So I am an aesthetics guy when it comes to my distro and desktop environment. I like things to look clean and visually appealing. Last night I kinda took a deep dive into the world of different DE’s. Of course there’s the popular ones that everybody knows about i.e. Cinnamon, Xfce, KDE, Mate, Gnome, etc., however there’s a whole other world of random desktops that I was never aware of! Also it’s difficult to find a clear list of all the available environments.

Basically, how the heck do I find out more about DE’s and which distro they are compatable with. Of course I always check the distros site, but they usually list the big ones and often times will say “plus others”… how can I find out which desktops are available for which distros? I’ve find it rather tricky to figure out.

Another thing that kinda tripped me out is that it seems not all DE’s such as the popular ones I listed, appear to be the same visually. For instance, XeroLinux is very beautiful to me and from what I’ve gathered, it runs KDE Plasma. Imo it looks nothing like the actual KDE Plasma OS… are there like different versions of Gnome, KDE, Mate, etc. that look different than others? To me, I figure they would and should all look the same. Idk, it’s all a bit confusing to me and I hope you kind folks could shed some light. Thank you

I should mention that I have zero interest in the window manager or tiler or whatever they are called. To me, they are super ugly and very confusing to understand :)

  • ExLisper@linux.community
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    1 year ago

    Pretty much every window manager I’ve seen is highly configurable. You can find hundredths of ready themes or customize them yourself. Changing distros to get a nice desktop doesn’t make sense. Just install whatever you like and customize it. If you’re on a decent hardware just go with KDE or Gnome/Cinnamon/Mate. Default themes will vary but you get get to pretty much work/look the same. On a slower machine go with XFCE/Enlightement/Fluxbox or anything really. All or them will be configurable. Just look at some screenshots, find something you like and play around with it.