they/them

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Joined 2 months ago
Cake day: March 25th, 2026
  • heliotrope@retrofed.comtoLinux@programming.dev•What are the various linux desktops environments and how do they compare?English
    14·
    1 month ago

    Obviously check out Eylenburg’s page and the ArchWiki, but here are my two cents on a bunch of DEs:

    This is going to be long

    Note: The weight of a DE is comparitive. “Heavy” DEs (such as GNOME) can still be swift on lower spec machines.

    GNOME

    • Based on Shell Toolkit and GTK4 (with libadwaita)
    • Wayland only
    • Heavy
    • Slightly similar to macOS’ UI/UX, but really in a class of its own
    • Not particularly customisable Can be customised heavily, but the settings aren’t exposed and the devs don’t like it much.

    KDE Plasma

    • Based on Qt6 and QML (with its own frameworks)
    • Wayland only (usually)
    • Heavy
    • Has a lot of dependencies
    • Very Windows-y out of the box; but can easily be modified to replicate any other UI/UX

    KDE Liquid

    • Based on QtQuick
    • X11 only (as far as I know)
    • Midweight
    • No fancy effects
    • Not usually packaged, but available on Arch
    • Basically just KDE Plasma, but using a slightly different widget toolkit

    Xfce

    • Based on GTK2/3 (originally XForms)
    • X11 by default, but everything except Xfwm supports Wayland (Xfwl is almost done)
    • Light
    • Generally looks like itself, but some Linux distros have it looking more like Windows

    LXQt

    • Based on Qt5/6
    • X11 by default, but you can switch Openbox for KWin or LabWC in the settings
    • Light
    • The result of LXDE and Razor-qt merging
    • Layout is similar to older versions of Windows, but this can be changed

    LXDE

    • Based on GTK2 (I believe a GTK3 port may exist)
    • X11 only
    • Very light

    MATE

    • Based on GTK2
    • X11 only, but it’s almost Wayland-ready
    • Midweight
    • Comparable to Xfce
    • Unique 2-bar layout, but can be transformed
    • A fork of GNOME 2

    Cinnamon

    • Based on GTK3/4 (with XApp frameworks)
    • X11 by default, with experimental Wayland support
    • Midweight
    • Windows-esque layout
    • Created as a spiritual successor to GNOME 2
    • Forked from GNOME 3

    Budgie

    • Based on GTK3/4
    • Wayland only
    • Midweight
    • Unique layout
    • Also created as a spiritual successor to GNOME 2

    deepin

    • I know basically nothing about this other than the fact it’s Chinese
    • Looks pretty

    Trinity

    • Based on TQt3
    • X11 only
    • Lightweight (these days)
    • Similar layout to Windows; actually an old KDE layout
    • Forked from KDE 3
    • Maintains its own forks of Qt (called TQt), KHTML, and the KDE applications
    • Still works with older themes and software, such as QtCurve (which is nice)

    Enlightenment

    • Based on EFL
    • X11 by default, with experimental Wayland support
    • Lightweight, despite fancy effects and animations
    • Often considered a WM, rather than a DE, but it has its own suite of applications so it’s a DE
    • Unique layout

    COSMIC

    • Based on iced
    • Wayland by default
    • Unsure of weight
    • Maintained by System76 (the Pop!_OS people)
    • Layout similar to GNOME
    • Still quite new

    Lumina

    • Based on Qt5
    • X11 by default
    • Quite popular among FreeBSD users

    Pantheon

    • Based on GTK3/4 and Granite
    • Wayland by default (soon to be Wayland-only)
    • Midweight
    • Akin to macOS
    • Used in elementary OS

    CDE

    • Based on Motif
    • X11 only
    • Lightweight
    • Ancient software, used in many Unices (e.g. AIX, Solaris, Tru64, etc.) and other OSes (e.g. VMS) back in the day

    FVWM-Crystal

    • Not based on any particular toolkit (a fair bit of raw XCB/Xlib, I imagine)
    • X11 only
    • Very lightweight
    • Quite old, so your mileage may vary when using it with newer software
    • Integrates with several music players, including Audacious and Quod Libet
    • Arguably more of a shell for FVWM
  • heliotrope@retrofed.comtoBuy European@feddit.uk•Keurig Dr Pepper completes acquisition of JDE Peet’s. That means a lot of coffee and tea brands gone to USA handsEnglish
    9·
    1 month ago
    • Tea
      • 🇳🇱 PG Tips is popular here in the UK.
      • 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Ringtons (a personal favourite) is popular in and around Newcastle, where the company is based.
      • 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Yorkshire Tea (also exceedingly popular in the north as well as the midlands) is owned by Betty’s & Taylors.
      • 🇬🇧 Tetley is a popular brand owned by 🇮🇳 Tata, though personally I can’t drink the stuff.
    • Coffee
      • 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Black Sheep Coffee is a chain of coffee shops in the UK, but they also sell beans and grounds.
      • 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Pilgrims Coffee is a small roastery on Holy Island.
      • While their instant coffee is never great, supermarket own-brand beans and grounds are better than you would expect. 🇬🇧 Tesco and 🇬🇧 Waitrose both sell fairly nice coffee.
      • 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Pumphrey’s is another small coffee roaster, from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. Many independent cafés and shops in the north-east sell their coffee, but I believe you have to buy beans and grounds directly.
    • 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Red Box Coffee is based in Edinburgh and they sell tea and coffee, both of which are quite nice.