5 Reasons Why KDE Plasma Is the BEST Desktop

Today I talk about 5 reasons why KDE Plasma is the best desktop environment.
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==== Time Stamps ====
0:00 Intro
0:47 Customization, duh.
2:00 Themes Are Built In
3:50 Community and Transparency
6:02 A Little Windows Like
9:01 The Best Wayland Out There
11:11 Conclusions

#plasma6 #kde #thelinuxcast

[nategraham]

Thanks for the nice words about Plasma 6! We worked really hard on this release, and I'm so glad it's working out for people and helping them to make the best of their systems!

[adamhouston]

Eveyone keeps mentioning the floating bar as a feature of plasma 6, but plasma 5 already has the floating bar. It's just not set to float by default.

[mckendrick]

I would mention, even though it doesn't come out of the box with a Mac style setup, it's far more adaptable to a Mac user's workflow than other desktops – largely because of the possibility of using a global menu and the ability to customize the window button locations. Global menu support is a little spotty on wayland/flatpak (largely because of GTK being controlled by GNOME who hate global menus), but just having it there as an option is huge for Mac people. A lot of people will cite GNOME and Pantheon as being Mac-like, but they really aren't – both try their own "unique" take which sits somewhere between Mac, Windows, and Android, but doesn't comfortably cater to anyone used to any of those workflows due to their ideologically motivated restrictions.

I think it would be cool if Plasma came with a first-start program which would offer to give the user a choice of desktop layout based on certain templates – and then distros could add their own layouts as they want. That way they could default to their standard sort of Windows-like layout, but offer a quick option to switch a Mac-like layout for new users who would like that but aren't versed enough to trawl through the settings menu and all the panel editing settings.

[BUDA]

does everything, is neat on the surface and it has a ton of options

[redhairdaywalker]

Your comments about multi-monitor setup is SPOT ON! KDE has been my go-to forever b/c it handles my 4 monitor setup perfectly. 2 ultrawides stacked + 2 16:9s stacked. Not to mention the panels that for each screen customized to deal this the stuff on THAT screen. Most of the other DEs either dont support the monitor-specific panel/task-managers or have janky, horrible ones that never work properly.

[keyboard_g]

Cinnamon theming is pretty good. I made my own for my Tumbleweed install.

They don’t have wayland yet, but do have proper fractional scaling.

[andremagalhaes]

Hi Matt, I'm an XFCE guy but I gonna try KDE one of these days...
Could you do a video about things you must do after a fresh install of OpenSuse like install codecs, community repos, idk if flatpaks must be added, things like that, Cheers !!!

[Cenotph]

The only reason to use Gnome is because for some reason you prefer the lack of control similar to MacOS. Other than that it's inferior in every single way.

[LinuxLightHouse]

KDE has a good dev team per major distro. For example. It is easy to find and interact with the team working on KDE Fedora. Good people over there.

[JonathonFailsAtLife]

I avoided KDE for years, since I started running Linux in 2012, but once I got into KDE last year, it's immediately gone to the top for me.

[thesaigoneer]

Being able to use all keyboard shortcuts and window placement on specific workspaces (like I have with the tilers) ootb makes KDE the only viable DE for me. Plus of course that endless tweaking rabbit hole. Nice one, thanks Matt. Never thought i'd see the day of you praising KDE. What a year it's turning out to be ;-)

[wrqispx]

its funny that you made this video now because I just this week installed a vanilla Debian with KED plasma and I absolutely love it! I wish that I had found Plasma a long time ago.

[MrDowntemp]

I'd love to see you dive deeper into Krusader. I also am a big fan of the 2-pane commander style layout, and Krusader does have a lot of neat features beyond that. But some things, like their mountman tool, are not as nice to use as even Dolphin's method of mounting unmounting media. Would also be interested in the ways you setup/customize it.

[hotrodjones]

I like the idea of a Linux distro that can be made to work differently from windows. There are some really good aspects about the Gnome workflow, particularly the Cosmic edition. KDE 6 and Cosmic DE will be giving Gnome a run for their money. From my perspective Linux DEs are getting away from mimicking Windows or MacOS and are really taking off. Getting better every day.

[OcteractSG]

I was thinking about your monitors and how they sometimes give you trouble by not sleeping. I have a monitor connected via VGA that goes into standby on its own when I shut off the laptop plugged into it. One time I changed the cable I used, and the monitor no longer went into standby mode automatically. What I’m saying is that sometimes physical cables are to blame for problems rather than software.

[UncleSpellbinder]

Running Arch with KDE 6 Wayland with zero issues so far. I really do love it.

[marocel]

KDE Wayland having VRR support OOTB is so nice. I can finally play Elden Ring with Freesync, it's a miracle. I could not on X11 (Running Debian 12 Stable with KDE Wayland currently).

[johnpost]

Love the site. Just switched from Fedora to Debian on my main. The gnome extensions are great. But Wayland is frustrating. I have an entertainment setup with 3 monitors... After watching this, I'm thinking I need to POC Plasma. Thank you!!!

[TrustJesusToday]

Open Suse with Plasma and Hyprland is a landing point for me. June 2024 will be one year in Linux and I have found a very comfortable operating solution for my PCs. Thanks Matt for the content.

[KoopstaKlicca]

I use kde plasma mainly because I have a funky monitor resolution, and it's the only de that supports it without any hassle. Since you decided to call us out lol, I'll admit I'm a default enjoyer. I spent a lot of my childhood customizing things and trying to make things mine, and eh now I just want it to work and that's good enough. With that being said, I'll occasionally change the color scheme on plasma lol