alt Hacker NewsI use both and I enjoy the simplicity of Gnome recently and some of the polish, but the constant decisions and weird stuff from Gnome as developers and as an organization send me running every time.
Almost anything you want to do in Gnome touches a spec or design that someone made there and has some obscure thing that kills it entirely for practical use but they won't change their spec or designs foe bizarre and nearly political reasons.
It's their project and they are free to do what they want. But, contrast this with my time as a KDE developer or user and it's night and day. The KDE people want to get everything done by any means possible and we will clean it up to get it shippable. We have moved entire code bases and specs to do it. Ever since Valve got involved that aspect only improved IMO.
My bet has been on KDE for a bit now, even if it's not my current daily driver.
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I’ve always wanted to like GNOME—it’s polished and has an undeniable appeal—but I just can’t get behind its UI metaphor.
For my workflow, simplicity is key. That’s why I prefer desktops like XFCE, Budgie, or Cinnamon (edit: or KDE). Even MATE with the "Redmond" skin feels more intuitive to me.
Why? It comes down to how I manage my work. I often set up one browser window per project or topic, labeled accordingly (e.g., Project1, Project2). I even have a window called MAIN for my daily essentials like Mail, Calendar, WhatsApp, and Signal.
With a macOS-style UI, I only get one taskbar icon for all these windows, making it difficult to find what I need quickly. On the other hand, with the classic Win95-style interface, I can easily and intuitively spot my open projects at a glance. No guessing, just muscle memory.
Just my thoughts—your mileage may vary. Curious if anyone else feels the same way?
Until earlier this year, KDE let anyone upload a "global theme" to the official KDE Store. When a KDE user browsed the themes, he received no warning that the themes could run arbitrary code and that no one at KDE was vetting the themes. Then in March 2024 a KDE user installed a global KDE theme which did rm -rf to his home directory:
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/linux/kde-advises-extr...
So, although I agree with most of the criticisms of Gnome I see here on HN, I use it because I found a way to work in it without being annoyed too much by the overconfidence and lack of skill of Gnome's UI designers and the lack of customizability and because at least the Gnome project seems to pay enough attention to security to avoid a security hole as blatant and obvious as the one I just described in KDE.
Here is an example of Gnome paying attention to security:
>[Gnome] implements permission control for privileged Wayland protocols like screencopy. There are other desktop environments and window managers with Wayland support, but I am not aware of any permission control implemented by them.
https://privsec.dev/posts/linux/choosing-your-desktop-linux-...
I.e., Gnome is the only DE the author quoted above knows of that actually takes the trouble to make use of a design feature that X lacks, but Wayland has: namely, an architecture that allows a DE to prevent the deplorable situation of most Linux installs in which any app can read the contents of the window of any other app.
I tried out Ubuntu with Gnome a few years ago after a lot of experience with KDE on Gentoo. I guess I don't get it.
No task bar. Had to Google for the command to install one. It's worthless. Icons change order. I have 5 instances of the same program open, and I can't tell which is which because they change order in the task bar. Can't even enumerate them since their order changes while I'm switching through them! This is the most basic function of a window manager and it doesn't work.
Oh, am I supposed to use that full screen task switcher thing? No, all my windows contain text, and I can't tell their thumbnails apart.
Yet, so many people prefer it. What the hell am I missing?
I think GNOME is what you get when devs think of themselves as "opinionated" and keep trying to chase the latest trends in UX.
The thing I like about KDE is that they adhere to the classic tried-and-true desktop experience while being ready and willing to accept that everyone has different preferences that they should accommodate. That is pragmatism, and that is treating your users with respect. (Whereas the GNOME philosophy is more, "our way or the highway.")