Folks, what’s your favourite desktop environment for #Linux?
I like the look of Budgie but cant seem to perfect my display settings such that I have a decently consistent UI between an old and a new monitor when using dual displays.
Additionally every app I open on Budgie takes literally 5 seconds to open? Eg “System Monitor”
That shouldn’t be normal…
I gravitate to Gnome's UI, myself, but it has opinions about style that irritate me, and their multi-monitor game is pretty inept overall.
I've been back in Windowsland the last while, I tend to hang out there when I get a new computer during the warranty period just so they don't have any damn excuses.
But the last time I was on Linux I surrendered to KDE Plasma, and they have become much more stable than ten years ago when I tried it last.
@james kde. default on tuxedoOS. I just like it and it fits my needs, even with changing monitor setups.
I have KDE Plasma (Wayland) but it takes like over a 30s to boot into as opposed to Budgies 3s? Opening a single app (eg Firefox ESR) on both environments takes 5 seconds which is bizarre to me.
But I’ll see if it has better display/scaling options.
@james my favorite is xfce, simple, customizable, light and functional
Edited 230d ago
@james if is a de then gnome if it’s what I love it is ratpoisionwm
@james I have been using KDE Plasma Wayland on Manjaro for quite some time en do like it but lately de KFCE DE on MXLinux really hits the spot. It's snappy and configurable.
Plasma (Wayland) feels more lush though and worked well for me on dual monitor set-ups. Haven't tested that on MXlinux but on other XCFE desktops it involved a bit tinkering, according to me.
@james Gnome is consistent with its spacing, fonts, and behavior.
@james back when I was using Linux as a desktop it was XMonad. Ever since I switched to macOS I’ve been missing a proper tiling window manager with keyboard controls, enough so that I will occasionally consider switching back.
@james Unity
But that's not at all practical for your purposes. In case Unity becomes unmaintained I was gonna try Budgie, too.
@james I may be old-fashioned, but for me, i3 for tiling and GNOME for a simple and minimal desktop environment. 
@jon I’ve never used a tiling window manager, on my list to explore!
@james you’ll either love it or you’ll hate it. Really comes into its own when you’ve got multiple displays and can flick between different workspaces on each with two key presses.
@james wait. so, like, after the login screen it takes 30 seconds? :o
that’s enormously slow :/
❄️@james my favorite is KDE; it's really weird that it takes 30 seconds to get in, though. most of my installs take maybe 10 at max? i'm also exclusively on SSDs for boot disks over here though 🤷
budgie is really nice, i'm glad the project is still around. let us know what you settle on!
Rebooted, KDE took 23 seconds from login screen AND reset all my scaling? I must be doing something wrong.
And now the scaling setting manager is both completely different and not working (as in the scale doesn’t change)
Ngl this is quite funny but I feel bad because I can hear the eye rolls of ugh you just don’t know how to use Linux :(
Edited 230d ago
@james I have the same issue. But it doesn't bother me that much since I use gnome.
Okay, so after fun issues including freezes and scaling settings not being saved and scaling suddenly making everything blurry on my newer monitor.
I:
Switched from lightdm back to sddm
Setup Autologin in sddm.conf to boot right into Plasma (Wayland)
I got a stopwatch out:
After “sudo reboot” on my 16GB dual booted on a 1TB SDD, Debian Distro that auto logs in to KDE Plasma Wayland… with ZERO auto startup items.
65 seconds from reboot to get into KDE.
12 seconds to load Firefox.
🌊 
Edited 230d ago
To compare,
“sudo reboot”
15 seconds for Debian Grub to get to starting Windows
3 second for Windows to start up
<2 seconds for Edge browser to open
@james
Maybe this is related? https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=481870
@james Windows is using resume-from-disk as standard for shutdowns. Reboots are partially also resumes.
I misspoke when I said 8GB Ram btw. I have 16.
And just did PC benchmarking and everything is “exceeds expectations”.
Nah, nah, nope, you will get no grief from me.
I went with KDE Plasma, just because I was wanting the middle-button-paste behavior of the Konsole terminal.
Really, that was the reason.
And you are sure right, KDE starts up slowly!
LOL
So because Windows started up SO quickly, I had assumed I’d installed both OS’ on my SDD.
Nope! Both were on the HDD.
Deleted my Linux partitions on the HDD, popped Debian on the SDD, KDE starts in 3 seconds.
Still very strange to me that KDE took almost 3x than Windows on the HDD though…
@james This is just a guess, but it might be because of fast startup in windows. With fast startup enabled (which I think it is by default), windows hibernates instead of shutting down.
In my defence I was doing this wipe and reinstall at like midnight in the middle of the worst autistic meltdown I’ve had in living memory. He can install his operating system on the wrong harddrive, as a little treat.
thank you no-one for laughing at me for doing computer wrong 🥺 
@james doing computer wrong is a rite of passage.
@chirpbirb I’ve chosen KDE because once I’m finally in it, it’s configurability for my old and new monitor is better. But it would be cool to not be such a long startup.
Debian itself: 15 secs
Go to Debian login screen, login
KDE: 30 secs
App opening time: 2-5 seconds
Maybe I have to throw some money at new parts. But it’s WEIRD that Windows is much faster in all manners
Yeah, maybe I need to accept that I have to upgrade some parts.
Alright KDE has better per monitor scaling so I’ll use this for now… thanks all.
@james Curious to know which distro you were using Budgie on? Solus is probably the fastest experience for Budgie, I can't say I've ever had that particular issue.
@james Ah, yeah I don't have any experience using Budgie on Debian so I can't speak to the experience there.
@michael it turned out i had installed it on my HDD instead of my SDD. facepalm. things are much faster now.