Linux

Gnome 2 was the default when I switched. I stay mostly because of familiarity and inertia. There has to be a really good reason to switch. Maybe soon. KDE implemented workspaces-per-screen. That could be a killer feature that would get me to switch. I loved that when I was running AwesomeWM.

I tried Gnome a few times, last time maybe 3 years ago, but it just is not the right environment for me. It feels strange and everything is so complicated (most likely because I'm not used to it) and it is so limited when it comes to features and customization.

My first graphic OS was GEOS on the C64 back then, followed by Amiga Workbench, then different flavours of Windows. Using Linux with KDE just feels natural, it has the same usage paradigms and flows as all the OS/Environments I used before.

I had to use MacOSX for some time at work and I had the same issues with it that I had with Gnome, everything was a fight, nothing felt right or was at the place where it has to be.

I like gnome, but, switched back to kde because the extensions I needed broke last fedora update.

I love cosmic, but the keyboard focus doesn't always follow into the correct tab, which was also a deal breaker

The only real issue I have with kde, is Google drive integration isn't baked in at the moment. But, I just use the website, and there were plenty of other solutions I could use too

KDE has wobbly windows. Gnome needs an extension. Easy choice.

I use KDE on my desktop, Cinnamon on my laptop. I really dislike the way Gnome looks, but aside from that I'm really dependant on my mouse. Gnome doesn't seem to appreciate that. I also don't like their approach of dumbing things down and forcing their ways on the user.

Back in the day I really liked Unity. It was simple, looked good and optimised the screen like nothing else did at the time. When Ubuntu ditched it, I ditched Ubuntu.

Typically I'll stick with Plasma till they bork it, then switch to GNOME til I get bored and see what's up with Plasma these days. I'll sometimes try some others out, but typically it's those two.

I use KDE because it's good and because GNOME is bad.

I used GNOME for work and it was interesting. There are pros and cons, but generally I prefer KDE A LOT and basically made GNOME look like some form of KDE.

GNOME seems to be significantly more stable but also has significantly less features. Both are very important and sadly the stability doesnt seem to have changed much. I still have the panel disappearing after some time etc. KDE got way better here and they want to invest into their CI a lot including memory leak tests. We can also expect improvements due to the funding they get for their 6.6 LTS version (funded by Kubuntu Focus).

GNOME has extensions which can do a lot but have basically no guarantees to be secure or verified or anything, which is very problematic also for security. On GNOME you rely on those even for simple things like a clipboard manager or blur.

I like some GNOME apps, but generally they are just so much worse than KDE apps. They have no up-to-date terminal that has features, like wtf? Their text editor is too simple and they dont have a simple IDE like Kate, theirs is too much "project focused". They dont have a simple image editor, at all. Or a QR code generator, or KDE Connect, or GUI settings for half the things etc.

• Gnome has consistently moved away from a desktop experience and towards one that is geared towards touch screens. Which is fair enough, I suppose. But it's not what I want. I don't want bigger, more colorful icons that are more friendly to a touch screen. I don't want drag gestures to do everything in my laptop...that's what my tablet is for. By trying to make something that works for both, they don't excel at either one and just end up making a mid-version of either experience.

• Its design is trying to make things "easy" for people by taking away their choice, which I fundamentally disagree with. To me, making things easier is about making sane defaults that people don't need to change, but leaving those options for when the user gets more familiar. Taking out the ability entirely is dystopian windows level "you do what we tell you and you'll like it" levels of glazing.

• This is minor, but the fact that I need to have Firefox in order to do anything of any substance in terms of what little customization there is on Gnome just bothers me. Why does your desktop still rely on another project in order to achieve full functionality?

the gnome on the distro I had before did not work well with windows snapping so I installed kde. my current distro kde is the default.

I'm running Plasma at the moment. I actually prefer three look out Gnome and I think I would use it if my home computer was used for anything productive. It's mainly used for gaming though and Gnomes main design doesn't quite flow as well while gaming on a dual screen setup.

It's just easier to be able to see the task bar and all open programs (and sys tray) on my second monitor all the time instead of having to go through a hot cornet or hitting the super button.

Sure, this could be fixed through the use of addons (like Ubuntu has by default for instance) but these tend to break on new versions of Gnome while Plasma just keep working.

My preferred setup while running Gnome was the stock adwaita theme, dag to panel, arc menu and whatever that sys tray addon was called.

If I could have the same look over in Plasma I'd be pretty happy tbh but I haven't really made the effort since it just works the way it is and doesn't look bad doing it either.

I used to be a gnome 2 user for a long time. I sometimes tried out KDE but it seemed to unstable so I moved back to gnome.

But the problems started with gnome 3. I had never put much effort into customizing my desktop but I just didn't like the defaults for gnome 3. Even worse some things I didn't like were hard to change, some required plug-ins (that sometimes broke) and some just couldn't be fixed at all.

I could use my system but it always felt a bit like I did so begrudgingly. That was when I wasn't using Linux full time. When I finally wanted to ditch windows completely I tried a lot. Different DEs, different distros and so on and I noticed that KDE felt good. I was skeptical but I gave it a real chance and I stayed. It feels good. It's not perfect but I really like it. It is customizable enough but has sensible defaults. It doesn't get in my way and I don't use it begrudgingly.

I migrated from Window$, and KDE offered a smoother transition. Since it works fine, I decided not to fix something not broken.

I'm really easily distracted and have things to do when I use my home PC(s). So gnome is really the only thing I can reliably set up and not spend all my time customising. Also, Ubuntu was my first distro (tbh it was Kali Linux but we don't talk about my larp era) and I liked the DE from that.

Its not like I don't customise it mind you, but that's limited to changing the default wallpaper, installing blur my shell and dash to panel, then adding custom icons, usually Tela circle. After that though I don't touch anything in the DE. If I'm on a laptop, I go full Ubuntu and put the dock on the left vertical side of the screen

In comparison I once spent hours customising KDE to look and sound like windows 98, only to realise I didn't like it, to change it to something completely different 3 more times. I did not pass the assignment I was meant to be doing. Its fun but I'll do anything to procrastinate.

I use both on different computers:
Gnome has auto-rotation out of the box so it goes into the tablet.
KDE has better extensions and wobbly windows so I can make it ~~cursed~~ whimsical enough to my liking

First, I haven't used gnome in probably 15 years, so I can't give a fair comparison, but I've grown with kde over the last 3.

My opinion is that it's always worked for me, and is decently customizable. I couldn't use Wayland for the first 4+ months due to conflicts with my Nvidia card, but kde 6 (I think 6) fixed all of my issues.

On new Linux serious, I don't install the full kde suite, because I have other apps I prefer like alacrity instead on konsole. This keeps it lighter but with all of the other DE controls.

Also, I've not heard a bad thing of the kde dev team, but I have about gnome. I can't cite specifics, but I know I've read some bad stuff.

You can always install both DEs and try both out and determine which is best for you.

GNOME3 was designed by absolute morons who refuse to hear anything that doesn't support their echo chamber.

KDE is like a swiss army knife and the best part about it is just using the knife.

i use gnome for my laptops bc they have touch screens and pen input and shit. i use kde for proper desktop bc it isn’t trying to do stuff i don’t need it to.

I switch back and forth based on which one has the smallest number of annoying bugs. Right now, I'm on KDE because they finally fixed a long-standing refresh rate bug, and because gnome has serious trouble keeping the mouse clamped to the right screen in UE5 games without the assistance of gamescope

Gnome with paperwm - infinite tiled scrolling has been my goto on the laptop for a while. Its infuriating to use with a mouse, so when i plug i switch to kde.