Is it really most popular?
It's not more stable than plasma surely, at least when user does any customization.
Simplicity is questionable, unless simple means 'unlearn everything and do it our way'.
this post was submitted on 29 May 2026
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For a long time it was. KDE kind of exploded themselves back around version 4. GNOME made huge inroads while the KDE Dev team's got their shit sorted. Main DE to the flagship general user distribution etc. It's just a fact. And not gonna lie I still have fond memories of GNOME 2.
But the KDE team really put their time in and cooked. It isn't perfect. But the over all polish shows. Not to mention its been snowballing lately. I have my whole family on plasma 6 right now. It's familiar as it needs to be, stable and mostly intuitive. It's just so good. In fact my only gripe right now is a niche Wayland issue and not DE related.
I just randomly tried KDE recently and made the swap from Linux Mint to Kubuntu a week ago. Definitely agree on the polish factor, everything just feels great with KDE and I've been pretty happy
The recent evolution is great and I've been a happy KDE user for many years, but my oh my is NetworkManager bad. It's not good on all systems that use it under the hood, but I find it especially unintuitive and so outdated. The applet thing is fine (still suffers from weird behaviour from NM's core), but actual settings screen drives me crazy... The Bluetooth one should also receive some love, but it's decent. NM needs serious revision.
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Meh, plasma was stable enough by 4.4 (when I've switched from gnome 2), there were some problems, but gnome 3 released about that time wasn't any better. I'm not sure about popularity of gnome, it was repeated a lot but personally I've met one person to this day that used vanilla gnome 3/4/5/50 not representative of course but it's just weird that supposedly everyone is running it yet among the category of people that linux is most popular with it doesn't show.
Gnome lost a lot of popularity with Gnome shell, and for good reason. Gnome made the same mistake Microsoft did with Windows 8, which was also universally hated. By the same mistake I mean they changed EVERYTHING!
And unlike Windows, they didn't backtrack on it. Instead, they doubled down and said, "You'll use your computer our way, and you'll like it!"
IMO, the whole interface is a mess. It's designed as if it's supposed to be a tablet/moblie first DE, but the actual tablet/mobile features (like on-screen keyboard) are kind of crap. Everything about it seems to be designed with aesthetics first, functionality last.
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yea, gnome is "more popular". doesn't mean it's "better", just that it's the default environment for some of the most widely-used distributions.
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Gnome is more stable in my experience. The base Gnome without any extensions is rock solid and just works without a hitch. Problem is that it's bland as hell and not very practical. Most of the popular extensions to make the DE are also pretty solid and reliable, as gnome's extension API doesn't really allow them to break anything in any spectacular way. Plasma allows better and more powerful extensions, but they also tend to have a bigger effect on the DE's stability.
That said, I fucking hate how Gnome devs handle the extension API. Every update to Gnome disables all the extensions even if there's no breaking changes that would cause them to stop working. You gotta either manually edit their manifest files to trick Gnome into thinking they've been updated to the latest DE version, or you gotta wait for the devs to update. Every now and then they do release a breaking change that does break things too, and things get annoying. I used to maintain a relatively popular-ish, very simple Gnome extension. But eventually I got sick and abandoned because nobody's got time to deal with Gnome's extension API. I had to rewrite some basic shit for no good reason one too many times.
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We all know that the real MVP is Xenia
Did the Gnome people ever figure out how to put icons on the desktop yet?
Icons on the desktop is a non-feature for most gnome users. Even my Windows desktop has been empty since XP released. If you really want desktop icons then using an extension for that should be fine, but it's silly to frame this as a failing of the "Gnome people" just because Gnome doesn't replicate the classic Windows desktop experience.
Icons on the desktop is a non-feature for most gnome users
Yeah because everyone who uses them is on KDE now.
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XFCE: including it in the meme is bloat
I really don't want online accounts integration in my DE though. I must admit that I fail to see what good that could do.
I must admit that I fail to see what good that could do.
In theory the one place where you can enter your Nextcloud or whatever credentials and syncing for calendar, mails, file storage ect. happens automatically everywhere after confirming which services should connect.
It's not my personal must have feature but when it works, it's alright.
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On other news, KDE works, and Gnome doesnt; so that koncludes it for me
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Yeah dont love how kiki the squirel looks like a child in a bikini wtf.
I see someone wants to run for president
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Amateurs
These are only the safe ones, you coward!
I like Gnome. I like KDE, too. I actually think they're both great, in their own ways, but I personally prefer Gnome.
I've only used KDE until recently because it's pretty familiar feeling after coming from windows, but my wife recently put gnome on her laptop and she loves it. I've used it a bit, and besides just being unfamiliar I do actually like it.
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Are we sure that Gnome is the most popular? I would've expected KDE to be the most popular one, even not considering the mascots.
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KDE got around to updating the theme Kpersonalizer.
Original for those who don't remember what it was like:
Jokes aside: I love KDE. Gnome is an idea that would work if you could actually do anything with it (maybe always adding extensions means they should you know make it functional).
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In case you're wondering, there are 31 explicit entries that has Konqi tag on e621.
I was going to mention that there's probably a lot of people who don't know what e621 is, but then I remembered what community I was in.
Heh. My Linux started with Ubuntu like many others. I appreciated GNOME.
Then I got confident enough to distro hop and with that cam DE hop. Can't deny KCD is just so much better for the kind of user I am.
It's just kinda nice having your computer do what you want it to do, ya know?
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Another reason why Linux fanboys are so silly.
It's just whether you grew up / are more comfortable using Windows or Mac.
I grew up on Mac OS. My first laptop was the classic translucent blue clamshell iBook running OS X Cheetah. So when I first tried Linux, I used Gnome.
I switched to Windows when I got into gaming. But then when I got a Steam Deck, I decided to finally make the change. So now I'm much more comfortable using KDE.
QED.
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Konqi nooooo π
Do the results for foot_fetish apply to gnome?
This must be about Gnome 2.8 when Gnome indeed was by far the most popular desktop environment on Linux.
And then Gnome 2.8 was deprecated and no longer maintained, and for years after Gnome Shell was complete and utter shit.
IMO it still is, because they have changed fundamentals like how virtual desktops work, that disrupt my workflow.
I agree Gnome is more elegant, but that's irrelevant when key fundamentals simply don't work anymore.
So to get the desktop I like to actually use, I use KDE instead.
Edit: Final release was 2.32 as u/esc correctly writes below.
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Why not Konclusion?
Quick, someone make a mascot for KATE!
Also KDE supports window decorations under Wayland, and also a lot better IMHO.
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