I like GNOME but there’s something so frustrating about how much it’s lacking out of the box. It feels like you have to fish out a lot of extensions to make it comfortable to use, and these extensions often break each update. Not having native support for a taskbar to quickly show/minimize the apps you have open… Just why?

Luckily a lot of distros do add those features out of the box like Zorin/Nobara, but otherwise I’d just go for Plasma. A lot of Gnome feels like it’s copying Mac for the sake of copying Mac which I don’t like very much, but maybe I’m biased because I mostly use and got comfortable with Windows-style UI. People compared it to Windows 8 and I totally agree, the way they want you to use Gnome feels more like it’s made for tablets than desktops.

Gnome is pretty good otherwise, it’s just their team makes weird decisions and never seem to change their stance.

What I like:

• I like GNOME 40 more than GNOME 3 because it’s prettier.
• I like GNOME in general because it’s stable with pretty, high quality bundled programs.
• I like the UX. It takes all the good things about the macOS UX and makes them better, while taking all the bad things and making them less stupid.
• I like that they completely separate the dock from normal window management, so I never hit it when my cursor reaches the edge of the screen.
• I like that you can set Nautilus to use one-click to open folders, even though that is cribbed from Dolphin. (Even if I use lf most of the time)
• I like the simple IBus integration that lets me setup my Japanese IME easily.

What I dislike:

• I dislike that I need a system tray extension for some software.
• I dislike how in-your-face the notifications are and that they can’t be stacked.
• I dislike that I need to use Dconf to set shortcuts for workspaces 5-10.
• I dislike needing GNOME Tweaks to set autostart software/daemons—this is a basic feature, not a “tweak”.
• I dislike not having an easy way to port my settings for GNOME to a new computer. It’s annoying to have to set all this stuff up again compared to Sway, where I clone a repository and copy some config files over.
• I dislike the new screenshot tool in GNOME 40+. It automatically saves photos to a directory, rather than letting me copy it. Come to think of it, I also dislike that it doesn’t support the same screenshot protocols Sway does for grim and slurp, which is my favorite screenshot workflow.

Coming from Windows, gnome was the desktop that taught me how to use and appreciate multiple workspaces. I’m now entirely sold on KDE, but there’s something to be said about the gnome workflow.

GNOME is opinionated and beautiful. Lots of focus on reasonable design instead of massive amount of customization. It also has a great app ecosystem and documentation. I love it.

I use vanilla gnome. Dead simple, no nonsense, gets out of my way. Perfect DE for me.

gnome 40+ has a great workflow
coming from windows 10, it was different at first but now it feels just natural

I ran Pop! OS for about a day which uses Gnome (don’t know which version) and while I liked bits of it I really disliked the file browser and image viewer. The file browser makes it difficult to browse folders outside of my home folder, there are no image previews and there’s a needlessly large gap between folders and files wasting visual space. The image viewer is not great, it can’t open the images made by my Nikon DSLR and quite a few times the image viewer would load the image at full resolution putting the title bar off the top of the monitor.

I use a vanilla Gnome without extensions - Arch Linux.

• clean desktop
• I don’t want distraction desktop with tons of infos…app like NextCloud must running without infos about syn etc.
• for productivity need clean and optimal desktop with tiling windows
• 3 or 4 working desktops
• and keyboard shortcuts

Most important for me, less blotware, functional, clean and minimal distraction - minimalist desktop.

I like GNOME because I don’t want customizability.

OK, I like a bit of customizability, but I’m not a designer and trying to make things look consistent and nice is a pain. I once spent days making an icon theme work in Xfce (the freedesktop standards for naming icons are not followed by anyone… (meaning both Xfce and icon themes))

I use GNOME as is and accept it and everything is swell.

Also I use a laptop and I’m addicted the three-finger swipe window preview…

I like Gnome Shell. It’s polished and extensible. Libadwaita and the header bars are nice as well. I generally prefer nautilus to dolphin, even if I hate having to ctrl-l to edit the path.

I use KDE however because Mutter is still dogshit slow, especially in wayland. My work PC has a R5 3600, RX 570, and 48GB ram and it struggles to maintain 60fps across 3 1080p monitors. KWin runs significantly better, so I use KDE and just configure it like I would Gnome.

I hate the giant app menu thing where everything is massive and clearly designed to accommodate a touch interface, so I’ve never used it much beyond that. I am on a desktop, not a mobile device, why is it designed like a mobile device? It’s the same thing people hated about Windows 8, why the hell would you follow that design philosophy?? I really don’t get it.

I understand you can use extensions and whatnot to change that, but why would I want to fight with it when other DE’s are already designed for a desktop experience? Gnome is just flat out not for me.

What I hate is CSD… using it with CSD is sad for #xfce user :'(

I remember my first time installing Ubuntu as a teenager and the fact that the desktop environment was Gnome made me hate it. At that age and time I wanted something familiar and Windows-like. Since then, 13 years ago, I always hated Gnome (and Ubuntu) and I don’t feel like that is going to change any time soon.

The new SteamOS opened my eyes to KDE Plasma and now I am running Garuda on my main desktop. Eventually I plan to switch to Arch and “make my own distro” or just use SteamOS once it gets official desktop release.

Using it because it’s the least buggy DE i’ve tried so far. With a few extensions the workflow isn’t too bad either.

I love the design of the applications in general tho, in the sense that they do one thing and one thing only and there aren’t a billion options trying to cover every use case without doing any of them well.

i like the consistency, smoothness, ease of use and customizability of gnome. you can find an extension for anything. however, the stock layout is pretty barebones. it forces you to learn to use it the way the developer team intended. it’s great that the team has a clear vision of what they want gnome to be, but for me personally, it lacks some things that i’m used to from years of using windows.