KDE is now my favorite desktop

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Overall Sentiment & Evolution

  • Many commenters now consider Plasma 5/6 “rock solid” and their preferred desktop after years on GNOME, XFCE, i3, etc.
  • Several long‑time users recall KDE 3.x fondly, view the 4.0 release as a one‑off disaster that damaged reputation, and say the project has since focused on polish and bug‑fixing.
  • Some still report KDE feeling fragile compared to GNOME: random crashes, quirks around upgrades, and bad experiences on certain distros or hardware.

KDE vs GNOME and Other Desktops

  • KDE is praised for:
    • Very high configurability, coherent suite of apps, and “sane defaults” compared to GNOME.
    • Doing out of the box what GNOME typically needs extensions for (dock, clipboard history, tiling-ish features, app indicators).
  • GNOME is often described as:
    • Better looking, more cohesive, more professionally designed, but opinionated, rigid, and reliant on fragile extensions.
  • XFCE, LXQt, MATE, tiling WMs (i3, Sway, Hyprland, niri) attract users who want minimalism or no “DE bloat”; several switched to KDE once Plasma became lighter and better at HiDPI.

Design, UX, and Defaults

  • Strong split on aesthetics:
    • Some say Plasma now looks more consistent and professional than recent macOS/Windows.
    • Others see “programmer art”: inconsistent padding, fonts, and noisy toolbars; Breeze still criticized.
  • KDE’s philosophy of “everything is configurable” delights power users but overwhelms some, who find the sheer number of options anxiety‑inducing.
  • There’s ongoing design work: updated HIG, consistency goal, Kirigami/Qt Quick improvements, and a future “Union” theming system.

Features and Integrated Apps

  • Widely praised components: Dolphin (tabs/splits, KIO), Kate (with LSP), Konsole (powerful but UI-cluttered), Spectacle, Okular, KDE Connect, KIO-audiocd, window rules, Activities.
  • Plasma’s system settings and panel/widget model are appreciated for discoverability and centralization.
  • New efforts mentioned: Plasma Keyboard (on‑screen keyboard), better input story, possible future per‑screen virtual desktops.

Wayland, Performance, and Hardware

  • Many report Plasma 6 on Wayland as stable, fast, and memory‑efficient, sometimes rivaling XFCE, especially after targeted optimization work.
  • Others still hit rough edges: multi‑monitor layout bugs, focus glitches, compositor regressions, and app freezes (e.g., SSHFS, Exposé‑style overview).
  • Fractional scaling, HiDPI, and HDR support are frequently cited as areas where KDE now excels.
  • Steam Deck and Asahi Linux users highlight KDE as a surprisingly polished default; some want Valve to track newer Plasma more closely.

Packaging, Distros, and Release Model

  • Fedora KDE, Arch, Debian, openSUSE, and Void are cited as good KDE hosts; there’s new interest in the official KDE Linux distro.
  • Plasma 5 had LTS releases; Plasma 6 dropped LTS due to low distro adoption, though a future reintroduction is under discussion.