I recently installed KDE Plasma to my Debian system after using Gnome my entire life. I still quite enjoy gnome, but I think that its workflow is better suited to a mobile system like my laptop.
Using Plasma on my desktop system has been revolutionary - there is a stupid amount of functionality in here. In particular, widgets, themes, and activities are just so well implemented for the most part - I really feel like I can tailor the GUI to my needs and wants, and I think this is an enormous part of what is making Linux a truly modern OS when compared to proprietary alternatives.
The more I tweak things, the more the system feels truly like MY system - something that I don’t think I could make work with proprietary software.
I was not a big fan of the splash screen until I found out that, of course, it can be disabled or customized as well - so now I find myself making vector graphics to customize that as well haha.
My only real regret is that having been on Gnome originally, some Gnome stuff can get in the way (though I do still kind of like using GDM instead of SDDM). Whenever I should do some big update/upgrade I am for sure installing plasma from the get go.
As someone who is new to KDE overall, and particularly with a system that has Gnome still partially installed, if there is anything I should know, I would appreciate it. Furthermore if anyone has any favorite widgets and whatnot, I would love to hear about them as well.
Thank you
I agree about SDDM, it’s an unexpectedly sore point for Plasma. I hear that they’re working on an in-house replacement for it and it honestly can’t come soon enough
I followed a similar path. When I was on Gnome I hated plasma. When Gnome 3 dropped I tried a bunch of stuff like Cinnamon, Budgie, Xfce, Lxde, etc. and settled on Plasma which has only continued to be great over the hears. I value the tweaks and the fact that it can be configured 100% desktop centric without a bunch of touch/convergence stuff getting in the way.
Yea and at that, if you do want touch capability, Plasma is also pretty good for that as I understand it as well haha.
Yup! Running Gnome on my laptop is dreamy, but on my 6-screen desktop it’s a mess - ends up feeling like a huge phone. KDE handles the desktop perfectly, tho!
Six screens? I’d love to see a picture of that setup to see how it works. What’s your system hardware as well, you would need some hell of a graphics card I imagine depending on resolution!
Aww, thanks.
Welcome to KDE Plasma land 😀
I am particularly happy that you’ve mentioned activities! 😁
They are a somewhat under appreciated (or misunderstood?) feature that I personally find invaluable and it is great to see someone else feeling the same way
Yea, I happened across it when browsing the settings and was pretty fascinated - it adds a really cool extra layer of modular functionality to the system to make widgets actually super useful for specific cases and on the fly - or if I just want to instantly have a different feeling for the desktop.
I use Plasma now, but I miss the cohesiveness provided to developer by Gnome’s Human Interface Guidelines, the result is a vastly unified design language across core, circle and some other 3rd party apps. Plus, I appreciate that their design language is very simplistic and easy on the eyes. While Plasma tends to be more condensed and explicit even for non primary features, while on GNOME, secondary features tend to be hidden from plain sight.
That said, Plasma has been faster to adopt some gaming and design related features due to their collaboration with Valve and from what I’ve read in the fediverse, they are more open to other people’s opinions.
There were a few Figma mockup leaks that looked FREAKING amazing in these regards, but that mockup has been taken down by KDE and is no longer public. I can’t even find screenshots now. If that mockup ever becomes real, I won’t miss GNOME at all.
That said, GNOME is freaking amazing, I had an awesome time with it, and it’s a perfectly valid option.
Please remember rule 5!:
Avoid comparing and/or disparaging various desktop environments, distros, and/or other FLOSS projects. This instance is for discussing the KDE community and the software it produces, and not about pointless flamewars between open source projects.
If you comment in this thread be respectful of other FLOSS projects!
Oh come on. He’s just stating his preference.
No problem with stating your preferences. Well-reasoned, respectful, compassionate and well-researched criticism is also okay.
It’s a warning for the rest of you. People who start banging on how they hate X, Y or Z or how P, Q, and R sucks will have their comments removed. Sorry.
Bonus advice: if you find a reproducible bug (i.e. it always happens in the same or similar circumstances), don’t whine about it here. Go and report it so our volunteer developers can solve it for you and others. That is what taking control looks like: you get to contribute to improving the software.
Alright dude. If that’s the way you think it should be. I think your tone is off, not the other way round.
Sorry.
The tone is that of a… er… dude who has to moderate this and 4 other forums day in and day out, while few people bother to read the sidebar to learn what the rules are and then complain when their stuff gets erased 🤷 .
