Heres what a GNOME user discovered when I used it exclusively for one week.
The Desktop Environment and Getting Work Done
I use my computers to earn my living.
My number one priority is getting work done.
Dave McKay/How-To Geek
Likewise, the desktop environment.
On Linux, your desktop environment (DE) isnt a fixed component of the operating system.
you could drop just about any DE on any Linux distribution.
Dave McKay/How-To Geek
And yet Ive stuck withGNOMEfor many years.
I know how to drive GNOME.
What would be the reward for climbing the learning curve with another DE?
Dave McKay/How-To Geek
What could it do that was materially better for me?
WithPlasma 6.0 recently released, it seemed like a great time to take a serious look at it.
I used Plasma exclusively for a week, and this is how it went.
Dave McKay/How-To Geek
First Impressions
I installed Plasma on Arch to get a plain-vanilla spin of Plasma.
My initial impression was Plasma looked great.
The system tray icons on the far right, in particular, look great in their monochrome minimalist style.
Dave McKay/How-To Geek
The Dolphin web client is an excellent example of what a file web client should be.
And whats really nice is the Details View has a collapsible tree built right into it.
A departure from traditional Dolphin behavior actually works in my favor.
Dave McKay/How-To Geek
The previous Plasma scheme used a single click to action a file or folder.
The Default KDE Applications
Plasma 6.0 comes well-equipped, with acollection of software applicationsalready installed.
Theyre all accessible from the tool Launcher.
Dave McKay/How-To Geek
As youd expect, Discover lets you browse, search for, and install applications.
Many applications let you choose between a Flatpak or Snap version.
I installed LibreOffice as a Flatpak.
Dave McKay/How-To Geek
A small progress bar in the lower left lets you know how close to completion your installation is.
These measurements are a little fuzzy because they include the time it took me to enter the password.
Even so, they do show a noticeable difference.
Dave McKay/How-To Geek
In practice, it didnt make much difference.
Im not rebooting multiple times a day.
Once Plasma was up and running it was as fast as I needed it to be.
Dave McKay/How-To Geek
controls, Lots of controls
There are alotof controls contained within the controls program.
Thankfully, theyre carefully collated into sensible categories, and theres a search facility too.
There seem to be options for everything.
Dave McKay/How-To Geek
Stability: Generally Good… Swapping back to X11 brought everything to life, and no doubt Wayland support will continue to improve.
The chatter on forums tells me it works just fine for many people.
I had the Discover app store crash on me a few times, but that was about it.
Dave McKay/How-To Geek
Will I Stick With Plasma 6.0?
However, thats the only stumbling block and it won’t apply to most users.
From what I encountered during my one-week test, I dont have a problem with anything else.
There wasnt any great culture shock getting to grips with Plasma, nor anything Imissed terribly from GNOME.
If you know your way around a typical DE, moving in either direction would be easy.
Linux is all about choice, after all.
But you’re able to certainly use Plasma without once thinking about tweaking it.
Plasma looks great, runs fine, and it took very little time to become productive.
Im not about to jump ship and move to Plasma right now.
But never say never.
My experiment has shown me that such a day might eventually come to pass.
