KDE for my main PC. Pretty with floating panels, KDE Connect, QT apps are often the best apps in their class and are perfectly integrated (FreeCAD, krita, okular, kdenlive, vlc, dolphin, etc…) And konsole is also very full featured.

I don’t know what KiCAD uses, but it also seems very well integrated into the KDE desktop unlike most gnome apps.

XFCE on MX Linux for an old Intel Compute Stick to keep it very usable.

Traditionally I’ve been running lighter desktops like opebox, xfce, or lmde. Last couple of years I’ve been using MATE with good results.

KDE Plasma on my PC, just use i3 on my laptop. prefer using the mouse on a pc, prefer not using it on a laptop.

I’m on Hyprland mostly because of all the tiling window managers out there these days, it feels like the most usable default config and the ecosystem (e.g. hyprlock, hyprbar etc) feels pretty complete.

i use zorin os’s gnome with forge, once cosmic comes out ill switch to that

Was a Gnome user until Gnome 3.

Since Plasma 5, I use KDE Plasma.

I’m just going to share my unvarnished opinions here, I clearly understand that Gnome users feel differently, and that’s okay.

• Gnome 3 performance was objectively worse on every bit of hardware I tried than Plasma. (Unfortunately I had functional gripes with Plasma 4 so couldn’t use it.)
• The years of faffing about I had trying to be happy with Gnome 3 and trying to use other alternatives until Plasma 5 was ready pretty much convinced me of this:
  • Gnome devs care more about achieving their vision of how a desktop should be used than they do about accommodating users who might feel differently. This is my perception, and it’s a deeply held opinion. No matter how strongly you feel I’m wrong, you aren’t going to change my mind. You can come at me if you want, but it’s going to bear no fruit.
  • KDE devs have a vision, but place nearly equal importance on ensuring their users can make different choices if they choose. If this isn’t true, they do a damn good job of pretending it is, and that’s good enough for me. 🙂
• I’m unhappy with the degree to which it appears the Gnome team has actively worked against the ability for users to easily customize, and with various feature removals that at this point are so far in my past that I probably don’t remember the specific things that pissed me off, but I remember their explanations for feature removals being salt in an open wound every last time I cared enough to investigate their stated reasons.

Plasma 6 does everything I want the way I want. I have loaded it (and Plasma 5) on very low end and very high end hardware and found it performant and functional on both, consistently.

You’ll note I don’t claim it to be the best. There are folks out there for whom the Gnome vision happens to be how they like to work, or who aren’t bothered by whatever hoops you have to jump through currently to customize a Gnome environment, and I’m sincerely happy for those people. For them, Gnome is the best.

There are lots of other DEs and of course tiling WMs exist, but it takes me no time at all to have a fresh plasma install working the way I want my computer to work and looking the way I want it to look, and thus I literally have zero complaints. So for the past few years I haven’t even looked at any alternatives. If there’s ever a time that I don’t find the desktop product itself, and the KDE development team’s approach to desktop development, to be absolutely perfect fits for me, I’ll look elsewhere - but honestly probably not at Gnome.

I use KDE, no bugs for me (I found one but it’s already fixed in the latest update) and it’s feels like my second home

I am extremely basic and I’m using the XFCE that came with Linux mint. I don’t need anything fancy.

None. Openbox WM with Tint2 as a rudimentary system bar, Rofi as launcher.

I use gnome on my main machines, but looking to migrate to cosmic, and I use xfce on more limited devices.

I like the kde project, but I tend not to use it, because I find it a bit overwhelming, even after customizing it, it’s hard to explain. I have issues with too many elements in front of me.

Enlightenment. It’s pretty and really fast. Of course you can’t complete with the speed of tile wm. But their development speed is so slow…

KDE, because it has all the features I need and also because I love theming and while QT apps can be themed pretty easily, GTK theming is somewhere between being absolutely horrible and non-existance.

these days Hyprland but previously i3.

i basically live in the terminal unless i’m playing games or in the browser. these days i use most apps full screen and switch between desktops, and i launch apps using wofi/rofi. this has all become very specialized over the past decade, and it almost has a “security by obscurity” effect where it’s not obvious how to do anything on my machines unless you have my muscle memory.

not that i necessarily recommend this approach generally, but i find value in mostly using a keyboard to control my machines and minimizing visual clutter. i don’t even have desktop icons or a wallpaper.

I gave an original Surface Pro tablet and I use Ubuntu’s Gnome on it. It’s perfect for tablets I find. Not so great for desktop PCs.