I’ve dabbled with Linux over the years, first with Ubuntu in the early 2010s, then Elementary OS when that dropped, and a few years ago I really enjoyed how customizable the gui was with Xubuntu. I was able to make it look just like WIndows 2000 which was really cool.
Which current distro has the best GUI, in your opinion? I find modern Ubuntu to feel a little basic and cheap. I guess I don’t really like modern Gnome. I’m currently using Windows 10 LTSC which is probably the best possible version of Windows, but I’d jump to linux if I could find a distro with a gui that feels at least as polished and feature rich as Windows 10 LTSC.
Distro is irrelevant. DE/WM choice is all that matters as far as GUI goes. Also, if you want a GUI that looks or feels like windows then KDE probably has you covered in that you could probably customise it to mimic windows.
I quite like the Desktop Environment in elementaryOS. I think it’s called Pantheon Desktop? It’s very polished. Or InstantWM from InstantOS is also interesting and has some nice animations and effects.
Personally, I use simple and minimal Openbox
Yes, exactly. haha, the distro has nothing to do with the GUI. That’s your Desktop Environment. On almost every single popular distro you can get teh same DE’s either through official offerings or community versions.
Linux Mint Cinnamon. Stable, yet tons of customizations possible and makes the jump from Windows a whole lot easier (I jumped 1.5 years ago and will never look back).
I’m a serial distro hopper, but I always come back to Mint. So stable it’s almost boring, but easy on the eyes and very user friendly even for those of us that are barely competent in the terminal window.
Agreed. Linux Mint Cinnamon is also my favorite. I’ve been using it ever since I stopped using Windows and switched to Linux from Windows XP.
This is what’s currently doing it for me. I’m a ‘very’ heavy Windows user looking to make the jump out of privacy and telemetry considerations. Mint is what I’ve settled on for precisely this reason.
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I would wait for the release of plasma 6 before you bother switching though, if you’re already comfy!
@Communist Cool, yeah I just remembered hearing a bit about that on @thelinuxexperiment Actually, thinking about it - I’m currently using Pop!_OS as my daily driver and @system76 have been working on Cosmic DE which looks pretty interesting!
I couldn’t agree more. I think that tying yourself to a specific distribution is a good way to keep yourself in a box. I think the better question here is “What DE do you prefer?” and then choose your distro based on your preferences for desktop environments while keeping other things in mind (i.e. frozen packages or rolling base).
I, like yourself, pretty much require KDE to be functional on my desktop. A great distro for me is one that ships new KDE releases without much delay (or at least, one that’s not completely unreasonable) without having to wait for the next LTS release to get all the goodies. This narrows down the choices pretty substantially as there aren’t a lot of distros that meet this spec:
- Arch
- Tumbleweed
- Fedora
- NixOS (debatable on the keeping KDE up-to-date iirc)
- KDE Neon
- Ubuntu with PPAs (least favourite way to stay up to date though)
I prefer to have a rolling (or close to rolling base) so that really only leaves me with the top 3 options.
I’m not really here to shill for KDE, but just encourage folks to find the DE that feels most comfortable to them and then work on your requirements from there.
You can use most desktop environments on most distros.
If a distro has its own GUI and it doesn’t exist on other distros, usually that means either it isn’t free software or it’s not good enough that anyone has bothered to package it for other distros.
The real question is what Window Manager has the best GUI… you can run any window manager on any distro - it just takes a little work.
If you’re talking about out-of-the-box without any user customization, I’ll make a couple suggestions that I think work for new Linux users - not that I’m saying you’re green, but most power users know they can fully design the OS from the ground up if needed.
PopOS - In between - GNOME-like with some PopOS customizations under the hood.
ElementaryOS - MacOS-like WM thats clean fresh and easy to understand
Mint - Cinnamon DM, Windows-like with some customization possible
As a caveat to this, System76 is working a brand-new DE that they’re writing from scratch in Rust called COSMIC Desktop, so they might become less GNOME-like fairly soon. Although presumably you’ll still be able to install GNOME on it if you really want to.
System76/PopOS always bringing the noise!!
Pop is is great. The tiling is so easy. There’s very little learning curve.
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I also enjoy Mint. Simple and easy to use. I wouldn’t consider myself old, so I think you shouldn’t either!
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Absolutely nothing wrong with that. Speaking of which I’m starting to feel comfortable enough suggesting Linux as an OS for folks looking for a PC. It’s nice, because it really brings old PCs to life. If say my older parent wanted a computer I could buy a decent used one and just slap Mint on there and it would suit their needs.
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Same, tho I don’t think I qualify as “old” quite yet
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This is subjective. For me, anything with Mate as desktop environment. Currently using Ubuntu with it.
I’m a conservative user. I don’t really care about whistles and bells, nor appeal to novelty. I want something that works and that I’m used to.
Is mate being ported to Wayland? I will die on the hill that gnome 2 was peak gnome.
Initial Wayland support started around 2021. I’m not sure on its current state as I’m still using X, but it’s worth trying.
That is great. After some unpleasantness with Ubuntu, I ended up switching my dad to Mint + KDE because of multimonitor support in wayland. Unfortunately, KDE + mint has been a bit janky. Now that mate has been ported, I’ll ask him to try that.
MATE is my pick. It’s got all the modern features with a relatively simple baseline that is easy to customize, that also come with several presets.
Two or more start menus? You got it. A Plank dock plus taskbars filled with shortcuts and info covering every other edge of the desktop? Hell yeah! A simple Windows, macOS, or old Ubuntu like interface. Yep. Hide it all away leaving a minimalist and clean space to work? Sure can do!
i really like gnome, especially with extensions like dash to dock, transparent top bar, etc. really nice, simple, and clean ui imo.
Gnome with pop’s cosmic extensions is great. Excited to try their rust based replacement once it’s ready
Yup, I tend to recommend fedora to my newbie friends because Gnome is simple to switch to and works really well.
I’m using Fedora with GNOME now and enjoying it. If you want a more Windows-like experience, go with Fedora KDE spin.
Although KDE is windows like out of the box, it is really customizable without the need of addons, which I like. The Gnome addons can be really cool, but in my experience they can make the desktop less stable and often get abandoned.
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I use Garuda dragonized with kde plasma as my set up, works for me!
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Any distro where I can easily replace the default with sway.
Sway is awesome! Recently started using it, and being able to customize literally everything with simple CSS gives you so much control. Though it is a bit of a double edged sword, as if I don’t catch myself I’ll never stop tuning it.
Distro? Probably Debian, because it has all the desktop environments. If you want, you can have Plasma, Gnome, Xfce, Cinnamon, and MATE all installed at the same time and switch between them at will. Most distros seem focused on one specific DE, which if I’m not mistaken means switching to another involves reinstalling the whole operating system.
The big downside of Debian is that the software in it tends to be very out of date. You’ll get security updates and the occasional bug fix between Debian releases, but that’s about all you’ll get.
You can get a rolling-release experience by running the “unstable” version, but as the name implies, upgrades will sometimes fail or break something, and you need to know your way around the system in order to recover from that. Not a problem if you want to learn to be a Linux sysadmin anyway, but if you want your system to Just Work™, then unstable Debian is unfortunately not for you. It’s a trade-off, as with most things in life.
Don’t most distros have access all desktop environments? I’m assuming OP is asking about the default DE.
They should specify that then. Because right now I’d also answer the question with “all distros”.
I’m assuming the OP just wants know what GUI we like best, and the distro is irrelevant.
@PureTryOut @howrar Well there are distros that are specifically geared to their default DE like #Elive #linux #RetroWave There’s no way any distro can just ‘slap that on’ as the saying goes.
https://www.elivecd.org/download/retrowaveI… Have never heard of those. I’m sure there are some distros like that, but the majority (and especially the few mainstream ones) just ship and offer all DE’s.
@PureTryOut Well, in general installing a different DE on a distro than the default, tends to be a sad experience. There’s lots of work under the hood that are geared to make the default DE nice and slick. It’s the reason why there are distros like Xubuntu, Kubuntu and what not.
Tbh the various DE’s should work just fine out of the box without additional distro work done outside of packaging. That’s the case on Arch Linux, Gentoo Linux and Alpine Linux at least, not sure why it would be different on distros like Ubuntu or Fedora.
They do but I wouldn’t really install two DEs in say Ubuntu because it leaves you with a bunch of confusing shit. Debian does it a nice way where they don’t interfere with each other.
Im honestly a GNOME person. Part of that is due to me needing magnification and a screen reader to use a computer for sure, but its also very keyboard driven and that is how i use computers
I used the Pop Os default for a long time and just recently switched to i3 Manjaro, it’s been pretty nice once you get past the learning curve of i3
I’m pretty sure I’m legally required to post this anytime someone says they use Manjaro.
Manjaro was the first thing to get me to stop distro-hopping, so it pains me to admit that historically, it’s been a very messy project. I’ve since moved onto openSUSE Tumbleweed and love it (I’ve also dabbled in NixOS, but it’s a lot more hardcore).
If anyone wants the ease of Manjaro, with an Arch base, my understanding is that you should consider EndeavourOS.
Also, if you like i3 but want to use Wayland for any of its superior features, consider SwayWM.
Is there a reason to consider sway if I don’t personally care about visual stuff and just like the way that tiling window managers function. The out of the box i3 manjaro look is perfectly fine for me visually speaking. I intend on eventually learning vanilla arch or something similar when I get more free time, but I mostly just use Linux cause fuck Microsoft and Apple.
The reason is Wayland.
Largely the only difference between i3 and Sway is that i3 is built for X, and Sway uses wlroots, a Wayland compositor. Sway was designed to function as a drop-in replacement for i3, your config should even be 99% compatible.
Since X is essentially a dead project, and Wayland is supposed to be the next step… some people want to make an effort to move away from X… Some people don’t.
But it’s not really about “visual stuff”. It’s about technical debt, and a bunch of stuff I don’t understand.
Ah ok, that gives me a better idea of what you meant! I can do my own research from there. I definitely don’t wanna stay on a dead project especially when I’m still in the learning stage, much easier to learn now than to relearn later.
Keep in mind that these transitional periods in software can be painful, but generally the replacement is aimed to be painless.
The nice thing about Wayland is that development is mature enough that we can see where it’s headed, even if it’s not all complete. Most of the available options that use Wayland make it pretty seamless. You won’t have to relearn much between sway and i3. You also won’t have to relearn anything switching to Wayland in the future if you are already using GNOME or KDE Plasma, for example…
True! I was reading about wayland and sway. I won’t be switching anytime soon as I have a Nvidia Graphics card and I like to play games and the support doesn’t seem to be there quite yet.
I want to like Wayland, but for me it’s never not been laggy and weird on me. I hope this will change in the foreseeable future.
