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this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2026
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It deserves all the criticism.
And it is by far my favorite DE.
As a GNOME user since forever, I find it fascinating how much time KDE users spend thinking about GNOME. They seem so obsessed with customization, yet seem incapable of understanding that people could have preferences different from their own.
Perfect description of Gnome developers.
"What's the use case?" Issue closed itself to shit.
Oh yes, I forgot about that time they tracked down and kidnapped KDE contributors never to be heard of again, depriving the poor FOSS community from their freedom of choice.
Here you go
So apps look the way they are made?
When I use KDE apps in GNOME they also look like KDE apps. Obviously - that's the way they are made. If I want something else than what someone else created I will use something else, not complain about how they didn't create it the way I personally prefer.
Lmao you hyperbole'd your own statement quoted back at you.
Or have there been cases of KDE preferers/devs doing this to gnome preferers/devs?
I was talking about users, not developers.
I'm under the crazy opinion that developers are free to develop whatever they want, and users are free to use whatever they want. If they are unhappy they can use something else or become developers.
If I develop something you do not want to use I do not restrict your freedom. GNOME developers are not restricting your freedom by creating a product that's according to my preferences. They are giving us both freedom to choose what we prefer. The fact that GNOME is so different from KDE increases freedom of choice.
I don't get what is so hard to understand here.
And that's why they're so out of touch.
Just want to remind everyone that the point of this scene is that Draper is an unstable and insecure man that is actually obsessed about how everyone around him are perceiving him, all the time. So this line is just stupid bravado, because he thinks the phrase projects the image he wants others to have of himself. He is lying because he actually thinks about what others think of him constantly. He works in advertising ffs.
We don't, except for when gnome is installed by default.
Exactly, or when they forced their tools as "standard" forcing KDE to adapt.
Maybe if gnome’s choices didn’t impact the part of the ecosystem that do not rely on gnome in any way, people would be less disgruntled about gnome. For example, the refusal of gnome devs to support server side decorations, forces app devs to implement client side decorations even when they design apps that don’t make use of the features enabled by client side decorations.
I don’t care if people use gnome, people should be free to use what they prefer. I do care if the mere fact that gnome exists complicates app development because gnome devs seem incapable of understanding that people could have preferences different from their own.
It's because we wasted so much time on the Gnome side of the fence, cracking jokes at KDE, and now we know what we were missing and we want our wasted time back.
The criticisms I've heard:
I have been using versions of GNOME for about 5 years now and I have always been able to customize my DE to a very high degree. Out of every random extension I've tried, probably 80% work, and that is even counting unmaintained ones that haven't seen an update in years. And out of those extensions I chose to keep using, I've only have an occasional stability issue. I think I've actually experienced that once since 2021 when I switched to Linux as a daily driver.
Maybe I'm just asocial but I don't expect to reach out to my software devs and influence them at all. Unless I reported a bug and they were a dick about it, I'd probably never complain about the devs. And lastly I think the design philosophy is excellent. Maximizing screen real estate while being quite flexible, rejecting everything shitty about windows and incorporating everything good about macOS.
Every problem I've had is so far outweighed by the positives that it's not remotely close. It makes sense to me that it's so popular. KDE on the other hand... I am glad it exists but I wish it were better. I feel like it literally wants to be windows. People say it is SO customizable and I was convinced to give the latest version a chance recently. It does not feel like finished software to me, tbh. Before I could really give it a shot I needed to customize the UI to be more minimalist. I found the UI to do that quickly. Within five minutes I had crashed the desktop several times, and I felt unable to achieve what I wanted at all. The drag and drop UI for the taskbar area wasn't stable in my experience. It kept crashing AND wouldn't do what I wanted.
What criticism of GNOME is so well deserved? I just don't see any criticism of it that I feel is deserved. Meanwhile KDE seems janky to me and to this day I haven't once seen anyone hate on it. You'd think it was basically perfect.
When saying it deserves "all" the criticism, I might have been hyperbolic
I agree with most of what you said.
The keep it simple philosophy I agree with, but there are a few UI decisions, a few missing features I couldn't wrap my head around. They tend to be rectified in the end because it's common sense, but it takes a very long time and it can be frustrating. I'm sorry my memory is shit so I only remember the sentiment and don't have specifics. I do have one recent example, I needed to change a very simple shortcut. The system doesn't allow it and it feels arbitrary.
Extensions are really great. Some are absolute gems, and they tend to work perfectly. But the fact some are almost mandatory to have sane default is an issue. Especially when you have multiple devices. I don't think most people want a useless popup telling you the program has launched (or the window is activated, what is it again?), popup which once clicked won't even open said program. The extensions graveyard is hard to see though. I had recently a good one that wouldn't be ported to latest gnome, killing my linux tablet workflow. and can anyone tell me what the app menu with icons in seemingly random order is for?
I've used KDE for 4 years and mostly liked it, but I had tons of issues, and very few with Gnome.
KDE users I know your experience might be different but I'm telling you how it went for me. Gnome, while imperfect in this regard, has been much better. I tried Plasma 6 when it came out and it was pretty much the same for me, but I will give it another try at one point.
I remember looking at some point, and Gnome had roughly 4x the number of developers that KDE had. If you want the best (most stable, most well tested, most feature full, etc.) programs, you basically have to use some Gnome programs. That was one of the deciding factors that pushed me to go with Gnome. If I was going to have to use Gnome programs anyhow, and they worked best with Gnome, then I thought I should use Gnome. My experience was that Gnome programs don't really play well with KDE, but that KDE programs generally work OK on Gnome.
I really like the customizability of KDE, but I like many of the defaults of Gnome. Unfortunately, if you don't like some of Gnome's defaults, it's real pain in the ass to change them. Personally, even though I liked a lot of Gnome's defaults, I absolutely hated some other ones. If it weren't for extensions there's no way at all I could use it. Luckily, some of the biggest misfeatures are so widely recognized that there are dozens of extensions to choose from to fix them. OTOH KDE's customizability led to some issues too. I remember having some weird interactions between things because settings A, B and C don't necessarily work well together. But, at least those settings are built into the desktop environment, and you're not relying on some random dude's hobby project for a critical system setting.
At the moment, I'm pretty happy with Gnome, and most days it just gets out of my way and lets me do what I want to do. That's something I never ever got with Windows. It was always a pain in my ass. And, it's something that was only ever 90% true with OSX. Great defaults, but that last 10% is a real pain in the ass. Gnome's extensions let me get much closer to 100%. I have to admit though, that I do dread the day that I have to upgrade it and all the extensions break.
You seem to have a really balanced point of view and that's good. I wanted to like KDE but on the other hand it reads as windows 2000 to my eyes and it bothers me. I did like some things about the interface but overall it felt too busy for me. I hadn't tried it in years until the recent plasma update and people raving about it and its customizability convinced me to give it another shot. One of the first things I did was try to customize the top bar and task bar to be cleaner. It crashed several times very quickly. That's a really bad first impression. The bugs I experienced immediately were as many as I'd seen in years of GNOME experience.
In a perfect world though, yes, GNOME would be more customizable, particularly the overview mode. I do not like it at all. On the other hand, it's not so bad I wouldn't just live with it if I didn't have other options. I do though. To launch any app not common enough to put on my dock, I use ulauncher. It's not the best but it usually works well as an alfred-style launcher app.
I hated macs until OSX and since then I've hated windows more. Just mentioning because I'm sure someone will read what I've written and think I'm a Mac guy. Which was true for a bit but I've grown to dislike macs a lot as well. Their OS is still better than windows though!
Out of curiosity: why is it you don't like the overview? That's one of my favorite aspects of Gnome, and the first thing I tried to replicate in KDE
Edit: I do customize it a bit with extensions though. For example when I start typing and the search bar is immediately focused. And a few other things, like middle click to close windows
What I dislike about the overview is that it takes over the whole screen and also feels a little sluggish. I like the ulauncher loads really quickly and on top of the current UI, blocking virtually nothing from view. Also I like having a few bells and whistles that ulauncher has, like the ability to type a quick math problem and it functions like a basic calculator.
edit: I just realized that I'm mislabeling the thing I dislike. It's the "show all applications" feature in reality. I use overview a lot just to keep track of what I have open, and I like it, but it serves a different purpose than what I want, which is just a very quick and unobtrusive way to launch an app not on the dock.
Indeed I see how the "take over the whole screen" could be annoying.
It does simple math as well though! As for the sluggishness I don't notice it. You can speed up animations with "Just perfection", but again an extra extension (although this one is very well maintained)
I'm happy I'm not the only one to experience KDE like that. I've had far better experiences with XFCE than with KDE, but I keep going back to GNOME because of the user experience. I'm happy people enjoy KDE though, so I don't generally feel a strong need to trash it online. But my god can the user base be insufferable at times.
Yeah, a part of me wants to vent my frustration with kde since I truly wanted it to be good, but it wasn't, ime.
Now for some reason I just had an idea. It would be pretty awesome if there could be a desktop layout standard configuration format such that on any DE that supports it, you could just load up a config file and get a very similar UI on any DE. I know, it's a pipe dream but it would be cool.
Edit: and yes I know, GNOME haters. GNOME devs would be the first to reject this idea.
I find gnome easier to customize, something always messes up with kde for me when setting up my ui, gnome also lets you use your computer and watch videos while customizing, kde plasma takes over your screen and you cant see your windows.
KDE's approach was ‘Windows, but with even more dialogs and crammed lists’ for at least twenty years. And it also felt clunky way back then. People on Lemmy keep saying that Plasma is good now, but I read the complaints and it's like nothing changed.
Been using GNOME since ~ 3.8/3.10 (so i guess a while now) and out of the box it mostly just works for me. I have maybe 3-4 extensions none of which I desperately rely on (although TopIcons is clutch) and I agree with most design choices. I've thought about switching some times but I think all I would do is try to replicate my GNOME workflow elswhere so why bother?