{"slug": "kde", "name": "KDE", "category": "os", "category_name": "Operating systems and desktop", "description": "Open-source desktop environment (Plasma) and app suite for Linux and other Unix-like systems.", "recommenders": 54, "commenters": 72, "warners": 10, "score": 42.779, "rising": 20.49, "first": "2025-11-30", "latest": "2026-10-27", "why": "Loved as a highly configurable, stable and polished Linux desktop that many prefer over macOS, Windows and GNOME.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 55, "neutral": 7, "compare": 1, "warn": 12}, "spark": [1, 1, 9, 0, 1, 3, 1, 6, 4, 9, 13, 7], "listed": true, "loved": ["Beats macOS/Windows", "Configurability"], "caveat": "Bugs and crashes", "short_quote": "I love KDE to bits and pieces, it's the best desktop I've had the pleasure to use in all my decades of computing.", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://kde.org", "pricing": "open source", "aliases": ["KDE"], "verdict": [{"text": "Loved as a highly configurable,", "cites": [{"id": 787865264, "item_id": 49241579, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49241579", "by": "welwala", "date": "2026-08-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Yeah I love KDE especially because it doesn't force a certain look and feel", "excerpt": "Yeah I love KDE especially because it doesn't force a certain look and feel, it's super configurable out of the box and even more if you install themes and plugins (which I don't even do).", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "Windows 11's built-in Weather app wastes more than 1 GB of RAM"}, {"id": 745376353, "item_id": 46586022, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46586022", "by": "liotier", "date": "2026-01-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "KDE has matured to a stage where most of the defaults feel like they were designed for me", "excerpt": "I used to love Xfce, when KDE felt clunky to me and Gnome went in directions I found insane. Since then Gnome remains Gnome, but KDE has matured to a stage where most of the defaults feel like they were designed for me - and any that doesn't can be easily changed. After a period of using more and more K* applications, I realized I might as well switch desktop... Xfce is now a fond memory, and the times have moved on.", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "Xfce", "story": "XFCE Is Great"}, {"id": 792373105, "item_id": 49523319, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49523319", "by": "davsti4", "date": "2026-09-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "albeit with KDE since Gnome's philosophy of unconfigurable defaults is disappointing", "excerpt": "That was about the time of the Redhat 9 to Fedora shift and I felt the pain too. I was using RH9 for the stability, but then switched to Fedora like everyone was supposed to. Well, that was a big bag of something left on the doorstep. I had to spend countless evenings messing with configs to get the system useable; then upgrades would break things. Finally found stability with Ubuntu after a few years, and still use ", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "GNOME", "story": "Get your Windows license refund"}]}, {"text": " stable and polished Linux desktop", "cites": [{"id": 797284064, "item_id": 49830254, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49830254", "by": "soulofmischief", "date": "2026-09-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "it's probably the most polished modern Linux DE experience", "excerpt": "KDE used to be terrible. However today, despite some grievances, it's probably the most polished modern Linux DE experience. Enough so that Valve chose it for SteamOS. I am also enjoying it on a Bazzite system. I used xfce for pretty much my entire life because yes, there's been very little meaningful improvement to the DE experience in 25 years. Modern KDE finally convinced me to switch, and it does feel like a much", "context": "Linux user", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "Xfce", "story": "Ideas on modernizing the open-source desktop"}, {"id": 795358032, "item_id": 49709877, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49709877", "by": "noir_lord", "date": "2026-09-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It is extremely stable/polished (at least on Fedora) out the box", "excerpt": "Still supports a proper taskbar, one per screen with windows from only that screen on that screens taskbar (that's just how I've done it since the 90's but it's a must have because I think in terms of screen relations to where stuff is, it's my mental model) and virtual desktops (Cinnamon and XFCE both do this as do others) and it supports Wayland (which is why I'm not still on Cinnamon which I really liked as it's j", "context": "Fedora user, long-time desktop Linux user", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "Cinnamon", "story": "Cpak \u2013 OCI application package format for Linux desktops, servers and devices"}, {"id": 773748992, "item_id": 48359312, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48359312", "by": "thom", "date": "2026-06-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use KDE now as a bog standard boring Linux desktop that just works.", "excerpt": "It feels to me that a lot of the bigger ideas in KDE fell away over the years. In the 2000s I would log in every morning, open a KWord doc in one Konqueror tab, a KSpread sheet in another, and some browser tabs alongside them, then I'd launch Kate and open some files over SSH or FTP and get to work. It felt like someone had really embraced OO and applied it to every part of the desktop, and I assume something like KP", "context": "long-time KDE user since the 2000s", "use_case": "Linux desktop", "switched_from": "", "story": "KDE at 30"}]}, {"text": " that many prefer over macOS, Windows and GNOME.", "cites": [{"id": 799338337, "item_id": 49958646, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49958646", "by": "ozgrakkurt", "date": "2026-10-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Cachyos with KDE is 10x better than MacOS.", "excerpt": "Recently switched to KDE on a linux laptop (600 USD lenovo) and stopped using my macbook (m1 16\" pro). Speakers, touchpad and battery life are inferior. Speakers are OK after installing EasyEffects and I don't use the touchpad while programming. And battery life is close enough Cachyos with KDE is 10x better than MacOS. So it doesn't make sense to use macbooks for programming anymore IMO. You can't even see the updat", "context": "programmer who switched from a MacBook to a Linux laptop", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "macOS", "story": "Turn off Apple Intelligence on macOS 27 and get its disk space back"}, {"id": 784670976, "item_id": 49041936, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49041936", "by": "MiddleEndian", "date": "2026-07-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It has a couple killer UI features over Windows.", "excerpt": "I use KDE on Bazzite. It has a couple killer UI features over Windows. It can label bluetooth devices (so I can have blue dualsense controller, pink dualsense controller, white dualsense controller, etc.). No clue why this doesn't work in Windows lol. Also the super/win + arrow keys are more predictable, super pgdn is minimize and super pgup is maximize, so I never find myself accidentally minimizing windows when try", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "Windows", "story": "Nothing works and everyone is euphoric"}, {"id": 773765616, "item_id": 48360351, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48360351", "by": "trostaft", "date": "2026-06-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I moved to KDE long ago for VRR and better fractional scaling support. They just got it right and working.", "excerpt": "Truthfully, I like the more opinionated visual design of GNOME, but I moved to KDE long ago for VRR and better fractional scaling support. They just got it right and working. Huge props to the team, I know that's very difficult. EDIT: On a side note, is anyone informed about the state of VRR + fractional scaling + general gaming on GNOME? Has it gotten better?", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "GNOME", "story": "KDE at 30"}]}, {"text": " The most common complaint is bugs and crashes,", "cites": [{"id": 797244880, "item_id": 49827805, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49827805", "by": "fschuett", "date": "2026-09-24", "stance": "warn", "quote": "The issue with KDE is not the \"UX\", the issue is the crashiness and jank", "excerpt": "The issue with KDE is not the \"UX\", the issue is the crashiness and jank, which is an issue of C++ and the OOP-ness of Qt, respectively and no amount of philosophizing will fix that. Users can excuse high memory usage, users can excuse low FPS, users cannot excuse jank and crashes. It is very hard to pin down the problems with Qt because on the one hand you can produce well-working UIs with QML if you are committed t", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ideas on modernizing the open-source desktop"}, {"id": 784566736, "item_id": 49035421, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49035421", "by": "lostmsu", "date": "2026-07-24", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I've spent 6 months in KDE after years on Windows, and KDE is crap in both UX and number of bugs.", "excerpt": "I've spent 6 months in KDE after years on Windows, and KDE is crap in both UX and number of bugs. I love the idea of open source, but there's a long journey ahead to even match the state of Windows 2000.", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "Windows", "story": "Nothing works and everyone is euphoric"}, {"id": 796838657, "item_id": 49802416, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49802416", "by": "cosmic_cheese", "date": "2026-09-22", "stance": "warn", "quote": "the KDE settings UI for NetworkManager is horrifically flaky", "excerpt": "Because Linux is full of sharp edges which nobody seems to find it fit to fix. I\u2019ve been dabbling in Linux since the early 2000s with Yellow Dog, SUSE, and Ubuntu, tried making it my daily driver in the early-mid 2010s, and for the past 5 or so years have been using it in a secondary/tertiary role. Recently I\u2019ve been trying to move my gaming box from Windows to Fedora (which I\u2019ve found mostly makes the right tradeoff", "context": "", "use_case": "network settings", "switched_from": "", "story": "I said no and Apple said yes"}]}, {"text": " with some finding it ugly or dated out of the box.", "cites": [{"id": 745551265, "item_id": 46596954, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46596954", "by": "gtest", "date": "2026-01-12", "stance": "warn", "quote": "But KDE is extremely ugly out of the box", "excerpt": "Many people praise KDE. But to me, KDE is extremely ugly. Admittedly, I use Gnome. I have few requirements for a DE and most existing DEs meet my need[1]. Many in the Linux community hate Gnome (not sure what the short comings are). I use it mainly because it is the default in most cases. But KDE is extremely ugly out of the box: the panel at the bottom. The window frames, the mouse pointer, the menues. It takes some", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "XFCE Is Great"}, {"id": 795819200, "item_id": 49738700, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49738700", "by": "thiht", "date": "2026-09-17", "stance": "warn", "quote": "every time I give it a try it all feels weird, inconsistent, and dated", "excerpt": "Agree, KDE seems to have all the right features but every time I give it a try it all feels weird, inconsistent, and dated in ways that are kinda deal breaking if you care at all about esthetics. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that no professional designers contribute to KDE applications.", "context": "cares about aesthetics", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "macOS 27 Golden Gate \u2013 Review"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "Beats macOS/Windows", "summary": "Switchers from macOS and Windows say KDE gives them a better day-to-day experience.", "quotes": [{"id": 799338337, "item_id": 49958646, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49958646", "by": "ozgrakkurt", "date": "2026-10-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Cachyos with KDE is 10x better than MacOS.", "excerpt": "Recently switched to KDE on a linux laptop (600 USD lenovo) and stopped using my macbook (m1 16\" pro). Speakers, touchpad and battery life are inferior. Speakers are OK after installing EasyEffects and I don't use the touchpad while programming. And battery life is close enough Cachyos with KDE is 10x better than MacOS. So it doesn't make sense to use macbooks for programming anymore IMO. You can't even see the updat", "context": "programmer who switched from a MacBook to a Linux laptop", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "macOS", "story": "Turn off Apple Intelligence on macOS 27 and get its disk space back"}, {"id": 784670976, "item_id": 49041936, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49041936", "by": "MiddleEndian", "date": "2026-07-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It has a couple killer UI features over Windows.", "excerpt": "I use KDE on Bazzite. It has a couple killer UI features over Windows. It can label bluetooth devices (so I can have blue dualsense controller, pink dualsense controller, white dualsense controller, etc.). No clue why this doesn't work in Windows lol. Also the super/win + arrow keys are more predictable, super pgdn is minimize and super pgup is maximize, so I never find myself accidentally minimizing windows when try", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "Windows", "story": "Nothing works and everyone is euphoric"}, {"id": 775829248, "item_id": 48489328, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48489328", "by": "ozgrakkurt", "date": "2026-06-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Highly recommend trying a linux computer with kde.", "excerpt": "Highly recommend trying a linux computer with kde. I have been having similar annoyances with my macbook and switching to kde felt really good. Even though the hardware of the linux pc isn\u2019t nearly as good.", "context": "switched from a MacBook due to annoyances", "use_case": "desktop environment replacing macOS", "switched_from": "macOS", "story": "Claude Desktop spins up a VM without no way of stopping it"}]}, {"label": "Configurability", "summary": "Commenters like that it doesn't force a look and feel, and that defaults are easy to change.", "quotes": [{"id": 787865264, "item_id": 49241579, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49241579", "by": "welwala", "date": "2026-08-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Yeah I love KDE especially because it doesn't force a certain look and feel", "excerpt": "Yeah I love KDE especially because it doesn't force a certain look and feel, it's super configurable out of the box and even more if you install themes and plugins (which I don't even do).", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "Windows 11's built-in Weather app wastes more than 1 GB of RAM"}, {"id": 745376353, "item_id": 46586022, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46586022", "by": "liotier", "date": "2026-01-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "KDE has matured to a stage where most of the defaults feel like they were designed for me", "excerpt": "I used to love Xfce, when KDE felt clunky to me and Gnome went in directions I found insane. Since then Gnome remains Gnome, but KDE has matured to a stage where most of the defaults feel like they were designed for me - and any that doesn't can be easily changed. After a period of using more and more K* applications, I realized I might as well switch desktop... Xfce is now a fond memory, and the times have moved on.", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "Xfce", "story": "XFCE Is Great"}, {"id": 792373105, "item_id": 49523319, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49523319", "by": "davsti4", "date": "2026-09-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "albeit with KDE since Gnome's philosophy of unconfigurable defaults is disappointing", "excerpt": "That was about the time of the Redhat 9 to Fedora shift and I felt the pain too. I was using RH9 for the stability, but then switched to Fedora like everyone was supposed to. Well, that was a big bag of something left on the doorstep. I had to spend countless evenings messing with configs to get the system useable; then upgrades would break things. Finally found stability with Ubuntu after a few years, and still use ", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "GNOME", "story": "Get your Windows license refund"}]}, {"label": "Stability and polish", "summary": "Many describe modern KDE as stable, fast and polished, with few problems.", "quotes": [{"id": 797284064, "item_id": 49830254, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49830254", "by": "soulofmischief", "date": "2026-09-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "it's probably the most polished modern Linux DE experience", "excerpt": "KDE used to be terrible. However today, despite some grievances, it's probably the most polished modern Linux DE experience. Enough so that Valve chose it for SteamOS. I am also enjoying it on a Bazzite system. I used xfce for pretty much my entire life because yes, there's been very little meaningful improvement to the DE experience in 25 years. Modern KDE finally convinced me to switch, and it does feel like a much", "context": "Linux user", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "Xfce", "story": "Ideas on modernizing the open-source desktop"}, {"id": 795358032, "item_id": 49709877, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49709877", "by": "noir_lord", "date": "2026-09-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It is extremely stable/polished (at least on Fedora) out the box", "excerpt": "Still supports a proper taskbar, one per screen with windows from only that screen on that screens taskbar (that's just how I've done it since the 90's but it's a must have because I think in terms of screen relations to where stuff is, it's my mental model) and virtual desktops (Cinnamon and XFCE both do this as do others) and it supports Wayland (which is why I'm not still on Cinnamon which I really liked as it's j", "context": "Fedora user, long-time desktop Linux user", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "Cinnamon", "story": "Cpak \u2013 OCI application package format for Linux desktops, servers and devices"}, {"id": 790075984, "item_id": 49379749, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49379749", "by": "preg_match", "date": "2026-08-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use KDE and have for 10+ years.", "excerpt": "I use KDE and have for 10+ years. In my experience, kwin is the most stable and performant it's ever been. I don't notice anything at all, ever. Under X, it was common to get stuttering, tears, and dropped frames. Not anymore. I mean I run 2 204hz 1440p monitors. And it's perfect, always. I'm not saying you're wrong, but it's clear that basics of window management are not universally broken under Wayland. It works we", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "XWayland 26.1-rc1 Released Two Years After the Last Release"}]}, {"label": "Gaming", "summary": "Users report smooth gaming, including on Nvidia, with VRR support and Valve's work cited.", "quotes": [{"id": 800549648, "item_id": 50034353, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50034353", "by": "chausen", "date": "2026-10-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I switched to KDE and have had almost 0 problems for day-to-day work and gaming.", "excerpt": "I setup a new main PC (Nvidia GPU) with Arch and GNOME a couple of years ago and had quite a few problems. I switched to KDE and have had almost 0 problems for day-to-day work and gaming. Every once in a while I\u2019ll run into an issue with running a game that I can usually resolve pretty easily with AI. It seems the work Valve has done with KDE and Proton has really added a lot of polish to the experience; I\u2019ve always ", "context": "Nvidia GPU user on Arch", "use_case": "daily desktop and gaming", "switched_from": "GNOME", "story": "WSL3 Performance is about 5-60% faster than WSL2 depending on the workload"}, {"id": 773765616, "item_id": 48360351, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48360351", "by": "trostaft", "date": "2026-06-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I moved to KDE long ago for VRR and better fractional scaling support. They just got it right and working.", "excerpt": "Truthfully, I like the more opinionated visual design of GNOME, but I moved to KDE long ago for VRR and better fractional scaling support. They just got it right and working. Huge props to the team, I know that's very difficult. EDIT: On a side note, is anyone informed about the state of VRR + fractional scaling + general gaming on GNOME? Has it gotten better?", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "GNOME", "story": "KDE at 30"}, {"id": 748871825, "item_id": 46804489, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46804489", "by": "accrual", "date": "2026-01-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "now have a very smoothly working desktop that I can still game on", "excerpt": "I also recently switched to Debian + KDE after decades on Windows. I cloned my previous workflows in a few days and now have a very smoothly working desktop that I can still game on. High DPI and refresh are also working OK.", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "Windows", "story": "Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux"}]}, {"label": "Wayland and scaling", "summary": "Praised for Wayland support, fractional scaling and scaled Xwayland windows.", "quotes": [{"id": 791147793, "item_id": 49446737, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49446737", "by": "bbkane", "date": "2026-08-26", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I switched to KDE as it supports Wayland", "excerpt": "I love XFCE, but I switched to KDE as it supports Wayland (and I want to use WayDroid). KDE has a similar window + shortcut philosophy.", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment with Wayland", "switched_from": "XFCE", "story": "Omacom Foundation Launches with $8M"}, {"id": 789904930, "item_id": 49369058, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49369058", "by": "rjzzleep", "date": "2026-08-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "KDE is the only WM that has managed to properly implement scaled Xwayland windows.", "excerpt": "Yes, Zoom somehow turned into something like Skype, post acquisition. But, at the same time. A design that requires everyone to implement their own protocols and everyone to refix the same bugs in their own compositor is inherintly bad. I have been using Wayland as my daily driver. Some compositors lacked SHM support in their screen sharing, others have other issues. We only recently got proper text input support, an", "context": "", "use_case": "scaled Xwayland windows", "switched_from": "", "story": "XWayland 26.1-rc1 Released Two Years After the Last Release"}, {"id": 773765616, "item_id": 48360351, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48360351", "by": "trostaft", "date": "2026-06-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I moved to KDE long ago for VRR and better fractional scaling support. They just got it right and working.", "excerpt": "Truthfully, I like the more opinionated visual design of GNOME, but I moved to KDE long ago for VRR and better fractional scaling support. They just got it right and working. Huge props to the team, I know that's very difficult. EDIT: On a side note, is anyone informed about the state of VRR + fractional scaling + general gaming on GNOME? Has it gotten better?", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "GNOME", "story": "KDE at 30"}]}, {"label": "Built-in features", "summary": "Many features that need third-party tools on other systems come with KDE by default.", "quotes": [{"id": 802379633, "item_id": 50148727, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50148727", "by": "weaksauce", "date": "2026-10-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "kde has a lot of the nice extras i had to install other software for on macos or windows out of the box", "excerpt": "I grew up on apple computers and switched to windows and pcs for gaming reasons. when the iphone era came i switched back to them for my work computer and daily driver. my ideology soured when they deprecated perfectly good computers and phones from being able to run more recent software due to a few structural issues. Don't have that with linux generally and i don't want to be beholden to some update cycle to appeas", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "What the heck is /pkg?"}, {"id": 755700096, "item_id": 47231256, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47231256", "by": "blindstitch", "date": "2026-03-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Now that I'm on KDE I don't have to run anything", "excerpt": "By the time I stopped using windows 10 on my daily driver last year I had 6 tweak apps always running to smooth over the endless papercuts. Now that I'm on KDE I don't have to run anything, it's all doable via stock control panels.", "context": "", "use_case": "daily driver desktop", "switched_from": "Windows 10", "story": "The beauty and terror of modding Windows"}, {"id": 795826912, "item_id": 49739182, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49739182", "by": "bayindirh", "date": "2026-09-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "KDE provides the features I use daily", "excerpt": "I don't think I'm detached from what a normal user uses, because I don't expect that list to be representative of anyone but me. For a regular user, macOS can be very practical and non-obtrusive OS, yet for me, it's not as useful as a Linux system with KDE installed. Currently I'm writing this comment from my KDE system, and I see more clearly why I prefer to use it much more. Because it allows me to have much more s", "context": "Linux user", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "macOS 27 Golden Gate \u2013 Review"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Bugs and crashes", "summary": "Some report crashes, jank and flaky settings, such as the NetworkManager UI.", "quotes": [{"id": 797244880, "item_id": 49827805, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49827805", "by": "fschuett", "date": "2026-09-24", "stance": "warn", "quote": "The issue with KDE is not the \"UX\", the issue is the crashiness and jank", "excerpt": "The issue with KDE is not the \"UX\", the issue is the crashiness and jank, which is an issue of C++ and the OOP-ness of Qt, respectively and no amount of philosophizing will fix that. Users can excuse high memory usage, users can excuse low FPS, users cannot excuse jank and crashes. It is very hard to pin down the problems with Qt because on the one hand you can produce well-working UIs with QML if you are committed t", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ideas on modernizing the open-source desktop"}, {"id": 784566736, "item_id": 49035421, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49035421", "by": "lostmsu", "date": "2026-07-24", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I've spent 6 months in KDE after years on Windows, and KDE is crap in both UX and number of bugs.", "excerpt": "I've spent 6 months in KDE after years on Windows, and KDE is crap in both UX and number of bugs. I love the idea of open source, but there's a long journey ahead to even match the state of Windows 2000.", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "Windows", "story": "Nothing works and everyone is euphoric"}, {"id": 796838657, "item_id": 49802416, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49802416", "by": "cosmic_cheese", "date": "2026-09-22", "stance": "warn", "quote": "the KDE settings UI for NetworkManager is horrifically flaky", "excerpt": "Because Linux is full of sharp edges which nobody seems to find it fit to fix. I\u2019ve been dabbling in Linux since the early 2000s with Yellow Dog, SUSE, and Ubuntu, tried making it my daily driver in the early-mid 2010s, and for the past 5 or so years have been using it in a secondary/tertiary role. Recently I\u2019ve been trying to move my gaming box from Windows to Fedora (which I\u2019ve found mostly makes the right tradeoff", "context": "", "use_case": "network settings", "switched_from": "", "story": "I said no and Apple said yes"}]}, {"label": "Looks dated", "summary": "Some find the default look ugly, inconsistent or dated.", "quotes": [{"id": 745551265, "item_id": 46596954, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46596954", "by": "gtest", "date": "2026-01-12", "stance": "warn", "quote": "But KDE is extremely ugly out of the box", "excerpt": "Many people praise KDE. But to me, KDE is extremely ugly. Admittedly, I use Gnome. I have few requirements for a DE and most existing DEs meet my need[1]. Many in the Linux community hate Gnome (not sure what the short comings are). I use it mainly because it is the default in most cases. But KDE is extremely ugly out of the box: the panel at the bottom. The window frames, the mouse pointer, the menues. It takes some", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "XFCE Is Great"}, {"id": 795819200, "item_id": 49738700, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49738700", "by": "thiht", "date": "2026-09-17", "stance": "warn", "quote": "every time I give it a try it all feels weird, inconsistent, and dated", "excerpt": "Agree, KDE seems to have all the right features but every time I give it a try it all feels weird, inconsistent, and dated in ways that are kinda deal breaking if you care at all about esthetics. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that no professional designers contribute to KDE applications.", "context": "cares about aesthetics", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "macOS 27 Golden Gate \u2013 Review"}]}, {"label": "Bloat and latency", "summary": "Minimalists call its features eye candy and notice input delay compared with XFCE.", "quotes": [{"id": 797418802, "item_id": 49838675, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49838675", "by": "johnea", "date": "2026-09-25", "stance": "warn", "quote": "don't want, what I consider to be toys, comprising  the bling features of gnome and KDE", "excerpt": "I liked the rotating 3D menuing system. It was dismissed as a toy, but I found it very productive. I use a fluxbox desktop, and don't want, what I consider to be toys, comprising the bling features of gnome and KDE. I just want a user, text, configurable menu system, with no automatic anything. To me these calls that \"it works don't fix it\", just demonstrate how people have almost exclusively used typical M$ and appl", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ideas on modernizing the open-source desktop"}, {"id": 769700625, "item_id": 48106289, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48106289", "by": "shevy-java", "date": "2026-05-12", "stance": "warn", "quote": "KDE and GNOME are IMO just pointless eyecandy these days.", "excerpt": "GEM Desktop 1.2 looks sooooooo like the ancient Apple operating systems. I first saw this on a friends' parents computer and was quite astonished why computers may look like that. I was very used to Windows/DOS back then. I am also glad to have switched to Linux in 2004 already. Once you have been using Linux for a while, whenever I use windows I am annoyed at how slow it is. Just file copy operations alone and then ", "context": "uses the command line mostly", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes"}, {"id": 745350897, "item_id": 46584431, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46584431", "by": "mmh0000", "date": "2026-01-11", "stance": "warn", "quote": "when using something like Windows, KDE, or Gnome, I notice a delay between clicking and the thing happening on screen", "excerpt": "I have to agree, XFCE is great! It's weird that when using something like Windows, KDE, or Gnome, I notice a delay between clicking and the thing happening on screen. It's maybe 100ms or so, but after using XFCE for years, there's a notable and, for me, infuriating delay in many modern GUIs. And it's not my computer; I'm sitting here with 32 cores, 128GiB of RAM, and a somewhat fancy AMD video card. Anyway, I LOVE XF", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "XFCE Is Great"}]}, {"label": "Redesign fatigue", "summary": "One fan worries about KDE repeatedly rebuilding the experience from scratch.", "quotes": [{"id": 797327664, "item_id": 49832979, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49832979", "by": "bityard", "date": "2026-09-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love KDE to bits and pieces, it's the best desktop I've had the pleasure to use in all my decades of computing.", "excerpt": "I love KDE to bits and pieces, it's the best desktop I've had the pleasure to use in all my decades of computing. I am fully behind the idea of continual improvement and experimentation. But if KDE ever decides _yet again_ to tear down and rebuild the whole experience from scratch, I swear, I am going to start paying more attention to the intrusive thoughts of my inner pyromaniac.", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ideas on modernizing the open-source desktop"}]}], "who": [{"by": "cdelsolar", "context": "Arch user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50259430", "date": "2026-10-27"}, {"by": "chausen", "context": "Nvidia GPU user on Arch", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50034353", "date": "2026-10-10"}, {"by": "ozgrakkurt", "context": "programmer who switched from a MacBook to a Linux laptop", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49958646", "date": "2026-10-04"}, {"by": "Propelloni", "context": "Linux user since 2000", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49892383", "date": "2026-09-29"}, {"by": "delecti", "context": "Linux user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49883720", "date": "2026-09-28"}, {"by": "bombela", "context": "uses manufacturing software like KiCad and FreeCAD", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49836014", "date": "2026-09-24"}, {"by": "messh", "context": "uses a Mac at work and vanilla KDE at home", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49831558", "date": "2026-09-24"}, {"by": "soulofmischief", "context": "Linux user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49830254", "date": "2026-09-24"}, {"by": "garciansmith", "context": "KDE user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49824941", "date": "2026-09-24"}, {"by": "jmclnx", "context": "Slackware user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49775367", "date": "2026-09-20"}, {"by": "bayindirh", "context": "Linux user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49739182", "date": "2026-09-17"}, {"by": "noir_lord", "context": "Fedora user, long-time desktop Linux user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49709877", "date": "2026-09-15"}], "tags": ["for gamers", "for macOS switchers", "for Windows switchers", "for GNOME refugees", "for power users"], "use_cases": ["desktop environment", "linux desktop", "linux desktop environment", "daily driver desktop", "daily desktop", "daily desktop and gaming"], "compared": [{"slug": "gnome", "name": "GNOME", "co": 32, "switched_from": 7, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "xfce", "name": "Xfce", "co": 13, "switched_from": 4, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "windows", "name": "Windows", "co": 9, "switched_from": 4, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "macos", "name": "macOS", "co": 7, "switched_from": 3, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "debian", "name": "Debian", "co": 5, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "arch-linux", "name": "Arch Linux", "co": 4, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "fedora", "name": "Fedora", "co": 4, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "i3", "name": "i3", "co": 2, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49825642", "title": "Ideas on modernizing the open-source desktop", "mentions": 6}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46584173", "title": "XFCE Is Great", "mentions": 5}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48357355", "title": "KDE at 30", "mentions": 3}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50161346", "title": "No more icons in every menu by default", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49998801", "title": "WSL3 Performance is about 5-60% faster than WSL2 depending on the workload", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49797982", "title": "I said no and Apple said yes", "mentions": 2}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"recommend": 1}, "2025-12": {"warn": 1, "neutral": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-01": {"recommend": 9, "compare": 1, "warn": 3, "neutral": 1}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-04": {"recommend": 3}, "2026-05": {"warn": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-06": {"recommend": 6}, "2026-07": {"recommend": 4, "warn": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2026-08": {"recommend": 9, "neutral": 1}, "2026-09": {"recommend": 13, "warn": 6, "neutral": 2}, "2026-10": {"recommend": 7, "neutral": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 804227665, "item_id": 50264229, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50264229", "by": "I_am_tiberius", "date": "2026-10-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I used Arch Linux with KDE before, and it was just an experience 10 times better.", "excerpt": "I'm currently having an M2, but I just can't imagine buying an Apple laptop again. The hardware is great, but the sofware is just unbearably bad. I used Arch Linux with KDE before, and it was just an experience 10 times better. If they would just support Linux out of the box...", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "New 14\u2011inch MacBook Pro with M6"}, {"id": 804150880, "item_id": 50259430, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50259430", "by": "cdelsolar", "date": "2026-10-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "it\u2019s the perfect environment", "excerpt": "Yeah I use KDE as well for my desktop and it\u2019s the perfect environment. (Btw I use Arch) Still I\u2019m very tempted by the new MacBooks. I don\u2019t know of any laptop that is a tenth as good and I don\u2019t want to sit at my desk all day to use a computer.", "context": "Arch user", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "New 14\u2011inch MacBook Pro with M6"}, {"id": 803106128, "item_id": 50194133, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50194133", "by": "Symbiote", "date": "2026-10-22", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "whenever I use something other than my usual KDE desktop", "excerpt": "I am reminded of the HCI lecturer at university whenever I use something other than my usual KDE desktop. With a maximized or suitably positioned window, pushing the mouse all the way to the right of the screen activates the scroll bar. To the top right activates the close button. Small things, but they become annoyances when they are missing.", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "No more icons in every menu by default"}, {"id": 803008080, "item_id": 50188005, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50188005", "by": "Kuraj", "date": "2026-10-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love KDE but they could take some notes from this!", "excerpt": "I love KDE but they could take some notes from this!", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "No more icons in every menu by default"}, {"id": 802379633, "item_id": 50148727, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50148727", "by": "weaksauce", "date": "2026-10-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "kde has a lot of the nice extras i had to install other software for on macos or windows out of the box", "excerpt": "I grew up on apple computers and switched to windows and pcs for gaming reasons. when the iphone era came i switched back to them for my work computer and daily driver. my ideology soured when they deprecated perfectly good computers and phones from being able to run more recent software due to a few structural issues. Don't have that with linux generally and i don't want to be beholden to some update cycle to appeas", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "What the heck is /pkg?"}, {"id": 800566016, "item_id": 50035376, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50035376", "by": "tomnipotent", "date": "2026-10-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I still prefer Linux and KDE is my daily driver", "excerpt": "> maximize clicks and screen-time This doesn't make any sense. I regularly use Windows for a few things, and do not have this problem. Sane corp group policies disable all the annoying things folks complain about on the default consumer install, and there are few things you can't do just using a keyboard and keybindings. I still prefer Linux and KDE is my daily driver but most of the comments I read here about Window", "context": "", "use_case": "daily desktop", "switched_from": "", "story": "WSL3 Performance is about 5-60% faster than WSL2 depending on the workload"}, {"id": 800549648, "item_id": 50034353, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50034353", "by": "chausen", "date": "2026-10-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I switched to KDE and have had almost 0 problems for day-to-day work and gaming.", "excerpt": "I setup a new main PC (Nvidia GPU) with Arch and GNOME a couple of years ago and had quite a few problems. I switched to KDE and have had almost 0 problems for day-to-day work and gaming. Every once in a while I\u2019ll run into an issue with running a game that I can usually resolve pretty easily with AI. It seems the work Valve has done with KDE and Proton has really added a lot of polish to the experience; I\u2019ve always ", "context": "Nvidia GPU user on Arch", "use_case": "daily desktop and gaming", "switched_from": "GNOME", "story": "WSL3 Performance is about 5-60% faster than WSL2 depending on the workload"}, {"id": 799338337, "item_id": 49958646, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49958646", "by": "ozgrakkurt", "date": "2026-10-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Cachyos with KDE is 10x better than MacOS.", "excerpt": "Recently switched to KDE on a linux laptop (600 USD lenovo) and stopped using my macbook (m1 16\" pro). Speakers, touchpad and battery life are inferior. Speakers are OK after installing EasyEffects and I don't use the touchpad while programming. And battery life is close enough Cachyos with KDE is 10x better than MacOS. So it doesn't make sense to use macbooks for programming anymore IMO. You can't even see the updat", "context": "programmer who switched from a MacBook to a Linux laptop", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "macOS", "story": "Turn off Apple Intelligence on macOS 27 and get its disk space back"}, {"id": 798556113, "item_id": 49909757, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49909757", "by": "simion314", "date": "2026-09-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I hate GNOME philosophy so KDE was always my love.", "excerpt": "I used lots of distros including Debian Sid, Arch, SUSE but Kubuntu was my first love and eventually I ended up with Kubuntu LTS , i no longer enjoy optimzing my kernel, bootspeed or other stuff, I hate GNOME philosophy so KDE was always my love. I run LTS since I do not want to run the latest bugs.", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "Upgrade your desktop: Ubuntu 26.04.1 LTS is now available"}, {"id": 798278128, "item_id": 49892383, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49892383", "by": "Propelloni", "date": "2026-09-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Today it would be a KDE desktop win", "excerpt": "People make it sound as if Munich flip-flopped on Linux. The then ruling social-democrats and the greens started the LiMux project in 2003! The social-democrats and the conservative christians ruling in 2020 switched back to MS Windows. The current administration is mandating open source but not specifically Linux. I use Linux since the year 2000 and it has been ruff in the early days, no doubt. The desktop competiti", "context": "Linux user since 2000", "use_case": "Linux desktop", "switched_from": "", "story": "US sanctions force The Netherlands off Microsoft and toward alternative NixOS"}, {"id": 798139520, "item_id": 49883720, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49883720", "by": "delecti", "date": "2026-09-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use KDE, but it's essentially true of all of them", "excerpt": "The handful of popular DEs [0] are going to be much more polished and functional for like 99% of tasks, and nonexistent [1] for the other 1%. The OS settings are conveniently located in a sensibly organized system settings manager and it works great. Then you need to mount a network drive (temporarily or permanently) and simply cannot do so in a GUI. If you're comfortable dealing with that small handful of outlier ta", "context": "Linux user", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "Windows 11\u00bd"}, {"id": 797418802, "item_id": 49838675, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49838675", "by": "johnea", "date": "2026-09-25", "stance": "warn", "quote": "don't want, what I consider to be toys, comprising  the bling features of gnome and KDE", "excerpt": "I liked the rotating 3D menuing system. It was dismissed as a toy, but I found it very productive. I use a fluxbox desktop, and don't want, what I consider to be toys, comprising the bling features of gnome and KDE. I just want a user, text, configurable menu system, with no automatic anything. To me these calls that \"it works don't fix it\", just demonstrate how people have almost exclusively used typical M$ and appl", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ideas on modernizing the open-source desktop"}, {"id": 797376224, "item_id": 49836014, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49836014", "by": "bombela", "date": "2026-09-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "kde with custom shorcuts gives me enough tilling management", "excerpt": "I have a very similar setup on kde. I used to run the tilling window manager i3, but since using more manufacturing software (kicad, freecad, slicers, etc), I wanted more traditional window management. kde with custom shorcuts gives me enough tilling management. I also like asign a sticky topic to numbered desktops.", "context": "uses manufacturing software like KiCad and FreeCAD", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "i3", "story": "Ideas on modernizing the open-source desktop"}, {"id": 797327664, "item_id": 49832979, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49832979", "by": "bityard", "date": "2026-09-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love KDE to bits and pieces, it's the best desktop I've had the pleasure to use in all my decades of computing.", "excerpt": "I love KDE to bits and pieces, it's the best desktop I've had the pleasure to use in all my decades of computing. I am fully behind the idea of continual improvement and experimentation. But if KDE ever decides _yet again_ to tear down and rebuild the whole experience from scratch, I swear, I am going to start paying more attention to the intrusive thoughts of my inner pyromaniac.", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ideas on modernizing the open-source desktop"}, {"id": 797304928, "item_id": 49831558, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49831558", "by": "messh", "date": "2026-09-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "If anything I prefer that over modern Mac", "excerpt": "I use a Mac at work and a pc w/vanilla KDE at home. And... I don't feel anything is less good with KDE? If anything I prefer that over modern Mac", "context": "uses a Mac at work and vanilla KDE at home", "use_case": "home desktop", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ideas on modernizing the open-source desktop"}, {"id": 797284064, "item_id": 49830254, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49830254", "by": "soulofmischief", "date": "2026-09-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "it's probably the most polished modern Linux DE experience", "excerpt": "KDE used to be terrible. However today, despite some grievances, it's probably the most polished modern Linux DE experience. Enough so that Valve chose it for SteamOS. I am also enjoying it on a Bazzite system. I used xfce for pretty much my entire life because yes, there's been very little meaningful improvement to the DE experience in 25 years. Modern KDE finally convinced me to switch, and it does feel like a much", "context": "Linux user", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "Xfce", "story": "Ideas on modernizing the open-source desktop"}, {"id": 797244880, "item_id": 49827805, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49827805", "by": "fschuett", "date": "2026-09-24", "stance": "warn", "quote": "The issue with KDE is not the \"UX\", the issue is the crashiness and jank", "excerpt": "The issue with KDE is not the \"UX\", the issue is the crashiness and jank, which is an issue of C++ and the OOP-ness of Qt, respectively and no amount of philosophizing will fix that. Users can excuse high memory usage, users can excuse low FPS, users cannot excuse jank and crashes. It is very hard to pin down the problems with Qt because on the one hand you can produce well-working UIs with QML if you are committed t", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ideas on modernizing the open-source desktop"}, {"id": 797199056, "item_id": 49824941, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49824941", "by": "garciansmith", "date": "2026-09-24", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use KDE so there are a lot of Qt apps and they are all click-to-scroll in the scrollbar", "excerpt": "With regards to Qt, does that mean Qt apps on Windows or something? I use KDE so there are a lot of Qt apps and they are all click-to-scroll in the scrollbar. Of course it's KDE so it's configurable so you can change it to click-for-page-up/down and middle click to scroll, but left-click to scroll is the default.", "context": "KDE user", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "A brief history of Windows scroll bar shortcuts"}, {"id": 796863763, "item_id": 49803985, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49803985", "by": "cturner", "date": "2026-09-22", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Don't try to get KDE or Gnome going.", "excerpt": "If you try again, be less ambitious. Don't try to get KDE or Gnome going. Do a minimal install. Add just enough packages to get X working. Configure a simple window manager like openbox or dwm. I uninstall the networking managers. I wrote a simple bash menu program. In one terminal I used that to launch wpa_supplicant for the current network. In another window, I run dhcp. I have a workspace just for that. When I sta", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "I said no and Apple said yes"}, {"id": 796848897, "item_id": 49803056, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49803056", "by": "some-guy", "date": "2026-09-22", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Having had issues with KDE I decided to give GNOME a try recently.", "excerpt": "> Why don't windows have maximize and minimize buttons? Having had issues with KDE I decided to give GNOME a try recently. The decision made to remove these buttons absolutely perplexed me beyond belief.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple has added persistent 'ads' to iOS, and it's driving users crazy"}, {"id": 796838657, "item_id": 49802416, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49802416", "by": "cosmic_cheese", "date": "2026-09-22", "stance": "warn", "quote": "the KDE settings UI for NetworkManager is horrifically flaky", "excerpt": "Because Linux is full of sharp edges which nobody seems to find it fit to fix. I\u2019ve been dabbling in Linux since the early 2000s with Yellow Dog, SUSE, and Ubuntu, tried making it my daily driver in the early-mid 2010s, and for the past 5 or so years have been using it in a secondary/tertiary role. Recently I\u2019ve been trying to move my gaming box from Windows to Fedora (which I\u2019ve found mostly makes the right tradeoff", "context": "", "use_case": "network settings", "switched_from": "", "story": "I said no and Apple said yes"}, {"id": 796405872, "item_id": 49775367, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49775367", "by": "jmclnx", "date": "2026-09-20", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "FWIW, I really like KDE 5, but it can still hurt my eyes", "excerpt": ">In 2003, they conducted a usability study of the then newly released KDE 3.1. >The talk has three parts: what KDE learned \u2013 or failed to learn \u2013 from that study; This caught my eye, seems in many forums people still say 3.1 was the best KDE. But I remember trying out KDE 3.1 on Slackware at the time. All it did was give me extremely severe eye strain after about 1 hour of use. GNOME, XFCE and various Window managers", "context": "Slackware user", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "KDE turns 30 and someone's brought an AI-native desktop proposal"}, {"id": 795826912, "item_id": 49739182, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49739182", "by": "bayindirh", "date": "2026-09-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "KDE provides the features I use daily", "excerpt": "I don't think I'm detached from what a normal user uses, because I don't expect that list to be representative of anyone but me. For a regular user, macOS can be very practical and non-obtrusive OS, yet for me, it's not as useful as a Linux system with KDE installed. Currently I'm writing this comment from my KDE system, and I see more clearly why I prefer to use it much more. Because it allows me to have much more s", "context": "Linux user", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "macOS 27 Golden Gate \u2013 Review"}, {"id": 795819200, "item_id": 49738700, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49738700", "by": "thiht", "date": "2026-09-17", "stance": "warn", "quote": "every time I give it a try it all feels weird, inconsistent, and dated", "excerpt": "Agree, KDE seems to have all the right features but every time I give it a try it all feels weird, inconsistent, and dated in ways that are kinda deal breaking if you care at all about esthetics. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that no professional designers contribute to KDE applications.", "context": "cares about aesthetics", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "macOS 27 Golden Gate \u2013 Review"}, {"id": 795458964, "item_id": 49716185, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49716185", "by": "whalesalad", "date": "2026-09-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "after fine tuning KDE and getting it all dialed in, I started to really enjoy it", "excerpt": "I am doing the opposite. I have been a Mac user since ~2005. My first Mac was actually a Quadra 610, but I was a wee little lad back then. I started my career on a G5 Power Mac with dual 23\" cinema displays (studio displays? can't remember what they were called back then). Then the intel Macbook/MBP, etc. I think my favorite mac of all time, or the one I look back most fondly on, was my 2012 Macbook Air. In 2022 my M", "context": "", "use_case": "Linux desktop", "switched_from": "", "story": "Leaving Linux"}, {"id": 795358032, "item_id": 49709877, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49709877", "by": "noir_lord", "date": "2026-09-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It is extremely stable/polished (at least on Fedora) out the box", "excerpt": "Still supports a proper taskbar, one per screen with windows from only that screen on that screens taskbar (that's just how I've done it since the 90's but it's a must have because I think in terms of screen relations to where stuff is, it's my mental model) and virtual desktops (Cinnamon and XFCE both do this as do others) and it supports Wayland (which is why I'm not still on Cinnamon which I really liked as it's j", "context": "Fedora user, long-time desktop Linux user", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "Cinnamon", "story": "Cpak \u2013 OCI application package format for Linux desktops, servers and devices"}, {"id": 795293409, "item_id": 49705838, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49705838", "by": "qu4z-2", "date": "2026-09-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I recommend trying KDE or XFCE instead.", "excerpt": "> \"I don't care what you had it at before, now you are getting a full screen window or something random I made up\". Claude tells me this is an intentional design decision on their part... Yeah, Gnome devs hate their users for some reason and want them to suffer (although some people are into it, I guess). I recommend trying KDE or XFCE instead.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "GNOME", "story": "Microsoft patches Windows and Excel \u2013 breaks audio, remote access, and paste"}, {"id": 793549632, "item_id": 49596852, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49596852", "by": "no_time", "date": "2026-09-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Now I use KDE, it's extremely functional, and broadly looks like how I'd design a desktop.", "excerpt": ">He hired real designers This is indeed pretty obvious when you look at Unity era ubuntu screenshots. The typeface and text rendering is unmatched to this day. And to this day nobody pulled off purple-orange like they did. But I always had the feeling that even at their peak, they were spread too thin to go through with their vision. The DE looks stunning but the rest of the system apps carry too much gnome-isms that", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "Ubuntu Unity", "story": "I was on Ubuntu's first design team in 2009 London"}, {"id": 792373105, "item_id": 49523319, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49523319", "by": "davsti4", "date": "2026-09-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "albeit with KDE since Gnome's philosophy of unconfigurable defaults is disappointing", "excerpt": "That was about the time of the Redhat 9 to Fedora shift and I felt the pain too. I was using RH9 for the stability, but then switched to Fedora like everyone was supposed to. Well, that was a big bag of something left on the doorstep. I had to spend countless evenings messing with configs to get the system useable; then upgrades would break things. Finally found stability with Ubuntu after a few years, and still use ", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "GNOME", "story": "Get your Windows license refund"}, {"id": 791731136, "item_id": 49483196, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49483196", "by": "Decabytes", "date": "2026-08-28", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I moved to KDE from Gnome for a variety of reasons", "excerpt": "I moved to KDE from Gnome for a variety of reasons, but I genuinely miss Gnome and Native GTK apps. They weren't as customizable, but the features you did get work so well. One of my main issues with KDE is that the default keybindings for desktop operations feel like they were designed by people who don't navigate their desktop with a keyboard. Then there are little things like in Gnome the screenshot implicitly cop", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "GNOME", "story": "GUIs should be fully keyboard-driven"}, {"id": 791147793, "item_id": 49446737, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49446737", "by": "bbkane", "date": "2026-08-26", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I switched to KDE as it supports Wayland", "excerpt": "I love XFCE, but I switched to KDE as it supports Wayland (and I want to use WayDroid). KDE has a similar window + shortcut philosophy.", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment with Wayland", "switched_from": "XFCE", "story": "Omacom Foundation Launches with $8M"}, {"id": 790075984, "item_id": 49379749, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49379749", "by": "preg_match", "date": "2026-08-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use KDE and have for 10+ years.", "excerpt": "I use KDE and have for 10+ years. In my experience, kwin is the most stable and performant it's ever been. I don't notice anything at all, ever. Under X, it was common to get stuttering, tears, and dropped frames. Not anymore. I mean I run 2 204hz 1440p monitors. And it's perfect, always. I'm not saying you're wrong, but it's clear that basics of window management are not universally broken under Wayland. It works we", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "XWayland 26.1-rc1 Released Two Years After the Last Release"}, {"id": 789904930, "item_id": 49369058, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49369058", "by": "rjzzleep", "date": "2026-08-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "KDE is the only WM that has managed to properly implement scaled Xwayland windows.", "excerpt": "Yes, Zoom somehow turned into something like Skype, post acquisition. But, at the same time. A design that requires everyone to implement their own protocols and everyone to refix the same bugs in their own compositor is inherintly bad. I have been using Wayland as my daily driver. Some compositors lacked SHM support in their screen sharing, others have other issues. We only recently got proper text input support, an", "context": "", "use_case": "scaled Xwayland windows", "switched_from": "", "story": "XWayland 26.1-rc1 Released Two Years After the Last Release"}, {"id": 789857040, "item_id": 49366065, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49366065", "by": "vladvasiliu", "date": "2026-08-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "But this has worked in KDE since version 3, like, 20 years ago?", "excerpt": "I never really cared for Gnome so I've never actually used it, but I can't say I'm surprised. But this has worked in KDE since version 3, like, 20 years ago? And also with pasystray running under i3, since before win11 was a thing. They both support scrolling with the touchpad, too. It drove me up a wall not being able to do this when I had to use Windows at work. As for your MRU layout thing, I'm not sure I'd like i", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "Linux 7.3 improves performance when running out of vRAM"}, {"id": 789842801, "item_id": 49365175, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49365175", "by": "Grombobulous", "date": "2026-08-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "There are also a lot of things I like about CachyOS and KDE a lot better than macOS.", "excerpt": "Unfortunately, not to my knowledge. I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if they get a retail partner soon, though. Surely they must realize that Micro Center would be an ideal partner for their demographic. I own the original chassis 13, AMD 7640U. My previous laptop was a MacBook Pro M2 14\u201d. There are some clear downgrades: battery life, screen, speakers. Processing power, yeah, though it\u2019s not like I ever maxed out the one I h", "context": "Framework 13 owner, former MacBook Pro user", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "macOS", "story": "Apple announces changes for apps in the European Union"}, {"id": 789772720, "item_id": 49360795, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49360795", "by": "TheAceOfHearts", "date": "2026-08-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I've been using KDE for years", "excerpt": "Holy crap I've been using KDE for years and I didn't know about Meta+V. I'll pay it forward by sharing another shortcut: Meta+. for emoji picker.", "context": "long-time KDE user", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "Win-V combo from Windows on Ubuntu"}, {"id": 789260240, "item_id": 49328765, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49328765", "by": "kushalpandya", "date": "2026-08-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Glad I moved to KDE nearly a decade ago.", "excerpt": "The attitude partly affects GNOME too, any time you'd constructively criticize it on places like their Issue tracker or r/gnome, their defenders would come with pitchforks at you. Glad I moved to KDE nearly a decade ago.", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "GNOME", "story": "GIMP Development Update"}, {"id": 787874496, "item_id": 49242156, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49242156", "by": "mxmilkiib", "date": "2026-08-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "as an alternative to Windows, I always recommend folk use KDE", "excerpt": "it's not as dead-pan with an /s imhho, I prefer the ambiguity, the increased hilarity, the increased mental work of considering whether a statement is in good faith or being sarcastic/sardonic, the opportunity to understand how people can be hurt and the motives of barbs and lashes and how to discern the distress and deeper needs of \"violent\" people, and eventually the remembered insights on how to better generate bo", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "Windows 11's built-in Weather app wastes more than 1 GB of RAM"}, {"id": 787865264, "item_id": 49241579, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49241579", "by": "welwala", "date": "2026-08-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Yeah I love KDE especially because it doesn't force a certain look and feel", "excerpt": "Yeah I love KDE especially because it doesn't force a certain look and feel, it's super configurable out of the box and even more if you install themes and plugins (which I don't even do).", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "Windows 11's built-in Weather app wastes more than 1 GB of RAM"}, {"id": 785521856, "item_id": 49095116, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49095116", "by": "noisy_boy", "date": "2026-07-29", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I wish it was easy to have two cursors in KDE.", "excerpt": "I use two mice just to be able to switch from the fatigued hand to the other without shifting the mouse repeatedly. I wish it was easy to have two cursors in KDE.", "context": "uses two mice", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "Multiple Mouse Cursors in Wayland"}, {"id": 784670976, "item_id": 49041936, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49041936", "by": "MiddleEndian", "date": "2026-07-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It has a couple killer UI features over Windows.", "excerpt": "I use KDE on Bazzite. It has a couple killer UI features over Windows. It can label bluetooth devices (so I can have blue dualsense controller, pink dualsense controller, white dualsense controller, etc.). No clue why this doesn't work in Windows lol. Also the super/win + arrow keys are more predictable, super pgdn is minimize and super pgup is maximize, so I never find myself accidentally minimizing windows when try", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "Windows", "story": "Nothing works and everyone is euphoric"}, {"id": 784566736, "item_id": 49035421, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49035421", "by": "lostmsu", "date": "2026-07-24", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I've spent 6 months in KDE after years on Windows, and KDE is crap in both UX and number of bugs.", "excerpt": "I've spent 6 months in KDE after years on Windows, and KDE is crap in both UX and number of bugs. I love the idea of open source, but there's a long journey ahead to even match the state of Windows 2000.", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "Windows", "story": "Nothing works and everyone is euphoric"}, {"id": 773765616, "item_id": 48360351, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48360351", "by": "trostaft", "date": "2026-06-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I moved to KDE long ago for VRR and better fractional scaling support. They just got it right and working.", "excerpt": "Truthfully, I like the more opinionated visual design of GNOME, but I moved to KDE long ago for VRR and better fractional scaling support. They just got it right and working. Huge props to the team, I know that's very difficult. EDIT: On a side note, is anyone informed about the state of VRR + fractional scaling + general gaming on GNOME? Has it gotten better?", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "GNOME", "story": "KDE at 30"}, {"id": 773748992, "item_id": 48359312, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48359312", "by": "thom", "date": "2026-06-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use KDE now as a bog standard boring Linux desktop that just works.", "excerpt": "It feels to me that a lot of the bigger ideas in KDE fell away over the years. In the 2000s I would log in every morning, open a KWord doc in one Konqueror tab, a KSpread sheet in another, and some browser tabs alongside them, then I'd launch Kate and open some files over SSH or FTP and get to work. It felt like someone had really embraced OO and applied it to every part of the desktop, and I assume something like KP", "context": "long-time KDE user since the 2000s", "use_case": "Linux desktop", "switched_from": "", "story": "KDE at 30"}, {"id": 745551265, "item_id": 46596954, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46596954", "by": "gtest", "date": "2026-01-12", "stance": "warn", "quote": "But KDE is extremely ugly out of the box", "excerpt": "Many people praise KDE. But to me, KDE is extremely ugly. Admittedly, I use Gnome. I have few requirements for a DE and most existing DEs meet my need[1]. Many in the Linux community hate Gnome (not sure what the short comings are). I use it mainly because it is the default in most cases. But KDE is extremely ugly out of the box: the panel at the bottom. The window frames, the mouse pointer, the menues. It takes some", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "XFCE Is Great"}, {"id": 745376353, "item_id": 46586022, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46586022", "by": "liotier", "date": "2026-01-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "KDE has matured to a stage where most of the defaults feel like they were designed for me", "excerpt": "I used to love Xfce, when KDE felt clunky to me and Gnome went in directions I found insane. Since then Gnome remains Gnome, but KDE has matured to a stage where most of the defaults feel like they were designed for me - and any that doesn't can be easily changed. After a period of using more and more K* applications, I realized I might as well switch desktop... Xfce is now a fond memory, and the times have moved on.", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "Xfce", "story": "XFCE Is Great"}]}