Linux

TDE. Functional, stays out of my way, but still reasonably full-featured. The development team is dedicated to adding useful features while keeping the original look and feel, so I don't have to go hunting for settings that have inexplicably moved or changed defaults every time I update. It doesn't support Wayland, but I'm Wayland-neutral (that is, I have nothing against it, but I have nothing against X either).

I'm running MATE on my laptop. It gives me what I need (a task bar, space for some instrumentation, the usual desktop functionality, a way to start applications) and nothing that I don't care about (wobbling windows, compiz, stuff like that). My DE is a tool; I use tools that don't get in my way because I have work to do.

I might give COSMIC a try in a few months, I haven't decided yet.

I use Mate. When I first started using a Desktop in addition to terminals, it was with Redhat 6.1, Redhat came with Gnome-2, I got used to it. I didn't like the changes made in Gnome-3, so I switched to Mate which retained, or at least had the option to be configured to look as I was used to it, save for more refined graphics. It also works well remotely so that's another reason I use it as much of my work involves remote acess.

Currently, Plasma. But I have ADHD a bit, so I’ve gone back and forth between that and Gnome mostly. I do like Cinnamon and I really want to spend time with Xfce and maybe others just to see what feels most comfortable right now. I’m trying to go for keyboard comfort these days, so we’ll see where I land at some point!

For my main workstation and main laptop:

• Cosmic themed GNOME - I just like the way it looks and works without any changes. The basic tiling functions are something I find helpful at times too.
• Plasma 6 - It works pretty well and looks nice. I don't do a lot of customization, so it's not a big deal to me. For my other machines I'm currently using Cinnamon, GNOME, Budgie, and LXDE.

Xfce. Partly because I've used it for a long time, but mostly because it does what I need it to do and little else.

I currently use Gnome on my laptop, but I've toyed with returning to KDE for a while. I used KDE briefly back in the v3 and v4 days felt like it was a bit bloated compared to Gnome v1 and v2. Cinnamon is nice but a bit heavyweight on graphics. I should probably return to XFCE or Mate.

Am I the only one on here using Budgie. I just feel more comfortable with the workflow using Budgie.

KDE Plasma.

GNOME kind of looks nice but is too strict on customization.

Gnome.

With NoMachine to my Windows Host, hot keys go to the host as intended.

Rustdesk can't do it in any config and they don't care at this stage.

Sway on a chromebook with 4gb ram, sway on thinkpad t430, xfce on my gf's laptop, and gnome on my gaming rig that will go soon either cosmic or just sway. For me sway is thewinner. Sway with me... Marimba... Lalala

Edit: also gnome on the kichen pc with touch. Gnome is the only one that works fully on touch.

I use hyprland with KDE as my fall back.

My hyprland config is 95% stable but some apps give me a hard time, so I'll just run them in KDE.

I find KDE just works. With a baby, things need to work more often than not.

KDE Plasma. I like having a familiar start menu and keyboard shortcuts

I have an i3 and a hyprland installation.

I like tiling wms but Wayland still has some annoying issues so I like having the more stable i3 installation on my main computer.

I used enlightenment for something like a decade. When Gnome hit the big time I used Gnome because it looked Nice and was very flexible. I went back to Mac and Windows Land for a bit, when I came back I went Gnome again. I just screw around for a day looking and picking plugins and fighting with it to get it exactly how I wanted it. After fighting with one of the older plugins that mustn't doing what I wanted to do I saw somebody mentioned using KDE. I tried KDE and sure enough every single thing I was plugging the hell out of Gnome for was a default setting in KDE. I'm currently running Plasma. I must say that Cinnamon's not bad either.

XFCE, lightweight and has a terminal. 's all i need when i'm not trying out something like xmonad.

I used Enlightment for the last few years, but switched this year to XFCE because i like the look more. I'm using old-as-fuck-hardware and both DEs work good on my machines.

Anything I need to actually write code on, Gnome, because I'm addicted to mac-style gesture controls, but hate the holier than thou design philosophy Jony Ive bullshit; anything casual, KDE; but I am planning to try out Cosmic on something soon

Gnome 3 is pretty great

I recently made a new linux install (to replace my constantly breaking, likely due to my own doing Manjaro install). I went with Cinnamon initially, but in order to try out Wayland, I moved to KDE plasma.

I'm on NVidia, with two different resolution screens. Which causes occasional problems. But overall it's fine.

At the moment, my main machine is on KDE because it has very good Wayland support and isn't Gnome. I prefer Cinnamon

It's hard to go back after Sway/I3 with pywal coloration, when everything is so sluggish in comparison. It's amazing to see gnome and KDE adding like a second to launch/quit of common applications. Tried hyprland, but animations seemed choppy (beefy AMD desktop), has that changed?

I really love both esp after KDE 6. But I use Gnome, KDE treats multiple monitors as separate entities I find the bugs distracting and there's only so much customisation I need. I slap open bar on and get to work.

COSMIC. I was using Hyprland before but I wanted to try the alpha. I found it stable enough for my use-case so I stuck with it

I use Gnome, but I just wanted to say Cinnamon is fantastic (probably my first choice if I weren't on a laptop)

KDE Plasma because it's the one I like. If it disappeared tomorrow, I'd use Xfce.