Windows 10 wasn’t even on my list as it is not a modern OS any more (it has been replaced by Windows 11), but even so it had a better UI, without those weird UI features that just serve to look bad
floating taskbar at the bottom, not actually at the bottom, above it
those blue highlights around widgets that do not look good
that horrible off white colour for widgets
general bad design
And of course windows 11 and GNOME improve with even more UI features
blur
transparency that actually looks good
rounded corners that look good
Basically, it’s not one specific thing that makes KDE look bad, but rather their general approach to design, which seems to be ‘we don’t care what we’re doing, we’ll just set the default to something random as we expect users to customise it anyway’ which is fine for advanced users, but not so friendly to new users
It might be GNOME or it might be Windows 11 (although of the Linux ones it’s still GNOME), but KDE is clearly (subjectively) the most ‘programmer art’ of the 3
Subjectively, I think, KDE/Plasma would make me unproductive compared to Gnome, maybe not as much as being on Win11 for sure. Both are cluttered and distracting from my point of view.
I am looking forward to niri, because I realized that GTK is the real king that makes Gnome so awesome to use. Niri would make window management even better. (:
A word on new Linux users: I have seen most prefering Gnome, older people tend to prefer the Gnome classic, because they are used to the idea to see which programs are currently running (taskbar). And this makes it easier for me to help them, because it still behaves like a modern desktop.
The KDE/Plasma/XFCE/Cinamon users around me are all long time Linux users. They made a dicision for themselves and know how to use it.
I absolutely love GNOME but had to switch recently due to hardware and software quirks. My primary computer is a Steam Deck and with valve primarily testing their things with KDE and the ability to launch into the Deck mode there was a lot of bugs and quirks happening with GNOME that I got tired of troubleshooting and patch in config files for all the time.
Switching back to KDE, sure I get a better overview of things but I love Adwaita and the GNOME Intuitivity of the UI. Things I needed was there and presented in a very nice non-distracting way. The clean look and the added margins around elements giving a comfortable view of what’s necessary is extremely nice to me, all while the rest of the stuff isn’t distracting me with buttons and gizmos everywhere. I hope I can one day switch back but the added niceties of HDR and better KDE Connect support that isn’t half broken is also quite nice. Loose a little, win a little.
Ok so we went from talking about how intuitive/easy to use it is to how it looks. Looks are much more subjective and also depend greatly on theming even if it’s just using a light or dark theme.
Back to the original question of is it intuitive. For a windows user trying Linux for the first time, most would prefer a DE with a start bar on the bottom by default, some might prefer the look of older versions of windows. (Remember that widows 8 and 11 had/have terrible adoption rates). And others really won’t care much but will just want to be able to quickly find their apps.
I was a windows user for a long time. I only stopped at windows 10 cause I was sock of ads and candy crush soda saga acting like it was a core component of the OS. When I ran windows 8, the first thing I did was install an app that made the start menu look like windows 7. When I first tried gnome I’m 2012 it was so weird. It felt like if apple had made windows 8 with a side dock and a start button that took over the whole screen and these large buttons with a lot of wasted space with long transitions that my computer couldn’t really render.
I switched to XFCE and loved it, thought this was more windows like. It did seem to be lacking some features and didn’t look as modern but it was so much easier to use i liked it more. then I switched to KDE and thought this is what windows wants to be. I also loved all the settings that were configurable and how much control I had over the look.
I still use gnome for work (gnome DE is required) and have KDE on my personal and I got to say how much more productive I am with KDE over gnome.
Maybe I’ve been using KDE too much, but what’s unintuitive about it?
Maybe unintuitive is the wrong word, but for new users the amount of options can be overwhelming, and the UI looks… not very modern by default, lol
How does plasma6 not look modern by default? It’s mostly how Windows look like.
Well yeah I know how the defaults look like, really didn’t need that reminder?
So what’s wrong with plasma6? (Compare it with win10)
Windows 10 wasn’t even on my list as it is not a modern OS any more (it has been replaced by Windows 11), but even so it had a better UI, without those weird UI features that just serve to look bad
And of course windows 11 and GNOME improve with even more UI features
Basically, it’s not one specific thing that makes KDE look bad, but rather their general approach to design, which seems to be ‘we don’t care what we’re doing, we’ll just set the default to something random as we expect users to customise it anyway’ which is fine for advanced users, but not so friendly to new users
Clearly, Gnome is the most modern looking of the three.
It might be GNOME or it might be Windows 11 (although of the Linux ones it’s still GNOME), but KDE is clearly (subjectively) the most ‘programmer art’ of the 3
Subjectively, I think, KDE/Plasma would make me unproductive compared to Gnome, maybe not as much as being on Win11 for sure. Both are cluttered and distracting from my point of view.
I am looking forward to niri, because I realized that GTK is the real king that makes Gnome so awesome to use. Niri would make window management even better. (:
A word on new Linux users: I have seen most prefering Gnome, older people tend to prefer the Gnome classic, because they are used to the idea to see which programs are currently running (taskbar). And this makes it easier for me to help them, because it still behaves like a modern desktop.
The KDE/Plasma/XFCE/Cinamon users around me are all long time Linux users. They made a dicision for themselves and know how to use it.
I absolutely love GNOME but had to switch recently due to hardware and software quirks. My primary computer is a Steam Deck and with valve primarily testing their things with KDE and the ability to launch into the Deck mode there was a lot of bugs and quirks happening with GNOME that I got tired of troubleshooting and patch in config files for all the time.
Switching back to KDE, sure I get a better overview of things but I love Adwaita and the GNOME Intuitivity of the UI. Things I needed was there and presented in a very nice non-distracting way. The clean look and the added margins around elements giving a comfortable view of what’s necessary is extremely nice to me, all while the rest of the stuff isn’t distracting me with buttons and gizmos everywhere. I hope I can one day switch back but the added niceties of HDR and better KDE Connect support that isn’t half broken is also quite nice. Loose a little, win a little.
Ok so we went from talking about how intuitive/easy to use it is to how it looks. Looks are much more subjective and also depend greatly on theming even if it’s just using a light or dark theme.
Back to the original question of is it intuitive. For a windows user trying Linux for the first time, most would prefer a DE with a start bar on the bottom by default, some might prefer the look of older versions of windows. (Remember that widows 8 and 11 had/have terrible adoption rates). And others really won’t care much but will just want to be able to quickly find their apps.
I was a windows user for a long time. I only stopped at windows 10 cause I was sock of ads and candy crush soda saga acting like it was a core component of the OS. When I ran windows 8, the first thing I did was install an app that made the start menu look like windows 7. When I first tried gnome I’m 2012 it was so weird. It felt like if apple had made windows 8 with a side dock and a start button that took over the whole screen and these large buttons with a lot of wasted space with long transitions that my computer couldn’t really render.
I switched to XFCE and loved it, thought this was more windows like. It did seem to be lacking some features and didn’t look as modern but it was so much easier to use i liked it more. then I switched to KDE and thought this is what windows wants to be. I also loved all the settings that were configurable and how much control I had over the look.
I still use gnome for work (gnome DE is required) and have KDE on my personal and I got to say how much more productive I am with KDE over gnome.