 One of the questions that I get on the channel a lot is what is the best desktop environment? And I'm always very curious as to why people wonder this because the best solution when you're trying to figure out What's best for you is to go forth and try things you never know what type of soda you like until you try all the sodas You don't know what kind of food you like until you try the food It'd be like asking someone else what the best type of food is if you've never tried it It doesn't really mean anything because you both have different tastes. You know one person's gonna like Italian food The other person's gonna like Chinese food, you know, or maybe you like fusion or something out, you know chicken and waffles I don't like chicken and waffles, but you might like chicken and waffles, you know, it's a total different thing I don't know why that particular metaphor came up. It doesn't matter The point is when you try to go through and decide what desktop environment is best for you The answer is going to be different for Bob than it is for Joe, you know It's just gonna be different and it's I mean obviously not everyone can have a different desktop environment But they're gonna like those say even if they both chose say X FCE They're gonna like X FCE for different reasons, you know, what maybe one of them likes the simplicity one of them likes the facts that it's stable Whatever so the question itself is something that is really hard to answer because it's going to be different for every single person However, I do have a specific answer and I have some good reasons for the choice that I've made When you're looking for a desktop environment if you're new to Linux or if you you're a longtime, you know user of Linux the things that you look for are going to be Different depending on who you are and there's really only one desktop environment out there that can be suitable for a broad spectrum of users whether they're new whether they're old hats whether they're Interested in customizing their desktop environment, whether they're not interested in customizing their desktop environment There's really only one desktop environment out there that does all those things reasonably well and that desktop environment is KD Plasma now I don't think that that's a very big surprise to anybody who has used Linux for a long time KD Plasma is highly customizable But it's also fairly stock out of the tin if you know what I mean So let's just go ahead and first take a look at KD Plasma as you would expect it to come on most distros that Come with a default version of Plasma installed So this is men Jaros version of KD Plasma and for the most part if the distribution you're using ships Plasma This is somewhat what it's gonna look like the theme will probably be a little bit different You know different colors and stuff, but the layout is going to be Similar to this now there are a few exceptions obviously if you're using something like Geruda that has a really funky theme and a Funky layout, you know, so there are going to be exceptions, but for the most part This is what Plasma looks like out of the box And this is a fantastic default layout because it's the most familiar layout Anybody's ever going to see anybody who has used a computer in the past has used something that looks like this And it's because this looks like Windows Windows has looked like this Since Windows what 3.1 or whatever it was and it's looked like I mean obviously the the Chrome has changed over the years in Windows But the the the layout has basically stayed the same and because of that It's like the QWERTY keyboard people type on the QWERTY keyboard because it's not because it's the most Ergonomic or even the fastest or whatever it's because it's what we've always used and it'd be really hard to change way It's the same with this layout Everybody knows the layout yet the clock on the right-hand side you have a menu on the left-hand side It looks like the menu looks like this now obviously Microsoft themselves have Messed around with the layout now in Windows 11 where it's kind of in the center and It's messing with people's heads and all this stuff But for the most part this is what a computer looks like for most people in the world And that's why this layout here is so good now Obviously, this is not unique to KDE Plasma things like Cinnamon things like X FCE They all use similar paradigms in terms of laying out their desktop environment So Plasma can't really claim to be better in this aspect than all the rest But the reason why I've chosen KDE is the best desktop environment is because of the things that go beyond this initial layout So when you're first using Linux for the first time or you're coming back to Linux after using Windows for a long time You don't want to have to mess around with the actual desktop environment You don't want to have to mess around with any of this stuff You want to be able to focus on finding Application alternatives to what you were using before that's going to be your number one priority Whether you're trying to replace the Adobe suite Microsoft Office Whatever those are the things you need to be focusing on if you want to switch to Linux Before you mess around with any of this stuff That's the reason why this layout makes the most sense because you don't have to mess with this You know how this works You don't have to deal with any learning curve here whatsoever It just is going to work almost precisely how Windows you know works now Obviously once you get into specific applications like the file manager or the settings application or the Music app or whatever those are going to work differently, but this Default initial layout looks like Windows feels like Windows works like Windows where KDE Plasma shines Beyond what other desktop environments offer you is they all that Plasma allows you to grow beyond this layout now Other desktop environments offer plenty of customization X FCE cinnamon They all Offer some level of customization built in without having to do any hacky things like add a tweak tool or anything like that and They're good desktop environments don't get me wrong But X FCE is very old-fashioned in terms of how it does things there said their customization settings are all over the place and You know it that's just the way X FCE does it It takes a lot of learning on how to do stuff You know for X FCE then isn't necessarily the most intuitive You know, it's just do moving the panel from side to side is a little bit different You know, it's not as intuitive as something like Plasma is things like changing and installing themes like that is not as intuitive as Plasma is because When you install a theme on a GTK based system like X FCE Pretty much you download that thing and you transfer the theme that you downloaded into a folder That's how you add the theme and then you can enable that theme via the settings panel With Plasma you have a button like there's a button in the settings panel It says get more themes and it shows you all the themes that are available and you can install them right from there That's how it should be done and that's how Plasma does it So the thing about Plasma is that makes it different is that the settings panel has everything crammed into one place That can sound a lot overwhelming. So let's go ahead and actually take a look at the settings panel Here the settings application and this has gotten better over the years like way way better It used to be kind of a convoluted mess things were in weird places and stuff like that. It's gotten way better Now the best thing about this whole settings panel is the search bar You can go through and just do search for whatever setting you want and you know It will find it for you because there's a ton of stuff here buried in sub menus and stuff like that So you may not be able to find this stuff. So searching for it is great But the point I'm trying to make here is that once you get past that initial layout once you get past that Feeling comfortable with Linux enough where you can actually start to feel like you want to customize things Plasma allows you to do it better than any other desktop environment There's just so much here that you can do whether it's changing the theme for the windows for the cursor for whatever for the Login screen whatever if you want to go through and add scripts like if you wanted to go through and add a tiling script There are tiling scripts available. It will automatically tally your windows all available right here from the settings application And I mean I could literally spend hours Going through the setting application, you know bit by bit if you know I had that kind of time And still probably not be able to explain every single piece of functionality that this has now obviously that has its Downsides because the more complicated you make something the harder it is to learn now Personally, that's why I've talked about how this is a next step when you're first starting to use plasma You don't mess around with us at all. You just don't ever see it unless you absolutely have to let something Unless you're brave enough to get into it right from the beginning You're really technical and you think you're fine for most people for most new users This is what they do with They just deal with a desktop in the default theme and they use their computer like this It's when they move past that where they get into the settings application and can discover its power and I think that's great I think that's the reason I think that in a nutshell it boils down to why Katie plasma is so good is because it gives people room to grow and It allows them to grow further than any other desktop environment out there without extra now I say that because but I mean you can always go through and make X FCE or Cinnamon or budgie or mate or whatever look however you want, but they always require a little bit of friction To do it like whether it's installing extensions or finding different Widgets or whatever they all require a little bit of extra work and plasma puts all that stuff Right in one place. It's in the settings panel So once people get away from this and get more comfortable in customizing things They're just a ton of stuff you can do and the best place to go through and see some of the things that are possible Is on Unix porn? So here's one example that we see on Unix when I get rid of the camera here and You can see that this person here has gone through and made plasma look completely different than what you'd ever expected the computer to look Obviously still has a bar, but things are different in different places. It has a different font has a Awesome color scheme has rounded corners They've put a ton of work into this and it's very complicated And I'm sure I even I couldn't go through and record replicate this without a tutorial But that's kind of the point is once you get to that pro level of usage You can go through and do things like this or if you prefer something more Mako-ish ish if you will you can create something like this You know has the bar along the bottom and the bar along the top. It's so it's Recreating the Mac. I mean a lot of people have opinions on Macintosh's whether positive or negative If you prefer to make your computer look like a Macintosh. It's really easy in in plasma Or if you wanted to make your computer look something like this now I'm pretty sure that this is Windows Vista Or a Windows Vista look like but we know that it's actually plasma It says so right there in Neofetch and you can tell it has the same clock that I have down here at the bottom and Has the Pac-Man icon and so on and so forth So we know that this is actually Linux But they went through for whatever reason and made their desktop look like Windows Vista and It actually looks like Windows Vista if that's something that you wanted to do you could go through and do that That's really the point that there is no limits when it comes to Plasma and I love that about it I love the fact that if you put in the effort, there's nothing with plasma that you can't do There's nothing that the developers say you can't do There's nothing that you have to go through and find a random Repository in order to do everything is just in the settings app And if you can learn those things you can create amazing things Also, if you don't want to learn those things if you have no interest in customizing stuff plasma works just fine You know it works like the desktop environment works like Windows would work He has the menu on the side a time along the bottom other side and icons there to open up your applications It's simple. You don't ever have to change that and that's why plasma is good. It encompasses and facilitates usage by a broad spectrum of people whether they're new or long-time users So plasma for me is the best desktop environment So what I would like to know in the comments below What you think the best desktop environment is I'd really love to hear from you You can follow me on Twitter at the Linuxcast You can support me on patreon at patreon.com slash Linuxcast before I go I'd like to take a moment think my current patrons Devon Chris east coast web gen 2 is on to patrick old primus markets make on jackson X next tool steve a city They're Mitchell art center amitya smirk camp Joshua Lee J dog in the bsd rock. Thanks everybody for watching. I'll see you next time