What DE you like is very much dependant on your work flow and how well you can adjust to changes.

Personally, I love KDE Plasma. It's the right amount of "bling", bells, whistles, aestetic and settings for me. Gnome feels way to "simple" and XFCE feels reliable but old.

For me, the DE is often more important than the base underneath, but I do like my rolling release. :)

… I feel like picking the right DE makes much bigger impact

For me too!

I was used to Gnome and Ubuntu style, and since I bought a Tuxedo I use their OS with KDE, and even if I love a lots of things there is often little things like gesture that are different and I sometimes miss.

I honestly think DE is one of the main reasons people don’t switch from windows.

They just want to use what’s comfortable. The large majority of people would be fine with Linux alternatives, but they don’t want to deal with the different designs.

I prefer KDE. It works well out of the box and offers a good amount of customization. I tried gnome for a bit and didn’t like it.

What I like about Linux is that it’s easy to switch between DE. Just try out a few ones until you find something you like. I can recommend looking into Cinnamon (the DE of Mint).

Not sure what the Frame means with any of this. It's going to be running the same stack as Deck, which is KDE. It's also not going to be any sort of headset for your PC, at least at the outset.

As for your other Dr questions, it's all just personal preference. The Desktop is just window dressing on a compositor and window manager anymore. If you're comfortable without all the system helpers and convenience of using either Gnome or KDE, you can just run a WM like Hyprland or Sway instead.

Like others have said, it's very dependent on work flows and personal preference.

I dislike the MacOS interface. Gnome and its derivatives aren't that, but it borrows enough design cues that I don't find it intuitive. (Though I recognize why other people do find it intuitive.)

Most other DEs jive with me. I can effortlessly switch between Plasma or XFCE. I like Enlightenment and LXQT, but generally don't go for them first. Cinnamon is fine, but I like most others more.

I like to play with things. I'll get my hands on a beat-up old laptop, try a few distros and desktop environments on it, then find it a new home. Linux makes it great to experiment like that.

Many people equate the DE with the distro they tried it on. So yeah, DE is a huge factor. There's a lot of them out there and too many people think you have to switch distribution to try a new one.

If you don't like KDE, can't you just stay on Gnome?

Yeah - I've even seen people recommend switching distros just because another has a different default DE without understanding that most distros let you install multiple DEs...

The differences between distros aren't as big as people make them out to be*. Mostly just installer, how packages are managed, what versions of packages you get, etc.

• Unless you're on an "immutable" distro in which case - yeah - shit is different.

I’m also trying to enjoy KDE as everyone is praising it and Gnome lacks a tiny bit of customization.

But I really prefer Gnome and feel really different than everyone on Lemmy.

So yeah a DE is more important than the distro to me.

It's an important software choice just like choosing a browser (though unfortunately browser choices are much more limited these days).

I usually see people discussing distros but I feel like picking the right DE makes much bigger impact.

Yes I do feel like the emphasis is often wrong; choosing a distro should be about choosing a philosophy towards included packages and updates, choosing a DE is much more relevant for day-to-day user experience/workflow.

Very important. I spend a lot of time at my computer and my desktop environment is like my home. I want it to look in a way that I find aesthetically pleasing and it mustn't try to force me to change the way I work because some UX designer decided that their way was much better than everybody else's. Perhaps you can guess where this is going :D but I've tried to like Gnome 3 since it was first announced. I've given it multiple chances but it just doesn't work for me. It feels like they're going down the same road as all "modern" UIs, where only the most basic features are visible and everything else is either dumped into the "advanced" category or removed entirely. On the other hand, I have a coworker who only uses his PC like a tool, and he thinks Gnome is the best DE ever and can't understand why anyone would want something else.

Currently I use KDE and I'm pretty happy with it. It's highly configurable, and I've made it look and feel the way I want. I used mainly Xfce for a long time but now I prefer KDE.

I feel like picking the right DE makes much bigger impact.

I made the same point to someone on Reddit who asked earlier today what a good distro is from swapping from macOS.

I've only been using Linux for a year or so, so I'm still very much learning how things work, but from my (limited) perspective, whether you use Ubuntu/Fedora/Arch etc... is essentially meaningless to a new user. But how you interact with it isn't.

Personally, I tried Mint first because that's the default answer, and while Cinnamon is fine, I find it too restrictive. Which makes GNOME a no-gno for me. I've tried GNOME, and I hate it. I've landed on Plasma, and I like Plasma.

And crucially, I can use Plasma on my Kubuntu machines, my old MacBook that's now running Arch(btw), and my M1 Mac mini that's running Asahi, and the experience is pretty much the same for what I do. The only difference is the command I use to update my software in Konsole.

GNOME and KDE have large philosophical differences and those show when you use them. I really like KDE and the way I can turn it into a tiling window manager.

Comparing a full DE to a WM is a massive difference. DEs have batteries included, you don't need to worry about which notification daemon to use, which tool can do power management or what renders your task bar. You just get every tool and it works.

I used to use i3, then migrated to sway, but the finding of tools that do X or Y got annoying after a while. In KDE everything just works together with no or minimal configuration and I get more features more easily.

Gnome is soooo annoying. You can't customize anything without "tweaks" that barely work.

I definitely prefer the customization of KDE.

I usually see people discussing distros but I feel like picking the right DE makes much bigger impact.

Yeah I often wonder about this too. I think that the package manager is another major factor. But I think I might be happy with any distro running KDE. I've gotta get outside my Debian bubble to see.

DE completely depends on your workflow. The way you do things directly impacts what DEs you'll like and which ones you won't.

I'm with you on KDE: I respect it and it clearly seems to be one of the most feature-rich DEs, but I've had trouble actually using it regularly.

I have been using Cosmic DE for the last 6 months or so. I love it because it seamlessly blends tiled and non-tiled workspaces in an effective way. Part of me really enjoys the simplicity of things like i3, but part of me just wants floating windows. It fully depends on what I'm working on and sometimes just my mood, so for me, the seamless blending in Cosmic has felt perfect.

But how important is DE? Tbh I think it is the most important part of a setup, because you interact with it more than any other piece of the system.