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13 days agoObviously 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 customisableCan 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
Rule-wise, this seems fair.
Regardless, if AI usage continues to increase in this manner, I’ll likely be driving NetBSD, AROS, and FreeDOS by the end of the decade.
Maybe even a little TempleOS or ZealOS, for flavour.