Vanilla gnome isn’t for me so I used to install some extensions when I used it.

After a few hopping, I stopped using Gnome, because I find that painful to :

• install the extension app (the one that allow you to download and manage the extensions, and that is usually not the one installed, it might have changed, as I stopped using Gnome for a year or even more)
• install the extensions I want
• configure the extensions

On KDE, I just have to set it as I need it.

If you do not change distributions everyday, then it’s not a big issue I guess.

But it might be troublesome for beginners trying distributions that have vanilla-close gnome to know that extensions exist. My needs are not complicated, so I only used extensions that allow me to have a dock on both of my screens, and to have the minimize button.

What an horror ! What are you gonna do ? Use your working system ? That’s sad…

Linux has been the biggest rabbit hole I’ve been in. There are too many distribution for me to choose one without testing as much as I can. It made me change what I wanted/needed. I went from “I don’t want to use CLI at all” to “man, GUI is too slow for that”.

I tried many Debian children and grand children distributions, Fedora based ones (Nobara, atomics bases,…), Opensuse, NixOS, Solus, arch based distributions…

Now, I’m on cachyOS, that seems to be the good balance I need (for now), between GUI/already configured and “I can do it the way I want”.

One year after starting using Linux, I’ve switched from a 3060ti to a 6700xt, just because it made hopping easier.

If you exclude me not being able to settle down on a distro, Linux is a funny experience to me. My needs are not that big, as I just play some games, have a light need of an office suite. I can do anything I used to to in windows, but without Microsoft and his friends looking above my shoulder.

KDE : it’s the only DE where I can have 2 identical panels (app pined+ full system tray) on each of my 2 screens without installing extensions.

KDE can do what I want without having to look for extensions. Breeze theme is good enough for me, I don’t need to look for something else. So far it’s the best out of the box experience I had.

I prefer Gnome look, but I distr’hop too often to have the courage to setup the desktop every time.

GNOME with dash to panel. It allow you to clone it I guess. dash to dock allow you to copy the dock, so only the applications, not the systray.

KDE allows you to create panels on every screen, with the systray. You’ll have to replicate them manually (pin the applications or whatever you put on your first panel).

Others DE I tried had flaws for that :

Cinnamon cannot have all the systray on the second panel.

Budgie doesn’t allow you to have a panel on the second screen (but you can clone the panel on the same screen).

I’ve seen a video where the guy installed steam on Ubuntu 24.04. Of course it was the snap. The guy usually tests distro to see of it’s easy to game on it. If the drivers are easy to install, etc…

He usually launches steam, then tests Valheim, Overwatch, Tomb Raider and cyberpunk.

Overwatch didn’t launch, cyberpunk neither. Valheim reported that a service didn’t launch. Tomb raider was OK.

Then he uninstalled the steam snap and installed the .deb one. Everything worked.

Enforcing packages is already something that people don’t appreciate on Linux, enforcing packages that don’t work is surprisingly hated.

Ubuntu is supposed to be a distro for beginners, how am I supposed to recommand a distro when I have no confidence the applications will work ?