After installing all of these tools, the actual tweaking can commence.
KDE users: "Look at what they need to mimic a fraction of our power."
this post was submitted on 05 May 2026
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even fucking XFCE has out the box "easy" customisation
All of the old 2000s DEs were more customizable, including GNOME itself.
in their search for the 'perfect' desktop, i think the gnome design team went just a weeeee bit too far in dumbing-down the interface and elimination of 'clutter', and so many 'gnome' applications and utilities have like zero options and no menus, and literally no personality. they're basically unusable on anything that's supposed to be more than just a browser-launching chromebook replacement.
For me what ended up being an important difference is that Remote Desktop is a screen share in KDE (meaning it only works if you’re already logged on, everyone sees what you are doing and the remote view does not adapt to the monitor you’re connecting with). In Gnome it is a real private remote session with virtual monitors.
I am told something like NoMachine will solve this on KDE but I haven’t set that up yet.
The KDE team is also working on solving this, with their new login manager being a part of the puzzle, but it will take a while until it all works.
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Gnome is good for people who like their philosohy and design and opt for less customisation. That's enough.
Pretending that Gnome is good because you can customise it with just these few tools (that will totally not break with every upgrade) however is stupid and in line with "look Windows is totally okay after you spend 12 hours with tweaking the install with these 3rd party tools".
that will totally not break with every upgrade
While I agree that it's a lot more brittle than it has any right to be, it hasn't been that bad in my experience. For example, it only took me 1-2 days after its official release to upgrade to Fedora 44 (and with it, GNOME 50). Out of the 5/6 extensions I had installed, only 1 has broken on me. Arguably, that is one too many. But as GNOME offers a very stable and polished experience otherwise, I suppose this is pretty acceptable.
I like Gnome and have been using it as long as I've been using Linux. The best part of open source is you can use whatever works best for you.
What I do wonder is why people who don't like it need to remind everyone they don't on any Gnome thread.
Hell yeah brother, preach. Kde user here but confused about all the gnome hate lol.
Good question. Gnome threads have an inordinate amount of haters yet other de threads are pretty absent.
because they make bold , divisive design choices. Also, this title is worded in a conflictive way, so people come in here to gripe about the parts of gnome they dislike.
I've said it before in this thread, I what they are doing, but I'm glad they're doing their own thing.
Yep, GNOME isn't for me and that's okay. I probably should give it another try some point soon. I think last I tried was 2022. And every significant update several addons would break for days and weeks. Maybe it's gotten better in the last 4 to 5 years. But when it comes to customization I don't need any KDE addons. It just works outside the app menu bar MacOS like setting.
I had a good laugh the other day though about the questionable 14 year old decision that the gnome team made that has left their users confused and unable to log out in many cases.
I probably should give it another try some point soon. I think last I tried was 2022. And every significant update several addons would break for days and weeks.
well, it might have gotten more stable, but when I tried it on Nyarch, it has only gotten more gnomish in the intervening time.
Admittedly, Nyarch probably didn't help it look more "serious" but I think the general design principles of gnome were similar to when I installed it accidentally on debian 13.
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I'm a big fan of GNOME for the opposite reason, I like the default workflow and use it completely vanilla. If you're going to tweak it you may as well use KDE, but the vanilla GNOME workflow is actually pretty great if you embrace it.
Does it have taskbar icons yet?
No need
In vanilla GNOME, you can turn on Window List system extension which is like Windows' task bar and shows your open apps. It also has a system tray, if that's what you mean. Obviously you can add a lot of other stuff with user extensions.
I also use GNOME pretty vanilla and like it that way. I add the Tiling Shell extension though, just to snap windows to corners and not just sides. That's the one thing I'd prefer.
alternate title: "gnome is actually good--once you get rid of most the 'gnome-ness' with these thirteen extensions"
and it is... and it also isn't. once you turn gnome into a kde clone, the kde is gonna run circles around your extension-laden desktop.
I find gnome way easier to use than KDE
KDE does have its strengths as I use it on my desktop but the settings are incredibly confusing and the default theme is ugly
Where does this obnoxious use of "actually" come from, by the way?
The copium is strong in this one.
I would possibly upvote this if it were just a GNOME customization guide, and if it didn't try to insist that "GNOME is good, actually."
Blg fan of fedora atomic Cosmic been my daily for awhile but ran into a show stopper bug (for me) with release 44
So as wait on that resolve thought I'd try KDE again, and it just felt so busy & cluttered lol
Back to Silverblue with few tweaks and it feels just like home. Simple, beautiful, elegant & snappy
Gnome is fantastic indeed, no hurry to leave
We each have our personal zen, options are good
thought I’d try KDE again, and it just felt so busy & cluttered lol
But KDE is highly customizable ... every single bit of that 'clutter' could easily be turned off and removed if you tried.
But have you heard of Niri?
Until gnome fixed the issue where their logon screen runs as a separate user that can't verify Thunderbolt devices, I couldn't use Gnome if I wanted to.
And Gnome looks very nice, but I don't think I could develop apps for GTK4, they need to get their asses on finishing it and making it actually work.
I tried it out. I ran into constant framework side errors and gaps.
And Gnome looks very nice
gnome looks like an ipad alternate UI made for kids.
That's why I like it) Simple, accessible, big buttons, high-quality icons. Personally I use KDE when on GNU/Linux, but I definitely see what in GNOME would appeal to people sharing a computer with grandparents or children, or people who value design aesthetics more than extra functionality.
appeal to people sharing a computer with grandparents or children
it's near perfect for them. fewer options, less things to mess up, and the big fat buttons for the few things they might want to run (and everything else tucked out of the way).
I am 100% supportive of Gnome users and devs, and its right to exist. My opinion is that it looks the way it does and I wanted to share it. Some people prefer it for various reasons, and I think the reasons why I dislike it is why people like it.
I'll say one thing as a positive; at least it's doing something different, which is nice. I just don't like the different that it's doing.
I like GNOME apps. I don't like the DE that much.
Funny, for me it's the exact opposite. The design language of most of the apps is stupid. I'm on a PC. I have a mouse and a widescreen monitor. Why does the app have a single column smartphone app layout where everything is gigantic and the right mouse button is never used for anything?
Gnerfed programs
Welcome to the losing side, I guess. At least an ancient egyptian would enjoy the fact that we've regressed to using hieroglyphs instead of proper written words in our menu systems.
"Press the hamburger menu in the upper corner" "the what now?" "Press the three horizontal lines in the upper corner and then look for the cogwheel" compared to "Press "File" in the upper corner and then choose "Settings"".
If making design and aesthetics easier in multiple languages means regressing to hieroglyphs that change meaning depending on context, then I rather have a menu that grows a bit unseemly when using a language with longer words than English.
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Try out the PaperWM extension. It transforms Gnome into a linear window manager like niri.
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Ok but being good out of the box where i dont have to fuck with it is better. Gnome 3 is a mess.
an application with an odd name, designed entirely to easily install and update the Firefox GNOME Theme, which transforms Firefox (or LibreWolf, in my case) into something that much more closely resembles a GNOME/libadwaita application
When I used to be around in reddit once read a post or a comment from someone who claimed to be a gnome dev calling for a direct port of firefox to wayland to solve all of those gui kit issues once and for all.
Someone else said such thing was not possible - you can port gui apps' kits to gui kits, not to desktop rendering engines - but a few days ago I also read something about developing an app directly on wayland and that it would be really difficult.
At this point I don't know what to believe but if this can be done it would be awesome. It's kind of funny that the linux version of firefox, written in gtk, needs extra stuff to look good and integrated even in freaking gnome
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