Trying Plasma for a bit to see how green the grass is as a longtime Gnome user. The last time I ran Plasma on my main desktop was version 5.11, I think? It’s been a while…
What do you think so far?
The couple of times I have decided to switch to Plasma I somehow get pulled back to GNOME. Like, I tried out earlier Plasma 5 on my system76 laptop and then s76 announced Pop!_OS. Then I tried again when I came across Nitrux which was essentially a heavily customized Plasma. Then I got a Librem 5 which uses phosh, based on GNOME.
I really liked it though, and have thought about trying Plasma Mobile.
Got used to the Steam OS Desktop on my steam deck. I used Ubuntu a decade ago and went with Kubuntu on my gaming rig which won’t support windows 11 but I wanted the same desktop like my steam deck.
More than 6 months and no regrets. Since 24.10 you even get wayland natively. Even my old NVIDIA 1080 Ti works good.
I think that’s the window environment on SteamOS. I honestly really enjoy it on my Deck. It feels light and fresh.
gnome user getting confused by customization, seems about right lol.
Ironically most of my customization so far has been to make it more like Gnome lmao
Still trying to figure out how to make workspaces/virtual desktops more…usable.
Overall though it’s amazing how solid Plasma is now, it sure as hell isn’t the buggy mess it used to be in the earlier Plasma 5 days.
I’m a regular Gnome user. I love KDE’s activities. I don’t know if it’s still required, but Latte dock made it so that you had a nice dock with clean animations, dropping and adding your preferred shortcuts for whatever activity you’re currently on.
I generally had three activities, work, general, and play. switch to work, and it looks like all I do on this computer is work. professional look and feel, all the relevant applications available in a clean autohide dock. switch to play, and it’s some sick background from anime or a game I’m currently into. Steam, Discord, Heroic, and various preferred games are the only visible icons on the dock. it’s really a pleasure to use.
my problem is that when in Plasma, I miss Gnome’s overview, though, and whenever I switch back to Gnome, it just feels homey, functional, and straight to the point. Sure, I lose some customizations, but I gain in simplicity. Overall, that itself is a big customization choice - whether to use Gnome, KDE, or something else. …so I don’t regret Gnome’s lack of customizability, that’s just Gnome fulfilling is niche well. But Plasma is always a close second for me.
Still trying to figure out how to make workspaces/virtual desktops more…usable
That’s a thing about gnome. The multiple desktops are great and easy to switch between. Especially on a laptop you can easily switch between them with the trackpad, or if you have, by using the touchscreen.
You can do the same on Plasma. Switch by three-finger-swipe
I don’t really have a use for it, so I removed it, but for a while I was messing with multiple desktops on KDE, and it was incredibly easy and super customizable. Nothing you said is specific to gnome.
I just installed a global theme to make it look like macOS 😄 loving it, have now a old unsupported macBookPro (2013) running latest macOS bootleg on latest Linux kernel 😆
Love it!
For me, i made it so pressing Super+<number> switches to that workspace.
Super+Tab to toggle overview (Super+W by default)
And a hot corner, which is set to trigger almost instantly, to toggle overview.
I remapped my side mouse buttons to switching workspaces, and I absolutely love it.
Yea I did something similar on GNOME I mapped one of my mouse side buttons to be META and that way I could use it to access the overview and applications aswell as using side button + scroll wheel to switch workspaces.
I love it so much I have implemented the same functionality In cosmic and would do the same in KDE.
That actually sounds good, but i like to use those in the browser and games
Same here with the Super+<number> to switch (or equivalent function key if you use that binding for something else), and similarly Super+Shift+<same key used to switch to workspace> to send the current window to that respective workspace. For me, without the second one workspaces are waayy less productive.
Same. I have to use windows for work, and the virtual desktops are just mediocre at best to use.
Man, the Windows implementation of virtual desktops is beyond useless to me to the point of exponential loss of productivity. That’s probably my fault for thinking it’s the same use case as workspace switching in Unix–it’s really more like KDE’s Desktop Sessions feature, which is nice, but not really useful for my case.
To be fair customization is a good thing, the problem is it’s too easy to accidentally get into too advanced settings. It feels like the settings most people want 95% of the time are burried in the same place as the niche settings. The gnome tweaks app often gets criticized because it contains basic settings, but I think it could be beneficial for plasma to have the same thing. Only keep the base level user settings the the settings, and put all the customization stuff in a separate tweaks app. The simple by default, powerful when needed moto is true to some extent, but the simple by default part could be much improved and a lot more intuitive
Isn’t there an advanced toggle already in the KDE settings?
As a new linux user I was overwhelmed by plasma and all the choices. I much prefer an OS and DE that feels like it isn’t there and gets out of my way. It was all a bit too distracting, so I went back to Gnome like DEs (Cinnamon and now Cosmic).
Something like your suggestion, with basic settings first and then a deeper layer or toggle for advanced settings would have kept me on the platform longer.
I don’t understand. If you’re overwhelmed by settings just don’t open them? You don’t “need” them, like ever.
Yeah this shit is weird… I guess some people just see a lot of text and say “nope” without even bothering to read if any of that shit is actually necessary?
it’s all stuff you need to sort through to get to the relevant settings you want. Some people aren’t there to learn to OS, they’re only there to use it.
confused about
customizationbeing allowed to customize anything…FTFY
been meaning to try it again forever now
Definitely worth a try, especially if it’s been a few years since you’ve last played with it.
I’m tired of fighting GNOME 3 to make it feel like GNOME 2. My next reinstall is going to be KDE. I just want a traditional desktop metaphor. 😩 Next major overhaul Kubuntu here I come!
Kubuntu has always been a buggy mess for me, might not be the best way to judge Plasma. Unfortunately, I think that’s where people develop their poor opinion of it from.
You don’t even need to reinstall. You can have both at the same time and chose one or the other at each login.
There is always Cinnamon for you.
Or MATE.
Gnome 3 is long dead.
It is now gnome 40+
And it’s still confining unless you add buggy addons that often crash after an update.
Nah, I think if you’re on e.g. Debian oldstable you could still be on Gnome 3. That’s not “long dead”.
Old stable is going EOL fairly soon.
Maybe not long dead but it is long past its prime.
Yeah if you’re looking for a traditional/Windows-like metaphor, you’re WAY better off with Plasma than trying to wrestle Gnome into that shape.
i hadn’t used kde (on my own systems) in over twenty years. i downloaded a bunch of ISOs over the last month or so, mainly looking to see what installs easiest and runs best on some old systems here. among them were several with plasma 6.
one of those kinda ‘stuck’ in my head and i had to go back through several until i ‘found’ it again. been messing around with it now for a couple weeks trying to figure out what i’d want for a ‘working’ setup. might just end up switching one of my ‘working’ desktops over.
KDE + Arch is such a great combo. I’m using it on a 10yo laptop (though admittedly it’s a rather beefy lappy for it’s gen, a 2014 ZBook g2, with 32 GB ram)
KDE can be slow on lower spec devices but it is so great to use and it was trivially easy to alter keyboard shortcuts, default application, startup behavior, etc.
KDE can be slow on lower spec devices
Not any slower than anything else. KDE is surprisingly light for all it does. I am using it on a laptop with an Intel N processor and 4gb ram. I also use it on modern stuff, but it works better than gnome and about equal to xfce on this old hardware.
Yeah I used to do consumer computer recycling and the really old laptops that were not worth a Windows reseller’s license we would just slap Linux on I tested just about every de out there and plasma was shockingly fast on some of these ancient Celeron laptops. Gnome was like molasses, I’ve never understood where people get the idea of the plasma is heavy
I installed cosmic the other day. Uninstalled it like 5 minutes later but I enjoyed its vibe. I am excited to see it come out of alpha
Plasma is so good nowadays compared to some years ago. I remember suffering a lot in those early times too.
I love plasma. For the longest time there was just something that felt off about it and I could never get into it.
Once I started using it with the steam deck I fell in love with it. Whatever visually thing irked me was gone and it’s such a good looking DE.
I have been a GNOME 2 and then MATE user for over a decade. Now I use KDE since that’s what SteamOS comes with and it’s fine.
Wow, I found the one other MATE user. Cheers.
I will never not up doot an Over the Hedge meme, so underrated in both meme ability and as a movie lmao
Squirrels on speeeeeed.
Welcome back to the land of the
livingusable UIHow is it??
I last used it a little while back but there were some issues with polish. I’d like to come back and check it out again now that there’s been a major update if I remember right
I love the GNOME user experience and apps (I know many don’t, that’s fine) but don’t so much love the way GNOME as a project often struggles to play nicely with others 😅
I’m amazed by the level of polish overall, I’ve encountered very little jankiness that used to be super common with Plasma when I last tried it. Plasma feels like a really mature desktop now, which is awesome. I’m running Plasma 6.2 at the moment, and I think 6.3 is right around the corner as well.
My problems so far are more subjective. Gnome may be a very opinionated desktop, but I happen to agree with most of its opinions. Gnome’s workspaces feature is miles better than Plasma’s virtual desktops, which feel tacked on in comparison. I’m still trying to tinker with this to make it work for me, but honestly this seems like the thing that will push me back to Gnome if I don’t find a workflow I like.
KDE obviously has more features overall though, HDR support happens to be the one that I’m interested in at the moment since I’ve been toying with the idea of buying a new monitor.
I believe there’s an extension for plasma to automatically create and destroy desktops based on need like gnome but I haven’t used it.
As a long time KDE user I have to agree with you.
I hated the turn things took from Gnome3 onwards but I really like the “workspaces per demand” feature of it. It makes much more sense than having a static number of virtual desktops.
Though I concede KDE did not do much about virtual desktops but concentrated on activities instead - but it seems like with Plasma 6 they are backpedalling on that as it would require integration from everyone, most of all non KDE apps to make it make sense.
Do not even get me started on not being able to set a different wallpaper for each virtual desktop.
I recall there was a kwin script somewhere to emulate the dynamic virtual desktops thing, but that would be much better if it was an upstream feature.
Plasma’s Activities are more like workspaces than virtual desktop is.
I think the Internet would be a better place if people would give a reason to why they believe something.
That way people could get a bit more informed about the subject and make rational decisions based on nuance.
Virtual desktop doesn’t segregate running applications and all the rest of the things you can configure in Activites like wallpapers and themes. I much prefer it for organizing my, well, activities when I have a bunch of tasks on the go. I can run an activity for coding that’s distinctly different from personal tasks and I don’t see the programs in the task list from other activities.
It’s almost like running another plasmashell on an alternate TTY but I can move running applications between Activities or have them show up in multiple Activities, or always have them open on a certain Activity that I’ve dedicated to that app. And I can distinguish between them easily at a glance because I might have an entirely different Global Theme,
panelsand widgets applied to that ActivityProtip: set a shortcut for switching activities to Meta-Tab and it makes it way more likely to use.
Better?
Better?
By far.
We have fixed the internet.
the things I wanted to do required a non-standard dock (latte?), but made activities so much nicer.
my dock only had icons on it that reflected the current activity, my backgrounds were different, all the tools for the specific activity that I was doing were immediately available, but weren’t cluttering up the dock when I switched to other activities.
activities really are sweet, I’m sad to hear KDE is backpedaling on them.
That said, I’ve been using Gnome because the blended workflow of interacting with desktops, searching for applications, and working with open applications in the overview is just as sweet as it comes.
How is it? Well it feels like an environment where developers actually care about users. I love it.
