Bottom left is Awesome WM. Ask me anything or tell us your picks!

(and feel free to tear me apart on my picks)

What’s that at the top left? I can’t find a window manager named Cosmic anywhere.
I’m addicted to hopping window managers, I’m curious what that one is like especially if it is tiling.

It's a desktop environment, originally from Pop!_OS. It's very new, and sometimes still slightly buggy but I really like it.

It's a hybrid tiling or floating wm. The tiling mode is really good though!

Both my favorite, longest used and current DE would be MATE. Currently using it on desktop with Debian and a laptop running Fedora. Super customizable and very speedy. Beyond that I really enjoy Gnome but haven't used it in a bit.

What's the DE you want to use in the future? I'm not great with logos. Thanks 😊

https://awesomewm.org

i3wm still works ... I might eventually switch to sway.

https://github.com/pop-os/cosmic-epoch

Favorite DE: Niri
First DE used: XFCE
DE you want to use in the future: Niri
Honorable Mention: Hyprland
least favorite: Anything non tiling, or maybe Hyprland due to a lot of minor annoyances
Current DE: Niri
longest used DE: i3
Current Distro: NixOS and Arch

You should try Niri!

I'd really like to learn Python so I can customize qtile

What’s your beef with Gnome?

Tell me you use Arch (btw) without telling me you use Arch, btw.

Maybe OP likes a more Windows-like UI

Favorite: KDE. The GOAT babyyy

Least Favorite: Deepin, due to the privacy concerns

First DE: XFCE

Honorable Mention: Cosmic. It is sexy with decent balance of customization & strong unified vision. It is early on though so not quite ready for prime time. Some bugs, and resource consumption could be better.

Current DE: KDE

Potential Future DE: Might see what thr fuss is about with WMs like Niri. It seems more complicated to set up than it needs to be, but I like the tiling and use of desktops sort of like GNOME but better.

Longest used DE: KDE

Current distro: Fedora KDE

I've considered it, but i'm not sure if I like the scrolling tiling yet..

idk.. it just feels very locked down, and honestly every time i've tried it, there's been some issue with it. I feel like it's not customizable enough for me, and also the themeing is inconsistent.

That's not really my issue. I actually prefer MacOS like-interfaces, although in the grand scheme of things I don't actually care. I mostly just want to be able to choose what I want though.

well, I thought it was important since usually people using Cosmic are on Pop!_OS

Gotta say, I don't really think there's any big issues with Cosmic anymore. They are updating very very quickly, and at this point is consumes less resources than XFCE....

It also has a native tiling mode xD

That’s honestly exactly how I would describe KDE, but to each their own!

you would describe KDE as.. not customizable?

i tried cosmic on nixos a while back and it was a bit clunky and missing a couple of bits

time to change that couple of lines of config and try again

i use gnome btw :)

I totally understand people who like Gnome, don't get me wrong, it's just not for me.

Since i'm on a rolling release, I thankfully always have the newest versions of Cosmic. They recently also added blurring effects, so that's pretty fun. Hope it works better for you now!

Favorite: KDE

Least favorite: GNOME (but Adwaita is sick)

First DE used: KDE

Honourable mention: Hyprland, Cosmic

Current DE: KDE

Longest used DE: KDE

DE you wanna use in the future: KDE

Current distro: Bazzite

Yeah...I made my pick :D

For me, it's "use it the dev way or no way at all" mentality baked in.

If you like the GNOME way of doing things, you'll feel great. If you don't like any aspect of it, it will be very hard to rectify.

Interesting that you had similar experience with KDE, because mine is on the contrary. Whatever I could envision, it could be made with KDE - even the stock one. Essentially, you can even recreate much of GNOME experience within it, if you so prefer.

i can't do these because i only have used linux mint and still use mint

At first its novelty, then it starts to make sense, and then you can't live without it. I've tried to switch to other DE's a couple of times including similar ones like MangoWC and I always come back. I used Cosmic for 30 mins before I ragequit and went back to Niri.

Inconsistent

Huh, developing a new DE for X11 is... A choice.

Favorite: In usability KDE, in looks XFCE-winxptc

Least favorite: I3 (I can't be bothered especially when it's x11)

First: Unity

Honorauble mention: Hyprland (wasn't difficult to config)

Current: xfce-winxptc (it almost works perfectly for daily use but dolphin causes the theming to break and resets icons, but most importantly there's no search I have to use a keyboard shortcut for that.)

Longest used: KDE

DE I wanna use: xfce-winxptc with extra functionality.

Current distro: Cachy OS (First arch based distro that didn't black screen in the first month.)

Probably never found the widget store.

First used: TWM / TVWM
Then: FVWM
Then: Windowmaker
Then: Enlightenment (briefly)
Then: Gnome (briefly)
Then KDE (to this day)

I played around with a number of others, but never really used them much.

It's not a new environment, it's been around for donkeys' years

Thanks so much!

That's good to hear! I tried it earlier this year and it was responsive and all (when not buggy) but sitting at 3 or 4 GB of RAM idle. I might give it another go.

I think mine sits at like 1.5 GB idle these days. They've really come a long way

BSPWM was my favorite back in the day. Used Hyperland and i3 for a while. I much prefer KDE over Gnome. Mangowm is where it's at how.

And I had that same reaction when you said Gnome wasn’t customizable.

There is a whole extensions library for Gnome for customization.

fluxbox

Favorite and first WM: i3

First and only DE: GNOME

Honorable mention: cinnamon

First: kde
Least favorite: xfce
Favorite: niri
Currently using: niri gnome and kde
Honorable mention: cosmic

All of the boxes are KDE, except

Least favorite: GNOME

Current distro: Garuda

Favorite: KDE.

Least Favorite: Gnome, but I've not tried a ton... It's slick but way too opinionated for my tastes. I could change most of what bothers me about it with add-ons and mods, but KDE gives me the controls I want out of the box, and lets you do damned near anything you want before you even start installing mods (I don't understand the person who thinks it's too limited and Gnome is more flexible, but different priorities, I guess)

First DE: KDE on XanderOS... To be fair, the name sounded cool to young me and I didn't know much of anything about the different Linux distros yet. And I think Ubuntu either wasn't around yet or hadn't gotten well enough known for me to have spotted it initially

Honorable Mention: Unity... Love it or hate it, Ubuntu was trying something actually interesting and I think it's a shame they didn't stick with it longer

Current DE: KDE

Potential Future DE: not sure, KDE does everything I want at this time, but I might give Cosmic a try, and/or a tiling WM, though I suspect I won't care for it (I'll give it a real shot to convince me, I just don't see the appeal)

Longest used DE: KDE

Current distro: Mint with KDE shoehorned in, though will be OpenSuSE Tumbleweed in a couple hours (I love Mint but I'm tired of fighting with old packages and drivers, and suspect that might be the cause of graphics stack crashes that have plagued me... Also because I'm tired of waiting for KDE 6 for years now and it'll be probably mid next year still before it's available on Mint, and even then still only as an afterthought)

Niri is crazy good. I get itchy without it now

Gnome with extensions is basically a better cosmic for me

Default gnome is rough, but arcmenu for customizable start menu, and a couple other extensions that ive never had issues with being outdated make it the best de for me, kde I end up adding too much clutter or never feel satisfied customizing compared to gnomes default look

The thing I love about cosmic is the themeing and customization, but most of all the native tiling mode.

Can you really get a good tiling mode on Gnome?

What's that raindrop one in the middle?

Hyperland, a wayland based tiling wm