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…
Takes literally minutes to try with 0 install and no risk for your data : https://distrosea.com/start/kubuntu-24.10-default/
I’m not saying you should enjoy it (even though I do, Debian stable with Plasma for a while now) but it’s so convenient to give any distribution with any desktop environment a try that IMHO it’s wrong not to spend few minutes and see what you might be missing.
Fedora/dnf makes installing additional desktops super easy, also with no risk to data. To hijack your comment a bit:
To install Plasma:
sudo dnf install @kde-desktopLogout and log into the Plasma session to use it.
To rollback, get the transaction ID of the above:
dnf history listAnd then rollback:
sudo dnf history rollback <ID>If Gnome’s fonts/icons don’t revert, install and open gnome-tweaks and reset settings.
I think generally installing another DE on top of an existing one (assuming you already had one) is not recommended, as they might use some of the same config files and mess them up for each other.
This is the first time I’ve heard of this, and I pretty much always have more than one DE installed and have never run into issues. Assuming you’re using a display manager (SDDM, LightDM, etc.), it should handle loading whichever graphical session at the time of login properly.
edit: For clarity, what do you mean by “installing another DE *on top * of an existing one”–like kludging two DEs together in the same X/Wayland session? If so, that sounds like a horrible mistake that lead to that happening.
I mean in a way where you’d get 2 different X/Wayland sessions to select in your login manager.
I have also never run into issues doing this, just have always been told it’s a bad idea.
eh. only vaguely.
basically, there might be some conflicts, such as a different icon theme being selected, but for the most part, things are fine - and most distros, uninstall is straightforward.
one more significant issue you might run into is display manager changes. Gnome may not always play nicely with a kde display manager, and vice versa, regarding sleep, lock, etc. however, i think all of those issues are pretty much fixed these days.
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.
Welcome back to the land of the
livingusable UIgnome 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 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.
That actually sounds good, but i like to use those in the browser and games
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.
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.
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’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.
confused about
customizationbeing allowed to customize anything…FTFY
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. I’d you’re overwhelmed by settings just don’t open them? You don’t “need” them, like ever.
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.
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?
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.
How 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?
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.
Better?
By far.
We have fixed the internet.
How is it? Well it feels like an environment where developers actually care about users. I love it.
Happy for y’all! I’ll have to give it a try again sometime soon
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!
Check out Cinnamon for that GNOME 2 feeling.
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.
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.
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
Same here, I prefer KDE, but popos has been my daily driver for a while now just for compatibility and ease of use.
Very excited for cosmic as in not a fan of gnome.
I’ve never been a real plasma user (played around with it sure but never more than a week or something) and have been using GNOME since ~3.10 the whole workflow is just ingrained in my mind and simply works. So I’d be happy to hear how you’re doing on Plasma even if I don’t see myself switching anytime soon.
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.
I used to be a huge fan of Gnome, back before they switched to whatever this mobile-first nonsense design is. Looks like something you would see on a tablet designed for children. They destroyed Gnome!
The same. I used to love GNOME, now I’m forced to use KDE because GNOME 3+ is completely disgusting and unusable.
Yeah, they really did our boy wrong.
I use Cinnamon on my desktop to avoid the whole “modern” Gnome problem. It’s far better. But it’s Plasma all the way on my laptop baby!
Yeah, Cinnamon is great, but I use Plasma myself. I got used to it after switching to Nobara, back in the day, but for most of the past year or two I’ve been using Bazzite and it defaults to KDE as well.
Old gnome was great. Was like the best middle ground. Enough options to tweak stuff, but not plasma levels of knobs. Le sigh
And let’s not forget that it looked great. The perfect blend of style and minimalism.
I have a colleague, who’s super deep down the Linux rabbit hole and he always ran GNOME. I was never quite sure, if he actually prefers it, or if he just does not care, because he’s doing most things in a terminal anyways.
Recently, our IT department made a change, which accidentally switched him over to KDE. He could easily switch back, but he’s been checking KDE out instead, and yeah, it’s been super interesting.
He definitely has some of that GNOME workflow baked into him. For example, under GNOME you can use Alt + the key above Tab to switch between windows of the same application. In KDE, that shortcut exists, but the default keybinding isn’t exactly usable.
Another minor complaint was, for example, that using Meta + arrow-keys doesn’t move windows between screens automatically when you press it repeatedly. That’s a separate shortcut under KDE, with Meta + Shift + arrow-keys.He’s aware that he may need to relearn some of his workflow, but yeah, will have to see, if he sticks to it. His emotions are nigh impossible to read, unfortunately. 🙃
man, I love the workflow of meta-arrow switches desktops, and meta-shift-arrow takes your current window with you.
Is that the default on GNOME? I happen to have the same workflow configured on KDE, except I use WASD instead of arrow keys. 🙃
not sure of it’s the default, but I change Gnome or KDE to that. I think it’s KDE’s default.
To clarify, those are the default keybindings, but you can change them to match your needs or expectations. I like the alt tilde for windows within a program switching, it works fairly well though I have not set it up on my current machine yet.
Yea, my sister, for example, had changed all keybinds in GNOME to be the same as they are in macOS
Lol, about that, while changing keybinding on spectacle (kde app to take screenshots/screenrecording) seemed to work, changing key bindings to launch keepass, somehow de-activated the key
y. I noticed that rebooting fixed it, until I pressed any keybind (even ctrl+c). I had to reset the keybindings.Not sure exactly what is going on, but I noticed that if I opened discord it would type
ycontinously whenywas disabled.Somehow this happened again with
xwhen I launched outerwilds and discord.Very weird bug, but I was too busy setting up linux to report it. I’m just being a bit hesitant to change any system keybind now😆
Woah, that is wild, I hope you did some bug reporting about that, for something to go so insanely wrong it would have to be a fairly bad bug but also hard to find. Cool trick though, “Check this out, Copy ate my Y key, I am without purpose!”
Good comment ! I laughed at “the key above Tab”. So useless nobody remembers caps lock. Do we need an international caps lock day ?
Well, caps lock is below the tab key (still useless tho). The key above is the weird backtick or tilde key.
Thanks for correcting me !
Yeah, I specifically wrote “the key above tab”, because on our German keyboard the ^ is there, but it’s still the same keybinding, so presumably GNOME determines it based on key location rather than the produced symbol.
. For example, under GNOME you can use Alt + the key above Tab to switch between windows of the same application. In KDE, that shortcut exists, but the default keybinding isn’t exactly usable.
KDE’s shortcut key options are endlessly customizable. I’d be shocked if you couldn’t get this functionality after like 30 seconds of tinkering.
I have changed them to pretty much like how windows has it.
I just installed plasma and I love it. I have no experience with it before this year.
