this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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It's in the eye of the beholder, of course. But it would be great to see some solid recommendations.

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[–] thingsiplay 65 points 2 months ago (4 children)

The distribution doesn't to too much, its mostly the desktop environment. I like the look of KDE Plasma the most. But usually I craft my own look after a while.

[–] GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml 30 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I like the look of KDE Plasma the most.

GNOME vs KDE gang fight has been summoned.

[–] thingsiplay 18 points 2 months ago (2 children)

The look of GNOME isn't the problem of GNOME. ;-) I'm not a good citizen right now.

[–] boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net 10 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Absolutely. GNOME often looks better, but it just doesnt work. Basic things everywhere are removed or not added.

[–] dallen@programming.dev 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

One man’s “basic” things are another man’s clutter …

[–] boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net 3 points 2 months ago (3 children)

So you mean...

  • editing images (in the viewer, screenshot tool)
  • being allowed to customize the UI of any app
  • changing the login screen (gdm) background
  • creating a textfile from the filemanager
  • editing .desktop entries graphically
  • ...

?

Hahaha, I disagree

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[–] nik282000@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 months ago

I have given in to GNOME. Set dark mode, install the extension "Tactile" and never touch the setting again.

[–] GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Well GNOME has issues but in terms of look it's 69420x better than KDE.

[–] pukeko@lemm.ee 11 points 2 months ago (2 children)

The thing I've learned in the many years of watching this fight is that the things Gnome people (of which I am one, though I have immense respect and appreciation for the KDE project) don't like about KDE tend to be the things KDE people like about KDE and vice versa.

[–] GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

These projects are almost diametrically opposite. GNOME tries to provide a very simple, solid but not very configurable desktop with good accessibility and stability while KDE tries to make a very configurable and powerful environment that can be customized to anyone's needs. I don't like KDE because it's unstable, way too powerful for my personal needs (their "simple by default; powerful when needed" concept doesn't really work) and I just don't like the UI. Though KDE's better performance is an objective advantage.

[–] pukeko@lemm.ee 3 points 2 months ago

I tend to agree. I mean, the gnome workflow is more appealing to me (though I have since moved to a WM), but my dislike of KDE comes down to (a) too many options everywhere and (b) it looks too “sharp”. If KDE had an “I’m done fiddling” mode that hid most of the options and I found a softer theme, I’d probably like it fine.

Absolutely nothing I just said should take away from others’ preference for KDE. I’m glad we can like what we like.

[–] Telorand@reddthat.com 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I have to agree. I'm hoping Cosmic will be somewhere in-between!

[–] pukeko@lemm.ee 4 points 2 months ago

It seems to still be strongly gnome-adjacent, which fits with the softer, "calmer" aesthetic Pop has, but with functional tweaks that are more aligned with Win11/KDE (absolutely intended as a positive statement, as far as moving the ball forward on UX design). I worry that team KDE won't like the "sane defaults" simplicity that it appears to have inherited from the gnome days, but that might just be the part of me that experiences terminal choice paralysis every time I fire up KDE. :)

[–] BaalInvoker@lemmy.eco.br 9 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Agreed. I think it's not about distros we should have pay attention, but desktop environments.

And about "most appealing" DE I think it's subjective. Surely KDE has the most flexible structure and may be exactly what you want, but Gnome is also appealing for some people (myself included).

Again, there is no right or wrong, just personal preferences

[–] MonkderDritte@feddit.de 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

You don't need much to make something look fancy or modern. Even XFCE can look modern.

edit: made it less offensive.

[–] BaalInvoker@lemmy.eco.br 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Good for you that you like your XFCE environment

I would like to see how your desktop is, if you don't mind

However, again, it's personal preference

[–] MonkderDritte@feddit.de 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Can't. feddit.de can't upload images and in browser i suddenly get a server error(?) with my lemmy.ml account.

Well uh, left bar with virtual desktop overview bottom, window buttons top, autoexpand
right bar with network and systemload bars top, sensor numbers bottom, fixed size
top bar Android style with left hand clock and date, whiskermenu (symbol view) as the empty space in the center (title only and whitespaces as title), right hand systray with mail and connman-gtk, pulseaudio plugin. Bars are on intelligently autohide, theme is Adapta.

This is on my notebook with touchscreen.

Nice thing is, XFCE can pin bars to specific displays or main display. Meaning, if i plug my ultrawide in, the top bar stays on notebook while left and right bar switch to the ultrawide, a center bar with Wiskermrmu with list view for desktop usage appears.

[–] BlueSquid0741@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 2 months ago

I took it as a question of which distro looks nicest out of the box (like, which distro manager has made real effort to make something particularly nice looking).

[–] twinnie@feddit.uk 3 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Somebody needs to tell me what they’re doing to Plasma to make them like it so much because when I install it with Breeze it just looks like Windows 2000.

[–] thingsiplay 6 points 2 months ago

Windows 2000 looks nothing alike KDE Plasma with Breeze theme. But besides that point, you don't have to like what others like. It's just taste.

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[–] pelotron@midwest.social 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Garuda Hyprland edition. All the neon-RGB styling of Garuda gamer on top of Hyprland's smooth UI.

[–] GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Upvoted. I forgot about this distro. I don't like its neon style at all but it's something different and pleasing for some people.

[–] pelotron@midwest.social 3 points 2 months ago

It's finally an opinionated distro I agree with. Of course you can get anything to look like anything but I just like how they picked a path and went so far down it to make their own unique out-of-the-box experience.

[–] myopic_menace@reddthat.com 13 points 2 months ago

The new COSMIC desktop by System76 and Pop!_OS is very promising. I've been running the pre-alpha, and have been very impressed.

[–] HouseWolf@lemm.ee 10 points 2 months ago

EndeavourOS has a pretty nice colour scheme and wallpaper going by default.

If I was forced to use a default distro look, it would be that or Linux Mint probably.

[–] lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network 6 points 2 months ago

Linux Mint has a smooth, out-of-your-way look & feel to either MATE or Cinnamon that just makes me feel at home

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 months ago

Distros aren't going to be visually appealing as they typically and just standard desktops or CLI

[–] Father_Redbeard@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 months ago

Pop!_OS

Gnome with a bit of a macOS twist. I really like it. I'm excited for Cosmic!

[–] GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 months ago

Hmm there is stuff like Archcraft (maybe it has a different name now idk) that is made specifically for visuals. In terms of usable distros I'd say Xero is the best I know. It seems to be discontinued though. CachyOS has some nice WM setups too but the appealing visuals can't be consistent in that case because they are not full DEs and the unreasonably tiny calendar pop-up window from Xfce always ruins everything.

[–] ulu_mulu@lemm.ee 4 points 2 months ago

LMDE (Mint Cinnamon)

[–] sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)
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[–] Tixanou@lemm.ee 4 points 2 months ago

Garuda Linux looks very nice

[–] Zucca@sopuli.xyz 3 points 2 months ago
[–] pukeko@lemm.ee 3 points 2 months ago

Out of the box, I love Vanilla OS's color scheme and wallpaper, with Fedora in second place for a default Gnome environment. I like the Pop_OS theme. I use River WM with a gruvbox theme (Vivaldi with no open tabs pictured), which is about as far from out of the box as you can get. Incidentally, I've been team light theme forEVER, but I've switched with gruvbox.

desktop screenshot

[–] kionite231@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 months ago

Xerolinux. It's basically a heavily themed KDE

[–] boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net 3 points 2 months ago

You mean Desktop?

Distro, I think Lubuntu does LXQt better than Fedora LXQt.

But LXQt is a huge mix of mostly KDE Theming.

[–] JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee 2 points 2 months ago

My favourite looking DE is GNOME with the WhiteSur theme and SF-Pro system font

[–] GammaGames 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

elementary! It’s macish, but I still think pantheon is my favorite DE

[–] boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I tried their icons on KDE (there is a theme) and these old, very detailed icons just dont make sense. Too much color, very incoherent style and way too much detail that you cannot see anyways.

But I have not tried it, as I was too dumb that you need Javascript to have the payment download button work.

[–] GammaGames 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I use the La Capitaine icon pack because I agree, the default icons are pretty meh

[–] boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net 2 points 2 months ago

Very cool and unique iconset!

[–] SeikoAlpinist@slrpnk.net 2 points 2 months ago

Current distributions, I like EndeavourOS sway edition and Window Maker Live (wmlive).

Historically, I liked HP-UX and OpenSolaris with Gnome and the Nimbus theme. Linux Mint Darnya was nice. So was OpenSUSE 9.3 I think with Gnome and its custom launcher. Red Hat Enterprise Linux / Scientific Linux 6 was nice looking. We went a couple of years without CentOS so everyone used SL6.

[–] scytale@lemm.ee 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

As one comment mentioned, it depends more on the DE. But out of the box, I’d say Peppermint, Elementary, and Mint.

[–] FatLegTed@piefed.social 1 points 2 months ago

I loved Peppermint. Has it been updated/does it work?
Used to use it but it crapped out on me and last couple of versions haven't worked or had printer issues.

[–] Suoko@feddit.it 2 points 2 months ago
[–] ADandHD@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 2 months ago

Manjaro Sway

[–] 737@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 2 months ago

I like the look of tiling wms with a top bar. Hyprland looks especially nice with rounded corners and color gradients. Too bad it's not stable enough to be my daily driver at the moment.

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