Running Plasma instead of Gnome for the first time in years

Welcome, make yourself at home! Want to put files on your desktop? You can do that here! We'll still make fun of you for doing it, but you can do it.

KDE Plasma is honestly impressive in terms of customization, I'm running it on Pop!_OS on an ancient Macbook and I have it customized to look like Window 7.

Good stuff.
- NGL, you had me in the first half...

gnome user getting confused by customization, seems about right lol.

Ironically most of my customization so far has been to make it more like Gnome lmao

Still trying to figure out how to make workspaces/virtual desktops more...usable.

Overall though it's amazing how solid Plasma is now, it sure as hell isn't the buggy mess it used to be in the earlier Plasma 5 days.
- For me, i made it so pressing Super+<number> switches to that workspace.
  
  Super+Tab to toggle overview (Super+W by default)
  
  And a hot corner, which is set to trigger almost instantly, to toggle overview.
- I'm a regular Gnome user. I love KDE's activities. I don't know if it's still required, but Latte dock made it so that you had a nice dock with clean animations, dropping and adding your preferred shortcuts for whatever activity you're currently on.
  
  I generally had three activities, work, general, and play. switch to work, and it looks like all I do on this computer is work. professional look and feel, all the relevant applications available in a clean autohide dock. switch to play, and it's some sick background from anime or a game I'm currently into. Steam, Discord, Heroic, and various preferred games are the only visible icons on the dock. it's really a pleasure to use.
  
  my problem is that when in Plasma, I miss Gnome's overview, though, and whenever I switch back to Gnome, it just feels homey, functional, and straight to the point. Sure, I lose some customizations, but I gain in simplicity. Overall, that itself is a big customization choice - whether to use Gnome, KDE, or something else. ..so I don't regret Gnome's lack of customizability, that's just Gnome fulfilling is niche well. But Plasma is always a close second for me.
- I just installed a global theme to make it look like macOS 😄 loving it, have now a old unsupported macBookPro (2013) running latest macOS bootleg on latest Linux kernel 😆
  
  Love it!
- For me i use 4 workspaces in a grid manner(2 rows) and switches with three finger swipes to whatever direction. Also four finger swipe up/down for overviews
- Still trying to figure out how to make workspaces/virtual desktops more...usable
  
  That's a thing about gnome. The multiple desktops are great and easy to switch between. Especially on a laptop you can easily switch between them with the trackpad, or if you have, by using the touchscreen.
To be fair customization is a good thing, the problem is it's too easy to accidentally get into too advanced settings. It feels like the settings most people want 95% of the time are burried in the same place as the niche settings. The gnome tweaks app often gets criticized because it contains basic settings, but I think it could be beneficial for plasma to have the same thing. Only keep the base level user settings the the settings, and put all the customization stuff in a separate tweaks app. The simple by default, powerful when needed moto is true to some extent, but the simple by default part could be much improved and a lot more intuitive
- As a new linux user I was overwhelmed by plasma and all the choices. I much prefer an OS and DE that feels like it isn't there and gets out of my way. It was all a bit too distracting, so I went back to Gnome like DEs (Cinnamon and now Cosmic).
  
  Something like your suggestion, with basic settings first and then a deeper layer or toggle for advanced settings would have kept me on the platform longer.
- Isn’t there an advanced toggle already in the KDE settings?
confused about ~~customization~~ being allowed to customize anything...

FTFY

Plasma is so good nowadays compared to some years ago. I remember suffering a lot in those early times too.

I love plasma. For the longest time there was just something that felt off about it and I could never get into it.

Once I started using it with the steam deck I fell in love with it. Whatever visually thing irked me was gone and it’s such a good looking DE.

What is this place?

Windows minus Microsoft BS.

Windows

Take that back... /s

I have a colleague, who's super deep down the Linux rabbit hole and he always ran GNOME. I was never quite sure, if he actually prefers it, or if he just does not care, because he's doing most things in a terminal anyways.

Recently, our IT department made a change, which accidentally switched him over to KDE. He could easily switch back, but he's been checking KDE out instead, and yeah, it's been super interesting.

He definitely has some of that GNOME workflow baked into him. For example, under GNOME you can use Alt + the key above Tab to switch between windows of the same application. In KDE, that shortcut exists, but the default keybinding isn't exactly usable.
Another minor complaint was, for example, that using Meta + arrow-keys doesn't move windows between screens automatically when you press it repeatedly. That's a separate shortcut under KDE, with Meta + Shift + arrow-keys.
EDIT: Apparently, I misunderstood him, his complaint was that Meta + Shift + arrow-keys moves the window between screens in a weird way. It just picks some kind of order for the screens and then goes between them as previous/next, even though you press the left/right arrow keys. There even is the more appropriate shortcut key for left/right, but it's just not the default binding.
Meta + arrow-keys does work for moving windows between screens.

He's aware that he may need to relearn some of his workflow, but yeah, will have to see, if he sticks to it. His emotions are nigh impossible to read, unfortunately. 🙃

To clarify, those are the default keybindings, but you can change them to match your needs or expectations. I like the alt tilde for windows within a program switching, it works fairly well though I have not set it up on my current machine yet.
- Yea, my sister, for example, had changed all keybinds in GNOME to be the same as they are in macOS
- Lol, about that, while changing keybinding on spectacle (kde app to take screenshots/screenrecording) seemed to work, changing key bindings to launch keepass, somehow de-activated the key y. I noticed that rebooting fixed it, until I pressed any keybind (even ctrl+c). I had to reset the keybindings.
  
  Not sure exactly what is going on, but I noticed that if I opened discord it would type y continously when y was disabled.
  
  Somehow this happened again with x when I launched outerwilds and discord.
  
  Very weird bug, but I was too busy setting up linux to report it. I'm just being a bit hesitant to change any system keybind now😆
. For example, under GNOME you can use Alt + the key above Tab to switch between windows of the same application. In KDE, that shortcut exists, but the default keybinding isn’t exactly usable.

KDE's shortcut key options are endlessly customizable. I'd be shocked if you couldn't get this functionality after like 30 seconds of tinkering.
- Oh yeah, we did find out right then and there how to set it like in GNOME. But well, you know how it is, if there's potentially dozens of these tiny differences, then finding the correct customization does become tedious and there is a chance of some things just not being configurable in quite the same way.
man, I love the workflow of meta-arrow switches desktops, and meta-shift-arrow takes your current window with you.
- Is that the default on GNOME? I happen to have the same workflow configured on KDE, except I use WASD instead of arrow keys. 🙃
I have changed them to pretty much like how windows has it.
Good comment ! I laughed at "the key above Tab". So useless nobody remembers caps lock. Do we need an international caps lock day ?
- Well, caps lock is below the tab key (still useless tho). The key above is the weird backtick or tilde key.

I used to be a huge fan of Gnome, back before they switched to whatever this mobile-first nonsense design is. Looks like something you would see on a tablet designed for children. They destroyed Gnome!

I use Cinnamon on my desktop to avoid the whole "modern" Gnome problem. It's far better. But it's Plasma all the way on my laptop baby!
- Yeah, Cinnamon is great, but I use Plasma myself. I got used to it after switching to Nobara, back in the day, but for most of the past year or two I've been using Bazzite and it defaults to KDE as well.
Old gnome was great. Was like the best middle ground. Enough options to tweak stuff, but not plasma levels of knobs. Le sigh
- And let's not forget that it looked great. The perfect blend of style and minimalism.
The same. I used to love GNOME, now I'm forced to use KDE because GNOME 3+ is completely disgusting and unusable.
- Yeah, they really did our boy wrong.

KDE + Arch is such a great combo. I'm using it on a 10yo laptop (though admittedly it's a rather beefy lappy for it's gen, a 2014 ZBook g2, with 32 GB ram)

KDE can be slow on lower spec devices but it is so great to use and it was trivially easy to alter keyboard shortcuts, default application, startup behavior, etc.

KDE can be slow on lower spec devices

Not any slower than anything else. KDE is surprisingly light for all it does. I am using it on a laptop with an Intel N processor and 4gb ram. I also use it on modern stuff, but it works better than gnome and about equal to xfce on this old hardware.
- Yeah I used to do consumer computer recycling and the really old laptops that were not worth a Windows reseller's license we would just slap Linux on I tested just about every de out there and plasma was shockingly fast on some of these ancient Celeron laptops. Gnome was like molasses, I've never understood where people get the idea of the plasma is heavy

I have been a GNOME 2 and then MATE user for over a decade. Now I use KDE since that’s what SteamOS comes with and it’s fine.

Wow, I found the one other MATE user. Cheers.

I just installed plasma and I love it. I have no experience with it before this year.

I've never been a real plasma user (played around with it sure but never more than a week or something) and have been using GNOME since ~3.10 the whole workflow is just ingrained in my mind and simply works. So I'd be happy to hear how you're doing on Plasma even if I don't see myself switching anytime soon.

I will never not up doot an Over the Hedge meme, so underrated in both meme ability and as a movie lmao

Squirrels on speeeeeed.

I installed cosmic the other day. Uninstalled it like 5 minutes later but I enjoyed its vibe. I am excited to see it come out of alpha

Same here, I prefer KDE, but popos has been my daily driver for a while now just for compatibility and ease of use.

Very excited for cosmic as in not a fan of gnome.

I'm tired of fighting GNOME 3 to make it feel like GNOME 2. My next reinstall is going to be KDE. I just want a traditional desktop metaphor. 😩 Next major overhaul Kubuntu here I come!

Yeah if you're looking for a traditional/Windows-like metaphor, you're WAY better off with Plasma than trying to wrestle Gnome into that shape.
There is always Cinnamon for you.
- Or MATE.
You don't even need to reinstall. You can have both at the same time and chose one or the other at each login.
Gnome 3 is long dead.

It is now gnome 40+
- Nah, I think if you're on e.g. Debian oldstable you could still be on Gnome 3. That's not "long dead".
- And it's still confining unless you add buggy addons that often crash after an update.
Kubuntu has always been a buggy mess for me, might not be the best way to judge Plasma. Unfortunately, I think that's where people develop their poor opinion of it from.
Check out Cinnamon for that GNOME 2 feeling.

I think that's the window environment on SteamOS. I honestly really enjoy it on my Deck. It feels light and fresh.

The couple of times I have decided to switch to Plasma I somehow get pulled back to GNOME. Like, I tried out earlier Plasma 5 on my system76 laptop and then s76 announced Pop!_OS. Then I tried again when I came across Nitrux which was essentially a heavily customized Plasma. Then I got a Librem 5 which uses phosh, based on GNOME.

I really liked it though, and have thought about trying Plasma Mobile.

Welcome back to the land of the ~~living~~ usable UI

Got used to the Steam OS Desktop on my steam deck. I used Ubuntu a decade ago and went with Kubuntu on my gaming rig which won’t support windows 11 but I wanted the same desktop like my steam deck.

More than 6 months and no regrets. Since 24.10 you even get wayland natively. Even my old NVIDIA 1080 Ti works good.

What do you think so far?

i hadn't used kde (on my own systems) in over twenty years. i downloaded a bunch of ISOs over the last month or so, mainly looking to see what installs easiest and runs best on some old systems here. among them were several with plasma 6.

one of those kinda 'stuck' in my head and i had to go back through several until i 'found' it again. been messing around with it now for a couple weeks trying to figure out what i'd want for a 'working' setup. might just end up switching one of my 'working' desktops over.

How close to plasma is Cinnamon?

By default, both Plasma and Cinnamon have a very similar set up to Windows.

However, Plasma is insanely modular and customizable, so if you're willing to take the time to, you can make it look as much like Cinnamon as you please. Given how simple Cinnamon's design is, I don't think it would be hard at all.
- Hmmm. I'd like windows 98 to be honest.
Plasma isn't as visually polished as Cinnamon. Go ahead and get your clock and CPU temp widgets in the system tray the same font size and positioning.

KDE feels a bit more cluttered because...I've said this before, KDE gives you every option under the sun, GNOME software isn't designed to do anything unless you add extensions to enable features, and Cinnamon is somewhere in the happy middle.
- Plasma isn’t as visually polished as Cinnamon.
  
  I'm pretty sure you can get Plasma to look and behave nearly identical to Cinnamon if you wanted.

How is it??

I last used it a little while back but there were some issues with polish. I'd like to come back and check it out again now that there's been a major update if I remember right

I love the GNOME user experience and apps (I know many don't, that's fine) but don't so much love the way GNOME as a project often struggles to play nicely with others 😅

I'm amazed by the level of polish overall, I've encountered very little jankiness that used to be super common with Plasma when I last tried it. Plasma feels like a really mature desktop now, which is awesome. I'm running Plasma 6.2 at the moment, and I think 6.3 is right around the corner as well.

My problems so far are more subjective. Gnome may be a very opinionated desktop, but I happen to agree with most of its opinions. Gnome's workspaces feature is miles better than Plasma's virtual desktops, which feel tacked on in comparison. I'm still trying to tinker with this to make it work for me, but honestly this seems like the thing that will push me back to Gnome if I don't find a workflow I like.

KDE obviously has more features overall though, HDR support happens to be the one that I'm interested in at the moment since I've been toying with the idea of buying a new monitor.
- Thats honestly really exciting to hear, I'm curious to give it another try again. No idea if I'll ever switch from GNOME, but it makes me happy to see the project doing well
- As a long time KDE user I have to agree with you.
  
  I hated the turn things took from Gnome3 onwards but I really like the "workspaces per demand" feature of it. It makes much more sense than having a static number of virtual desktops.
  
  Though I concede KDE did not do much about virtual desktops but concentrated on activities instead - but it seems like with Plasma 6 they are backpedalling on that as it would require integration from everyone, most of all non KDE apps to make it make sense.
  
  Do not even get me started on not being able to set a different wallpaper for each virtual desktop.
  
  I recall there was a kwin script somewhere to emulate the dynamic virtual desktops thing, but that would be much better if it was an upstream feature.
- I believe there's an extension for plasma to automatically create and destroy desktops based on need like gnome but I haven't used it.
- I haven't really used them since I don't have any reason to, but perhaps Plasma's "activities" would be a better substitute for workspaces?
How is it? Well it feels like an environment where developers actually care about users. I love it.

I last tried KDE when it was KDE3. Then Gnome, xfce, and finally settling on i3/sway

But I got given an old Windows tablet so decided I’d see what is usable as a tablet and I was pleasantly surprised by KDE.

So much so, I’ve ostree-rebased all my machines to it.

The tiling could be better (and it sounds like it was, then wasn’t?), but it’s passable. And simple stuff actually seems to work. Unlike the gnome+sway kludge I have now.

been meaning to try it again forever now

Definitely worth a try, especially if it's been a few years since you've last played with it.
- I've been wanting to, it's good to hear this vote in favor.

So went frivolous, and installed KDE after years of Xfce.

Wierd interactions everywhere, ctrl f4 doesn't close windows, the terminal is called "Konsole" lol

Would not recommend, i m going back.

alt+f4 closes windows, like it did in Windows. Where does ctrl+f4 come from?
- Even in Xfce ALT+F4 closes windows. Maybe bro changed it at some point and forgot about it
Funny thing, I used Xfce pretty much everywhere. When I recently had a work laptop I tried KDE seriously for the first time ever, and I was like, oh, this is just a sensible desktop nowadays.

Clearly meant for nice hardware though. Sometimes a bit slow on my Raspberry Pi 4. Might switch back. But otherwise, no complaints.
And the RAM usage!

XFCE for life!
- Lol ram usage. If you are trying to split hairs between KDE at about 800 mb and XFCE at 400 mb when a browser is going to hit you for at least a gig these days, I am not sure it matters that much.

Takes literally minutes to try with 0 install and no risk for your data : https://distrosea.com/start/kubuntu-24.10-default/

I'm not saying you should enjoy it (even though I do, Debian stable with Plasma for a while now) but it's so convenient to give any distribution with any desktop environment a try that IMHO it's wrong not to spend few minutes and see what you might be missing.

Fedora/dnf makes installing additional desktops super easy, also with no risk to data. To hijack your comment a bit:

To install Plasma: sudo dnf install @kde-desktop

Logout and log into the Plasma session to use it.

To rollback, get the transaction ID of the above: dnf history list

And then rollback: sudo dnf history rollback <ID>

If Gnome's fonts/icons don't revert, install and open gnome-tweaks and reset settings.
- I think generally installing another DE on top of an existing one (assuming you already had one) is not recommended, as they might use some of the same config files and mess them up for each other.
- Interesting, thanks for sharing.

Just looks like windows to me and I don’t want it

I've got mine set up to run somewhat like OS X, since I like the top bar and the disappearing dock. Modern Plasma is very customizable and easy to customize.
- Ironically, so is Gnome (unlike I used to think). I've been toying with setting up an OSX-like experience in both via VMs, and they each have pros and cons, as it turns out.
- This right here plasma is literally anything you want it to be. And I'm a pop os guy.
Dude. You can make that shit look like Amiga if you want. Whatever floats your boat.
- Look like Amiga Workbench sure but certainly not feel like it.
Yes, but unlike some others, Plasma allows and encourages you to rearrange it to your heart's content. Mine looks nothing like Windows.
- Share?
its very customizable, not just in appearance.
Just looks like windows to me […]

That's because Windows copied KDE Plasma, obviously. /j
- The Windows 11 look was basically stolen from Plasma's breeze theme. But obviously 30 years ago the story was different.
Just change the theme, no?