What makes Linux appealing to me is the extent of customizability, but I didn’t find many answers when looking up with desktop environment is them most customizable. Some say KDE is most customizable than say, Gnome, but doesn’t Gnome support CSS customization while KDE doesn’t?

  • MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml
    4·
    5 hours ago

    No desktop environment. Get a compositor, a runner/menu/app-grid, maybe a panel or dock, set some shortcuts, done desktop environment. It’s how most of wayland outside KDE/Gnome currently works.

  • icogniito@lemmy.zipEnglish
    7·
    14 hours ago

    If infinite customization is what you’re after you shouldn’t use a DE. A WM like i3 och hyprland is much better suited for that

    • tankplanker@lemmy.world
      1·
      4 hours ago

      I used to use gnome and I am heavily into customization. I gave up using gnome as they would constantly change things often for no real reason that whimsy, breaking previously working scripts, extensions and so on so I stopped using it. Its fine if you want to customize the basics like wall paper but I really wouldn’t bother for in-depth customization. Not because it isn’t possible, but because maintenance of it is a PITA.

    • oldfart@lemm.ee
      2·
      6 hours ago

      Doesn’t gnome change their APIs all the time between minor versions, so themes and plugins have to be constantly rewritten?

  • superkret@feddit.org
    241·
    23 hours ago

    KDE has the most options out of the box. You can make it look like Gnome, or act like a tiling window manager, or like Windows 7, 10 or 11, just with the options it contains from the start.
    Gnome comes with almost no options. If you add extensions, or know enough to make your own, the sky is the limit. But I wouldn’t call that “customizable”, you can write your own themes for Plasma, too.
    Xfce is another one that’s very flexible. But it’s very hard to get it to look and feel modern, it will always be an old school desktop, no matter what theming and added docks you throw at it.

    • N0x0n@lemmy.ml
      3·
      16 hours ago

      EndeavourOS’s default XFCE theme looks very modern to me ! I mean sure it looks more like old school windows era, but that doesn’t bother me at all. I like simplicity and customizability.

      What’s cool about XFCE, its only about config files to customize your whole DE.

  • Drito@sh.itjust.works
    3·
    17 hours ago

    I customised Xfce a lot, only with menu settings. I removed the window tabs from the status bar, the focused window title is written on the status bar. The window manager was removed for bspwm. The result is an optimized screen space while keeping the convenience of a DE.

    • Übercomplicated@lemmy.ml
      5·
      19 hours ago

      Yeah, I second this. You may want to look in to DEs/WMs like DWM ©, Xmonad (Haskell), and AwesomeWM (lua) that let you customize them through programming.

  • Fonzie!@ttrpg.network
    33·
    13 hours ago

    I would say XFCE and Cinnamon; no two XFCE’s look alike and Cinnamon can easily be molded into something very different as well.

    I see a lot of people recommending KDE and Gnome; I’ve found those surprisingly rigid, although there are more guides on how to “rice” KDE into the most non-KDE things so there’s that.