I tried the new Gnome Shell version of Ubuntu for about a month before I got fed up with it. It's not just the stability problems though. The completely brain dead choices they've made for the user interface were a constant nuisance. No, I'm not using a tablet, thank you very much.

I did want to stay with a distro that allowed me to use PPAs though. Tried Mint for a bit, but it didn't agree with me.

Now I'm on MATE. Specifically the "Mutiny" layout of MATE because I highly prefer a side bar to one at the bottom. Definitely not perfect and when it gets colder I'll probably change a few panel applets. But on the whole I'm not annoyed with it, so big plus there.

I am currently using KDE on Debian Buster, but I loved my XUbuntu install. I really liked Xfce once I configured it.

I'm using Gnome on Fedora 28 on my home machine and Gnome on Ubuntu 18.04 at my work. Personally I like it very much and with just a few extensions I'm more than happy with its simplicity. My impression is that performance and stability depends greatly on the hardware and used extensions. Especially on work place with an intel card it seems rock solid, even with Wayland.

I was a long term KDE user but once I figured for myself that KDE is the better choice if you want to play with and tweak your desktop and Gnome is the better choice if you want your work done and not much distraction by the desktop itself. I guess my focused moved over time to doing work ;). But in the end its a matter of taste, similar with Android vs iOS (where I prefer iOS which has less features but feels more polish for me).

Quoting: EhvisThe completely brain dead choices they've made for the user interface were a constant nuisance. No, I'm not using a tablet, thank you very much.

Yeah first impression is a bit... ehh tablet or what? (But with a touchscreen it works great). However with some simple extensions you can make it much more like a regular desktop very easily. Overall (as a long term KDE user) I was very surprised by the polish that went into Gnome and are actually preferring it for laptop-computers now. Integration with cloud services (Nextcloud etc.) is also much better with Gnome.

But for now I am actually using Budgie on Solus Linux. It's a pretty standard desktop on a rolling release distribution (no PPA's though, but Snaps work), so have a look at that as an alternative.

Quoting: jensBut in the end its a matter of taste, similar with Android vs iOS (where I prefer iOS which has less features but feels more polish for me).

According to this [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyNVpWyVP-M) uses 840 MB less memory than Gnome?
If that's true and not misinformation, how is Gnome vs KDE a matter of taste?

Quoting: LinuxwarperAccording to this [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyNVpWyVP-M) uses 840 MB less memory than Gnome?
If that's true and not misinformation, how is Gnome vs KDE a matter of taste?

I do not know, I hate Gnome with a passion... So I can not compare them these days.

I am using KDE since 2014 and what I can say is that it is getting lighter and lighter with every version. This is the reverse with what used to happen. It is actually very light these days. If Gnome does not have the same trend 840MB less memory for KDE does not seem strange to me.

KDE uses far less RAM than Gnome, because it's written in C++ and the KDE project is quite diligent about deduplicating dependencies. A full KDE desktop can usually fit in ~400 MBs, but the gains increase as you open more KDE family programs and there isn't much to gain by closing them, since even LXQT was hard pressed to reach 340 MB.
For CPU usage, it stays about 1-2% per core on my laptop, so it's not noticeable. It will obviously depend on the quantity of widgets you install and other programs your distro runs in the background.

It will use more at first, because KDE uses a program called baloo to index your whole disk for full text search inside files, but this will finish within three days(it's intentionally a low resource/long time activity). You can disable or uninstall baloo if every CPU cycle matters to you.

Short explanation on Gnomes attrocious memory usage: Gnome3 is written in Vala, which is mostly C(quite efficient and lean on memory), but the majority of Gnome plugins, many of which run by default, are written in Javascript and the browser engine hosting them(Chromium) is the culprit of the memory usage.

Quoting: Linuxwarper

Quoting: jensBut in the end its a matter of taste, similar with Android vs iOS (where I prefer iOS which has less features but feels more polish for me).

According to this [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyNVpWyVP-M) uses 840 MB less memory than Gnome?
If that's true and not misinformation, how is Gnome vs KDE a matter of taste?

I can understand that this is important for some people, but personally I'm not obsessed with the memory usage of my system and I don't care. I have plenty of RAM and was never short of it ;). Other things are much more important for me.

I'm a Mate person but if I had to choose between KDE and Gnome, I'd pick KDE. Every time I used GNOME it felt a bit bulky meanwhile KDE feels lighter, even when used on lower end hardware.

Quoting: jensI can understand that this is important for some people, but personally I'm not obsessed with the memory usage of my system and I don't care. I have plenty of RAM and was never short of it ;). Other things are much more important for me.

I actually have sufficient ram too but I would chose efficient software over lesser efficient ones if they both fullfill the use cases adequately. From what I've seen of Gnome and KDE, I actually prefer KDE's GUI and design more than Gnome. And I can't say see what makes Gnome so special that I would chose to sacrifice SIGNIFICANT amount of memory for it.

Quoting: PikoloKDE uses far less RAM than Gnome, because it's written in C++ and the KDE project is quite diligent about deduplicating dependencies. A full KDE desktop can usually fit in ~400 MBs, but the gains increase as you open more KDE family programs and there isn't much to gain by closing them, since even LXQT was hard pressed to reach 340 MB.
For CPU usage, it stays about 1-2% per core on my laptop, so it's not noticeable. It will obviously depend on the quantity of widgets you install and other programs your distro runs in the background.

It will use more at first, because KDE uses a program called baloo to index your whole disk for full text search inside files, but this will finish within three days(it's intentionally a low resource/long time activity). You can disable or uninstall baloo if every CPU cycle matters to you.

Short explanation on Gnomes attrocious memory usage: Gnome3 is written in Vala, which is mostly C(quite efficient and lean on memory), but the majority of Gnome plugins, many of which run by default, are written in Javascript and the browser engine hosting them(Chromium) is the culprit of the memory usage.

This is such a sensible post. Thank you! I am now more certain KDE will be right choice for me.

Quoting: LinuxwarperAnd I can't say see what makes Gnome so special that I would chose to sacrifice SIGNIFICANT amount of memory for it.

You don't have to. By all means, please be happy with KDE and I'm happy for you that you found an environment that works for you. I have different priorities and a different taste than you, hence I made a different choice.

The wonderful world of choice!

Personally if I had to choose between Gnome which works better with Online Services out of the Box but feels like more a Tablet Desktop and KDE which is more like a real desktop with less Online Services working out of the box I would still choose KDE. But for the good things we have xfce, Budgie, Mate and others that have the best of both worlds.

gnome-shell takes an entire 96MB of ram on my system right now. What are you guys doing to gnome that makes it so heavy? Is this an Ubuntu issue (I run Debian Buster right now). By the way, Ubuntu has tweaked gnome from standard gnome, so maybe that's where you're seeing the memory differences.

Quoting: trex91Personally if I had to choose between Gnome which works better with Online Services out of the Box but feels like more a Tablet Desktop and KDE which is more like a real desktop with less Online Services working out of the box I would still choose KDE. But for the good things we have xfce, Budgie, Mate and others that have the best of both worlds.

Gnome-Shell for me is simply a launcher for applications. Generally you don't want to be 'using your desktop' you want to be using your applications, and Gnome tends to just stay out of the way. My problem with KDE is that the interface for the settings is so filled with options, that I've occasionally had to use a search engine just to figure out exactly how to change a configuration.

If you have to spend more than a minute looking for a setting, then it's probably badly designed. Mind you, I play around with a lot of old operating systems, just to play around with them (Like FreeMiNT on the Atari ST computers, or AmigaOS). Gnome is just simple and elegant and gets out of my way.

By the way, Plasma is working on a mobile desktop as well, but unlike Gnome it's normal desktop doesn't work well in both scenarios.

Quoting: slaapliedjeGnome-Shell for me is simply a launcher for applications. Generally you don't want to be 'using your desktop' you want to be using your applications, and Gnome tends to just stay out of the way.

Yes, that nails it. Same reasoning here too.