Desktop choices, advice.

[Drew]

Hello,

It's been a long time since I messed with Linux, specifically. I have some more recent experience with BSD, but not recently enough to affect my choices for a "modern" desktop. I have an older laptop I have decided I want to install Debian on, mainly for the purposes of running ham radio related software that won't run on MacOS, which is my main desktop. I pulled live images for Gnome and KDE, and have verified that everything on the laptop seems to work with the live image. 

My real, burning question is, are there compelling reasons to choose Gnome vs KDE, and is there something obvious I'm overlooking? I think the last desktop I ran on BSD was XFCE, but at the time I think that was specifically because it was fairly light weight and allowed easy virtual desktop changing. It might have been 20 years ago (and my last linux distro might have been Slackware) so I am confident things have changed. Any advice or shortcuts to sorting out which might ultimately work best for me would be appreciated. 

Drew 

[Howard White]

Drew,

More information?? Desktop to do what? I find myself running
everything in a web browser and an email client (yeah, I still use
Thunderbird). Boring truth told. My home lab is consumed by servers
running Folding At Home for the benefit of my power provider.

I haven't even managed to upgrade my Debian 12 to 13...

Howard

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[Michael L]

I've been meaning to give the thumbs up for Linux Mint Debian Edition because I installed it for our computer hater in late May and haven't heard one mutter, peep, complaint or hiccup since.

Haven't bothered to thoroughly aquaint myself with it because I haven't had to.  I believe it's the Cinnamon desktop and it should run most or all Debian based software.

  MichaelL

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[Tommy Kelly]

Personally it's kde for me. I find thier apps like konsole, krusader and krunner to all be better than gnome. I have went through decade long phases for both, but I just don't care for gnomes artistic direction. It's not bad, but it's just not for me. If you're coming from windows kde feels more familiar which also is nice. If you want to see beautiful a beautiful kde skin l then garudas gaming edition is pretty neat... Overall everything I use seems to work well in kde, and kwin has made it easy for me to vibe code a few desktop manipulation apps.

Now.. caveats. Xfce is good if you want something simple and lightweight. If you are happy with it, there is nothing wrong with it when compared to either of the two you mentioned. If you want something different that is strictly keyboard focused you could try the i3 tiling window manager. I go through periods of using that as well, but it takes a lot of setup and games haven't liked tiling. The above response about cinnamon is good too, and I use it instead of gnome if I'm not running kde. Mint is rock solid at the cost of new packages. I absolutely love it, but I've switched to cachyOS to be a bit more bleeding edge and for gaming since their kernel optimizations supposedly help ( I haven't tested, just read that it did).

Anyway hopefully that helps!

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[Howard Coles Jr.]

Well, you might feel more comfortable with KDE if you're more used to Windows or if (like me) you like the absolute crazy amount of customization options.  But the beauty of things is that you don't have to be in the "this thing and none else" group.

You can have Gnome, KDE, XFCE, etc. all installed and get a feel for the one you like.  KDE will run Gnome, and XFCE apps, and verse visa, etc.  You have to try 'em (at least enough to have a good idea).

For Distros, sometimes its what will install on your desktop and drive all the devices.  I just got a new Lenovo Legion Pro 7, and Fedora and Kubuntu would run, but only Kubuntu really drove most all things (had to remove the wifi7 MEDIATEK adapter 'cause of no kernel support, found an intel AX210 and swapped 'em out).  I run OpenSUSE and Fedora 43 as VDIs but at work we use RHEL, Ubuntu, and SLES.  I have a POC Proxmox cluster I'm liking a lot that uses Debian 13 and my laptop is 25.10 (Kubuntu 'cause I like KDE).  (I keep the SUSE VDI to build custom RPMs for a tool we use via podman containers)

So, if you have a spare partition to dual boot with install various distros, see which really drive all your devices well, and then commit.
I think RIGHT NOW, Fedora has a good thing going, Ubuntu would be next Or Debian if you want more stable than new, I'm fed up with OpenSUSE their Leap installer for v16 is a pile of dog crap (no I won't apologize 'cause it's true you can't re-use an existing partition scheme or even /home file system).  And OpenSUSE tumbleweed wouldn't even boot because of secure boot.  But I don't have any experience with any of the BSDs.

I tried Zorin, but their full OS is behind a paywall (might be worth it but I'm cheap).

So, basically my suggestion is to try 'em all.  (or go with Linux Mint and use their desktop, a kind of modified Gnome which I cannot now remember the name for).

On 3/5/26 18:32, Drew wrote:

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See Ya'
Howard Coles Jr.

John 3:16!