Choosing a good desktop environment?

[Elarion]

I'm just now getting into Linux, and it's been very exciting so far. I'm not sure what I'm going to use it for yet, because the 17 programs I use for CAD/3D modeling/engine development are all restricted to Windows, except for a few that run on MacOS. But it's very fun to play around with the terminal and coding and see what all is possible. I'm planning on dual booting at some point instead of just doing a VM, so it's nice and fast instead of laggy.

 

I'm getting into those Desktop Environments now, and I'm not really sure how I'm supposed to choose one. I have a hard time choosing lots of different things when it comes to computers. I believe the default one that I'm used to is a modern Gnome, with the big sidebar and the dots at the bottom that open something similar to a Mac Launchpad. I originally thought this was Unity after looking at screenshots, but I realized it was slightly different. I've also tried out Xfce, KDE, Cinnamon, and Budgie. So far, Budgie and the original Gnome have been my favorite, because of their modern looking polish and their animations. They feel really complete. Xfce felt like a Windows clone with a bad looking UI...I don't know how I felt about cinnamon and KDE, as they both seemed really powerful, but I don't know what true advantages they have over the others.

 

When choosing a Desktop Environment, what should I look for? Should I just stick with the default Gnome one or maybe Budgie for the nice UIs? What advantages do these have over each other? Or are the other ones (even ones I haven't tried) things I should be looking into?

 

I appreciate the advice, as much of the internet seemed very opinionated on the pros and cons. I'm very excited to learn Linux!

[Sauron]

18 minutes ago, Elarion said:

I'm not really sure how I'm supposed to choose one.

It's simple - use what you like.

19 minutes ago, Elarion said:

So far, Budgie and the original Gnome have been my favorite, because of their modern looking polish and their animations.

So... use those.

20 minutes ago, Elarion said:

When choosing a Desktop Environment, what should I look for?

It depends on what you value. If while using them you feel the lack of something then maybe they're not right for you. You mentioned XFCE and said it didn't look as good to you as Gnome - I would personally prefer XFCE because it's far easier to customize and tweak to do exactly what I want, but you clearly didn't feel the need to do that or you would have realized Gnome was limited in this respect.

[Elarion]

19 minutes ago, Sauron said:

It depends on what you value. If while using them you feel the lack of something then maybe they're not right for you. You mentioned XFCE and said it didn't look as good to you as Gnome - I would personally prefer XFCE because it's far easier to customize and tweak to do exactly what I want, but you clearly didn't feel the need to do that or you would have realized Gnome was limited in this respect.

See, I am intrigued by this, because I'm new to the customization aspect of things. Windows never exactly let you change a bunch at surface level, so I'm not used to having things that are highly customizable. What are some examples of things you personally liked to do with Xfce? It's interesting to know, because maybe it'll give me a feel for it.

[Sauron]

16 minutes ago, Elarion said:

What are some examples of things you personally liked to do with Xfce?

In XFCE it's really easy to add, remove and change everything about panels. You can change their color, their transparency level, their size, their position, their behavior and the elements that appear on them just by going through some menus. You can change color schemes, icons and window decorations through the appearance settings menu (whereas modern Gnome needs third party tools).

As for practical examples:

Spoiler

 

This is XFCE:

 

this is also XFCE:

 

and so is this:

 

 

 

Now, I don't actually use XFCE myself - in fact, I don't use a DE at all. DEs come with a lot of utilities (think panels, settings menus, widgets) which are preselected by the DE's developers, and often made and maintained by them. I prefer a simpler setup where I choose a window manager (in my case i3) and have direct control over what utilities I use for what (if any) and a much more granular control on my desktop's appearance and behavior (though as you saw in the screenshots above even with a DE the sky is the limit). This is my laptop's desktop (it has changed a bit since these screenshots but nothing major):

Spoiler

 

If you want some inspiration you could check out r/unixporn on reddit.

[Sir0Tek]

Quote

Xfce felt like a Windows clone with a bad looking UI...

I beg your pardon?

You have to set and configure it to your needs.

[Kidplayer_666]

It wasn’t me who was originally asking, but is it possible (and how) to make it look like exactly like Windows 10

[Kidplayer_666]

(Apart from the logo)

[Koeshi]

Definitely possible (even the menu icon), you just need to put some time into it.  This would probably be a good starting point: https://www.xfce-look.org/p/1216281/