General suggestion and advice about desktops for my use

Non-technical Questions
1

Hello! I would like to ask you your advice about desktop for my personal use. Please, I do not want to make a kind of fight between different desktops.
First of all, I use my computer mainly for my personal business about making, publishing, maintenance and positioning websites.
Second, my computer is a desktop, with two big screens. This is very important for my workflow and productivity. I also use a small AIO HP for printing, scanning and copying.

And for me is also very important to reduce visual fatigue as it is possible.

With that in mind, for me, my first choice is Plasma KDE. Specially because I am able to change color, size and family of the used fonts. I always define it with pure black (very very important to do that!!), ubuntu fonts, and a bit bigger (11px instead the 10px by default). I do not know how to do it in other desktops. And also do not know how to do it with the style of GTK apps.

Also Dolphin has tons of advantages over Nautilus for general use. Much more options, more information about free space and so, the option of splitting the window…

And I have discovered that working with two screens is much better in Wayland (sometimes I found in X11 the system getting almost crazy after having suspended the session). But I can read that there are other big problems with Wayland under KDE. In fact, I have experienced that Gnome has much better integrated Wayland nowadays. And also there are some problems and limits when using Zoom and similars. Maybe the solution for that is to use Wayland for general use, and in X11 when I am going to do something with Zoom or similar.

In Gnome, global integrations is much easier and complete; because I always define some main folders for my “favorites” in the file navigator. In KDE, I have to define it twice; in Dolphin and in GTK Bookmarks, in order to GTK apps can choose them when opening and saving. Maybe if I was able to modify color, family and size for fonts in Gnome, could be an option. Or even if was possible in Xfce; but, how does Xfce works under Wayland? Because of my two screens, as I have said.

Now I do not consider other minor desktops; but if you advise me to use them suggesting solutions for the limits I have told, I can consider everything.

Thanks a lot for your comments and suggestions! And please, it must not be a desktops fighting :wink:

2

Well, if Wayland support is a requirement, then you can already rule out XFCE, because XFCE does not support Wayland. :man_shrugging:

So, out of the official Manjaro editions — I’m not counting in the community editions or the spins, of which there are several — that then leaves GNOME and KDE Plasma. And you will find supporters and haters on both sides, so in the end, it’ll still remain your own thing to decide upon.

All I will add is that I personally don’t like GNOME — I never have, in all of the 24+ years that I’ve been exclusively running GNU/Linux — and that I’ve always been a fan of the customizability and ease of configuration of KDE, even before it was called Plasma. I’ve been using it since version 1.1. :wink:

In addition to the aesthetics and flexibility, the GNOME (and GTK) developers aren’t exactly the most forthcoming and user-minded bunch. Basically, it’s their way or the highway. Even Linus Torvalds himself has already directed a couple of his infamous tirades at them.

So, there you have my 2 Eurocents, for whatever they’re worth at today’s exchange rates. :wink:

3

So, I can’t tell you what to use, oh! the flame wars that start over DEs. But I have always liked Plasma/KDE, but I use Gnome. Why? because it’s stable and simple with great Wayland support. As I’ve gotten older I just want to do my work than play around with how I’ll do it. Gnome is much more fitting in that scenario. If you want to fine tune everything, then Plasma/KDE is the place to be. I just have grown out of that phase.

4

And what about transitions from one version to the next one in Manjaro? Because of being rolling, I mean. Sometimes, changes from one Gnome to another one are very big, and some extensions even break or stop working

5

That is an issue with both GNOME and Plasma, I’m afraid. XFCE is the only one that stays pretty much static, but as I said, if Wayland support is a requirement, then I’m afraid XFCE won’t be an option for you.

In general, big changes (such as to the desktop environments) are being held back long enough in Manjaro before landing in the Stable branch, but there have in the past been times when pressure from the members of this forum — and specifically, the newbies who always want The Latest & Greatest™ — have led to the premature adoption of the newer versions of Plasma, GNOME and even other important system components, with breakage as a result for a large part of our member base.

An example of this was for instance the transition from Plasma 5.24 — which was a long-term-support release — to the quite unstable Plasma 5.25, which caused a lot of mayhem among about half of the Plasma users here, prompting many of us to return to Plasma 5.24 LTS and block the Plasma-specific updates until 5.27 LTS became available. 5.27 is a good Plasma release.

Likewise, there were also problems when moving from GNOME 43 to GNOME 44, but I am less aware of the details there because I don’t use GNOME.

6

I haven’t had many issues with extensions, mind you I only use about 3. When an extension hasn’t been ready in time of upgrade it usually is there in a few days after if it’s one of the popular ones. These issues only happen when there are major upgrades, which for gnome is about twice a year. I don’t think it’s a bug deal unless your using like 10+ extensions that are necessary to your workflow. I find the default Gnome workflow to be pretty good once figured out.

7

This kind of question is impossible to provide a meaningful response to as every comment will be biased one way or another.

I used Gnome for a long time, then I worked with a window manager system based on Openbox for years.

I use wayland with a carefully curated Plasma where dolphin, ark and kate has been replaced with pcmanfm-qt, lxqt-archiver and sublime-text. I have a carefully selected theme applied with a customized splash and login screen.

I use a virtual machine for development tasks which has to be done in a Windows environment.

Gnome is wellknown for their breaking changes - and Plasma can be a pain too.

If you keep your Plasma customization to a minimum and exercise some level of caution - Plasma will serve you well for years to come.

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