wayland and X11 support

See More
SiamSami
Top Con
•••

Ugly default theme

The default theme is rather ugly so it's necessary to apply a new theme as soon as you install Enlightenment. See More
Diego Cardinali
Diego Cardinali's Experience
Incredibly fast and yet good looking See More
cosmo
Top Pro
•••

Beautiful interface

Enlightenment offers a beautiful interface with eye candy: it can be themed easily to the user's liking and includes an optional compositor. See More
ideasman42
thermoplastics
Rafael Roquetto
Top Con
•••

Lacks utilities and app integration

Apart from very few bundled apps, unlike Gnome or KDE, Enlightenment does not ship (or barely) with any utilities that actually characterizes the basic difference between window managers and actual desktop environment. Both KDE and Gnome, for instance, provide fully integrated archive managers, file managers, PDF viewers, disk burners, audio player, and every kinda tiny app that integrates well with the desktop and provides for a integrated experience. See More
SuccinctToltecatl
SuccinctToltecatl's Experience
Extremely configurable. Fast. Looks amazing. See More
CaffeinatedNgai
Top Pro
•••

Lightning fast

Startup of e is lightning fast -- as it is during working with the WM. See More
Monika
WorthyTaevataat
Top Con
•••

Bizarre underlying code and documentation

Currently, there is no manpage for Enlightenment. This is a bit bizarre. The site for Enlightenment has barely any documentation, citing a rather large change to the underlying system. Which is also strange, as this notice has been up for over a year. Stranger still, is that when invoking certain functions invalidly, rather than something helpful like, "Wrong function", it'll say things like "Spank Spank! Bad programmer!" See More
SkyFire
SkyFire's Experience
Enlightenment is a Lightweight DE. i'ts default theme is ugly but themes you can't find in internet are looking like the worst windows XP custom modifications. They are just AWFUL! and 90% of themes don't work because they are for older version. New wersion has tilling option which can be controlled by mouse. that's great. i Recommend it only if you can make your own theme or you have 8 hours to find good looking compatible theme. See More
AwesomestUgajin
Top Pro
•••

Easy on ressources

Doesn't use much RAM and doesn't hog your CPU. See More
SiamSami
Top Con
•••

Minimal set of utilities