Mate... Because it is simple and doesn't eat 2GB of RAM from my computer...

Gnome - ultimately, I find it fast to move around windows and the least fiddly. It's minimalist and I like GTK and Adw. It's what Microsoft hoped Windows 8 would become and MacOS without the clutter. The only thing I don't like it that the devs aren't as friendly and welcoming as they think/intend they are.

When I'm at the desktop I spend a lot of time jumping between windows quickly and often and being able to hit that super key and having a big area to click on speeds things along so much. I can't be bothered directing a mouse cursor to a small icon or area.

xfce kde gnome stable DE

de's are bloat i dont leave the tty

KDE as currently it simply is the most built up/customizable and tends to have the newest features first.

If you told me almost 16 years ago I'd be using KDE on and AMD/AMD system I would have thought you crazy but here we are.

I like MATE but find their settings tools lacking a bit. I like the ideas of WMs but again lacking in GUI tools department.

Lxde - It is very light, and its key shortcuts and behavior are perfect for me.
It can be used in a convenient way practically without touching the mouse.

the DE I use is the spicy one... Cinnamon...

Cinnamon is like that shy and timid person who exist but prefers to stay in the background and do their things to keep things running... when needed that person can spring into action though

Cinnamon does not need any attentions... it just exists...

Originally posted by Xenophobe:

Currently cinnamon on mint, but once debian trixie stable releases I'm going to debian with KDE just because I like the aesthetic of it ... I really dislike the modal dialog boxes cinnamon went to in mint 22.1, I had to timeshift back to 21.3 and decided if that's the route cinnamon is going I'll just to go to debian since mint doesn't have a KDE version anymore.

Well... KDE is in the repos... :-)

As I like the convenience a DE gives you, I use Gnome. I also like tiling so I add Pop OS' tiling extension. I'm looking forward to using Pop OS' new DE when it's finished as I'm not a fan of Gnome's devs.

Cinnamon on Garuda Linux...until someone might adopt the slim Budgie or, what I do like as the most beautiful one, Deepin.

Originally posted by The_Abortionator:

KDE as currently it simply is the most built customizable

sway
hyprland
etc..

I don't use DE's, but
Hyprland on my x86_64 PC
and
Sway on my orange pi 5 max.

What's the perk of not using a DE? Resource saving?

Do ya'll still use a GUI if you're not using a DE?

Originally posted by Chaosolous:

What's the perk of not using a DE? Resource saving?

Do ya'll still use a GUI if you're not using a DE?

Well, people who really want to customize their desktop completely and from the ground up to their own needs, just use a window manager etc. and build everything around it themselves.
DE's are just complete desktops, which accordingly come with their own packages and pre-configurations etc..

Originally posted by IceFoxX:

Originally posted by The_Abortionator:

KDE as currently it simply is the most built customizable

sway
hyprland
etc..

You just named things that lack a full suite of synergistic applications/interfaces...

Like whats the default file manager for sway/hyperland? Or the default audio settings program? Whats the default touch screen configurator? Whats the default stylus settings program? Network manager? Text editor?

Theres none and thats kind of the point of WM's. They are lean and light weight exactly because they AREN'T feature rich and complete.

If you want you can customize Kwin into being a tiling WM but you can't turn a WM into a full DE.

Like and use whatever dude but don't be silly.