 One of the questions I get most on the channel is what is the best desktop environment? And this is one of those questions that is really hard to answer or even give any answer to simply because there's not really a best Anything when it comes to Linux, what's best for you may not be best for me What may be best for me may not be best for you if that is something that you've heard before is because I've said it Many times on this channel Basically something that I should have on a t-shirt at this point choosing what works for you is going to take some effort and some Exploration you have to try these things and discover what works best for your workflow What makes you more efficient? What looks best for you like? customizing and Ricing if you use that term how it works with your keyboard and mouse whether you prefer keyboard shortcuts Or you want to move around with the mouse or how it displays your favorites how it changes wallpaper like all these Little things everything that goes into making a desktop environment Plays a role and whether or not you like it or not like in you may use budgie or something like that and discover that you Absolutely hate the Raven menu or whatever. It's called these days You know, maybe you don't like having a notification center that takes up entire part of the screen or You might try mate and realize that maybe they were on to something when they moved away from going home, too You know whatever you have no chance of discovering your likes and dislikes when it comes to a desktop environment If you don't try them you have to try everyone eventually you'll land on one that Either works for you very well out of the box or has the options that you need in order to make it work for you So for a lot of people really it comes down to Gnome or Katie. Those are the two main desktop environments and How you use your computer really determines which one of those two you choose But there are other desktop environments out there that you can choose and you should Play with all of them because somewhere out there is your perfect desktop environment. I'm not saying perfect I mean the one that's meant for you, you know, you're meant to be together and you won't discover which desktop environment That is unless you actually try them all so when someone asked me this question I have a hard time answering But there are two desktop environments out there that I recommend a lot or have recommended a lot over the last Two years of doing this channel One of them is Katie plasma and I have a love hate affair with Katie plasma I think it is the most customizable desktop out there I don't think that can be argued like even a little bit It has the most options of anything Period if you are into the customization scene and you want to tweak literally every single portion of your Desktop environment Katie plasma is the only option for you like seriously it has options up the wahoola and You're there there are options there that you will never see actually so like you You can go searching for Options and just spend days going through that settings panel So if that's the type of experience that you want plasma is the direction you want to go But if you don't need that level of customization But you'd still like some the other desktop environment that I recommend a lot is XFCE now The reason why I think XFCE is so good is because it is very much a Little brother when it comes to Katie plasma and when I say that what I mean is that it has a lot of Customizability built into it out of the box similar to the way Katie plasma does but it doesn't go overboard like he doesn't have a ton of Settings that you may or may not ever use it has the basics and it does a really good job at those basics You can customize the panel you can customize the theme and so on you can do the things that you'd expect to do and a few extra things But nothing horrendously on top of that when it comes to like Overloading you with options now There are other things that XFC offers that I find really good So I like the panel management system that XFC has it's not a like a drag-and-drop type of system It's more of a list based system where you kind of place things where you want inside of a list And that's how it's arranged on the panel. I happen to like that way of doing things It's not modern by any means, but it works really well. Also when it comes to performance XFCE is a very lightweight desktop environment so you're not going to have to deal with any of the Bloat or excessive resource usage when you'd see something like an genome or even plasma sometimes, you know It's the very small desktop environment But at on top of that because it doesn't get updated nearly as often as plasma does you have a much more Stable experience things aren't going to change in XFC because let's just face it XFC hasn't changed in 20 years, you know that thing has looked basically the same forever and It's meant to stay the same It's meant to be the most stable desktop environment that you could possibly Find out there even something like mate mate is meant to look like genome to from yesteryear, right? It's supposed to look like that, but they've constantly updated that thing with new features It still looks the same but it has a whole bunch of new features that it's constantly getting and it's getting more modern as the time passes with XFC E well it does get new features from time to time and The technologies that are underlying it have increased over time as well The rate of development is so slow It just means that your experience with it is going to be very very stable now Obviously, this is a two-sided coin. You're not going to get a ton of new features You're not going to get the latest technology if you use XFC So when GTK 5 eventually comes out, you're not going to get it for a very very long time like a very Very long time. I'm not even sure where they are when it comes to GTK for they may not have it yet And if they do have it, it's just like at the beginning stages. So you're right, right? So that type of technology is if you want that kind of stuff XFC is not going to be where you're gonna want to be because the development pace is just really really slow And it's meant to be that way like yes, it's a small project. So it's by necessity really slow But also the users who enjoy XFC do not want bleeding edge stuff They want their desktop environment to just work all the time in the same way it has always worked and That's the charm of XFC now Like I said, it's not going to be for everyone when I recommend this thing I always put a little provides the one it like you may not like it like there are certain things like the settings panel being broken off into little pieces in in your Menu system that you might not really care for So there is a settings manager where all the settings are but but you'll also find all of the Little settings that are in that settings manager spread out in their own menu entries Inside of your menu system and that can lead to some confusion and also it's a little messy But you know they have menu editors or you could take that stuff out But it's not the way basically any other desktop environment actually does it now most desktop environments can Allow you to search for specific things inside the settings panel, but the settings panel is just one cohesive thing whereas XFC Sometimes feels like all the pieces of the settings manager are all in little pieces Like they're all individual apps and that's not again for everyone The panel management stuff isn't for everybody. It's the way they do it It's the way they've always done it and like I said, it's not modern But I like it and it just seems to work very well So XFC I would argue is one of the better desktop environments for people to try I think that if you are more into stability and low resource usage XFC is a fantastic desktop environment And if I were not a window manager user, I would use XFC as my main desktop environment now That's not to malign KD plasma because I still think plasma is fantastic. I think it's buggy But it can't not be buggy, right? They have too many features, right? That's just the way it is they add features too fast and When you do that, you're going to have Problems when it comes to stability. It's just the way it works now Obviously They can work on that and they do work on that the one thing about the plasma crew is that they're always fixing and tweaking stuff So if you have an issue chances are eventually it's going to get fixed and might introduce new estrus, but you know That's just kind of the nature of something that moves that fast if you are a more Slow paced individual and you're more interested in things that just stay the same Always XFC is a fantastic desktop environment. If that's the kind of thing you're looking for So that is it for this video just a little bit of a ramble over why I think XFC is so great But just to remind you what I said at the beginning. There is no best desktop environment There is nothing out there that I could say this one here is the best everyone should use it It's just that thing doesn't exist, right? Every desktop environment has its pros and cons even genom that I constantly harp on has some good points You know kd plasma has its good and bads budget good and bads XFC good and bads You know cinnamon good and bads you get the idea right over and over and over again I will continue to preach this that the best way to find out what's best for you is to try it And that's the only way that you're ever going to find what's best for you You cannot get the answer to what is the best desktop environment by asking someone else It's just it that's not the way it works. So that is it for this video If you have thoughts on this you can leave those in the comment section below I'd love to hear from you you can follow me on mastodon or odyssey those links will be in the video description You can support me on patreon at patreon.com slash linux cash just like all these fine people Thanks to everybody who does support me on patreon youtube you guys are all absolutely amazing without you the channel Just would not be anywhere near where it is right now. So thank you so very very much for your support I really do appreciate it. Thanks everybody for watching. I'll see you next time You