Recommended DEs that aren't as common

[-]

Kitayama_8k@reddit

I don't really get the point of budgie. It just feels like a less developed cinnamon. Gtk and windows-ish. I wouldn't be surprised if it dies as a result of Wayland.

Xfce is sort of in the same boat but more broadly used and heavily modifiable, I think it a deserves it's niche.

Lxqt is worth a mention because people can mod it to look really nice with a bunch of kde software, maybe without it becoming the neverending configuration menu kde is.

Pantheon, hey it looks like a Mac sort of. Imo the worst part of Mac is the UI though so....

[-]

bstamour@reddit

Openbox is a tried and true classic that doesn't get that much airplay anymore.

[-]

donp1ano@reddit

i love my openbox. too bad it will die with xorg

[-]

kcirick@reddit

LabWC is openbox equivalent in Wayland.

[-]

donp1ano@reddit

i have a bunch of workflow customization / automization scripts that rely on wmctrl, xdotool, etc. im also really used to autokey ...

wayland doesnt offer alternatives for that, so i will stay on x11 for now. i will pretty much have to migrate sooner or later, but RN x11 still feels very usable

[-]

OneTurnMore@reddit

Wayland is a mixed bag on this front. As for cross-compositor tooling, you're looking at three protocols:

The virtual keyboard protocol has wide adoption.

The other two protocols are to my knowledge wlroots-specific. Those are for a virtual pointer and for foreign toplevel management (i.e. window control).

wtype is specific to virtual keyboard, and wlrctl supports all three.

I tried wlrctl a few years ago, but the toplevel protocol doesn't promise stable window IDs the same way X11 does. I ended up swapping out my wmctrl usage for the i3/sway IPC. It's compositor-specific, but at the time I was actually between i3 and sway so it was actually more portable.

For input, there's also ydotool which works at a lower level, creating actual /dev/input* devices to send keyboard and pointer events. This has the added benefit of working under X as well.

Not sayin' it's as mature as the X stuff, just giving you the landscape if you want to start exploring.

[-]

donp1ano@reddit

thanks

i did some testing with sway and its better than i thought. i even got some hacky workaround working to have application specific dynamic keybinds (with swaymsg, wtype and a bash script)

since sway is wlroots based would swaymsg be usable on other wlroots compositors?

[-]

OneTurnMore@reddit

No, the sway IPC isn't. Other niche compositors in the space have taken inspiration and implement similar programs.

wltctrl uses the Wayland protocol and would be portable between all the wlroots compositors

[-]

RaXXu5@reddit

LabWC is great, but maybe a bit barebones right now. You could probably build a pretty good environment around it.

As far as I know it hasn’t gotten the new explicit sync merged from the latest wlroots release.

[-]

dawsers@reddit

I wrote and use scroll which is a compatible fork of sway with a scrolling layout like PaperWM, Niri or Hyprscroller.

[-]

TheNinthJhana@reddit

You stated why you gave up on Hypr plugin which makes sense, but just out of curiosity why Niri was not a possible base? (or even contributing to it?) Disclaimer : did not try scroll yet so I may miss something obvious

[-]

dawsers@reddit

Niri is a great project, and it was developed in parallel to hyprscroller (the Hyprland plugin), so even though both come from a similar idea (PaperWM), each made different decisions along the way. When I decided to start scroll, the easiest way was to reuse some of hyprscroller features and algorithms. Niri had grown in a different direction. sway was stable and robust, and provided me with a blank slate to re-implement things, so it was easier to add most features found in hyprscroller, but also correcting some of its mistakes. I wanted to support landscape and portrait mode monitor layouts from the ground up, provide content scaling, not just workspace scaling and a few other things. If you want to see the differences in concept between Niri and scroll, I recomment you have a look at scroll's tutorial linked from the main README. It has a lot of videos, and you will see they are both scrolling layouts, but they do things differently.

[-]

nevon@reddit

God I love scrolling layouts. Such an underrated model, in my mind. I've been using and supporting PaperWM for quite a while, which now sadly is unmaintained.

[-]

TAFvwm@reddit

It's nice to see this in other WMs, but it's not anything new.

Virtual Desktops are really old, and being able to pan around a single display has been around even longer than that.

[-]

dawsers@reddit

The only really "new" thing is per window content scaling. I haven't seen that in other WMs. You can scale the content of any Wayland window independently, not just zoom in and out the window. The client believes the resolution is different, adapts the UI to it and you can continue working with the window

[-]

dawsers@reddit

PaperWM was really cool. I started this trip as a user of PaperWM. Then I made some contributions to it. Being an extension is always hard because you depend a lot on changes upstream, some of which may require a lot of work in the extension. That's what happened to me when I wrote hyprscroller for Hyprland, which was the next WM I used. So in the end I had to find a new home, scroll.

[-]

SufficientlyAnnoyed@reddit

Very cool! Playing with this when I get home.

[-]

airakushodo@reddit

yo what first time i hear of scrolling layout and that video is tripping.

[-]

Boring_Material_1891@reddit

I only clicked and watched the video because of this comment and agree. That’s wild and really rad.

[-]

djustice_kde@reddit

flippin' sweet ride yo.

[-]

New-Refrigerator6583@reddit

Deepin cutefish lxde

[-]

2011Mercury@reddit

Enlightenment was always pretty unique in its heyday 20 years ago.

Moksha Desktop on Bodhi Linux is never talked about.

GNUStep is still a thing and IMHO the best place to try is Window Maker Live, based on Debian.

NsCDE is pretty rad, its a fvwm implementation of CDE. CDE itself was made libre about a decade ago and there were builds for modern platforms for a while, not sure how that's going any more.

[-]

yourplainvanillaguy@reddit

Gaahhh… I miss Enlightenment.

[-]

frnxt@reddit

I spent a couple years on e16 and Slax back then, Englightenment was/is great.

[-]

Emotional_Prune_6822@reddit

Moksha is awesome. Super lightweight, it’s awesome. Would use it if it had Wayland

[-]

whitepixe1@reddit

I use LXQt as my only DE choice everywhere now - Devuan, Void, FreeBSD, especially after I ditched Gnome from my Desktops likings. LXQt - backupped by the power of the KDE Application Framework, but without the clutter of the Plasma itself.

----------------------------------------------------------
💎 Devuan | No systemd, no drama

[-]

japanese_temmie@reddit

Cinnamon. You might miss wayland, but you'll probably like it.

[-]

daemonpenguin@reddit

Cinnamon has a Wayland session.

[-]

japanese_temmie@reddit

yeah, but if you're not using the American keyboard layout, it's pretty much useless.

[-]

Upstairs-Comb1631@reddit

What about USA keyboard layout?

[-]

japanese_temmie@reddit

That's the only keyboard layout as of now

[-]

Upstairs-Comb1631@reddit

argh :(

[-]

OffsetXV@reddit

It isn't really usable for a lot of things yet, definitely not something to rely on

[-]

Stooovie@reddit

I like it but it's famously unstable

[-]

japanese_temmie@reddit

Been using it since Cinnamon 6.2 and never crashed on me once. I love it.

[-]

emrldgh@reddit (OP)

I've used cinnamon before, it's okay but personally not for me

[-]

japanese_temmie@reddit

There's also XFCE and MATE. Some really nice DEs.

[-]

firebreathingbunny@reddit

https://www.gilesorr.com/wm/ttable.html
https://www.gilesorr.com/wm/xwmtable.html
https://www.gilesorr.com/wm/table.html

[-]

OneTurnMore@reddit

text mode link is missing Zellij, Wayland is missing Cosmic and probably more

[-]

firebreathingbunny@reddit

Feel free to submit suggestions to the webmaster. I'm not him.

[-]

80kman@reddit

Enlightenment is still keeping an old, touch enabled netbook in daily use in 2025. It has tiling built in as well as touch gestures, and takes 300-400 mb of memory usage.

[-]

Upstairs-Comb1631@reddit

Budgie is a small project (4 people?). I also think that people hardly know about him. So he encounters the same pitfalls as others. It has potential, but I wouldn't recommend it to the people around me. Because of inconsistencies (at themes) and bugs.

[-]

Abbazabba616@reddit

I like LXQt and XFCE. I use KDE, though.

[-]

ParadoxicalFrog@reddit

I settled on LXQt after my first few years with Linux. Xfce is also nice. Both are very simple and lightweight.

[-]

kcirick@reddit

I’m giving my vote to my own WM/compositor SimpleWC because I made it by myself, for my specific needs and for my learning experience. If I want to have a specific feature, I’ll add it, and if I don’t need certain feature I can remove it for less bloat/code cleanliness. I’m in complete control.

It has become pretty stable and I’ve been daily driving it with little issues so I’m happy.

[-]

EquivalentForeign435@reddit

I will try it. I am dwm user and I wanted to try wayland and nothing really cached my eye until now

[-]

FlashOfAction@reddit

I have been using TDE - Trinity Desktop Environment - for a few years. I'll never use another DE.

[-]

khayasen@reddit

I like pantheon

[-]

vulnicurautopia@reddit

lxqt is great and deepin de looks quite modern

[-]

Keely369@reddit

Another vote for LxQt. If you want something lightweight but using a modern stack and still actively developed, this is the way.

[-]

michaelpaoli@reddit

Let's see, how 'bout some objective data ...

by least "popular" (installed):

DEs:

lxqt
gnome-session-flashback
lxde
cinnamon-desktop-environment
mate-desktop-environment
kde-standard
xfce4
gnome-core
desktop-base

(desktop-base Recommends the logical OR of the others, with gnome listed first)

WMs:

miwm
subtle
clfswm
windowlab
w9wm
aewm++
amiwm
9wm
vtwm
lwm
wm2
cwm
evilwm
icewm-experimental
ctwm
ukwm
afterstep
stumpwm
flwm
pekwm
spectrwm
fvwm-crystal
fvwm1
matchbox-window-manager
mwm
herbstluftwm
notion
fvwm3
sawfish
jwm
bspwm
blackbox
ratpoison
enlightenment
dwm
xmonad
wmaker
fvwm
icewm
awesome
twm
fluxbox
i3-wm
metacity
mutter
openbox
cinnamon
marco
muffin
kwin-x11
xfwm4

ref:

$ cat /etc/debian_version
12.11
$ DEs=$(echo $(for pkg in $(for task in $(tasksel --list-tasks | awk '{if($2 ~ /desktop$/) print $2;}'); do tasksel --task-packages "$task"; done); do r="$(echo "$pkg" | sed -e 's/^task-//;s/-desktop$//;s/-flashback$/-session&/')"; apt-cache depends "$pkg" | sed -ne 's/^  Depends: \(.*\)$/\1/p' | grep -E "$r(-(base|standard)|[0-9]*)"; done) | sed -e 's/ /|/g;s/.*/(&)/')
$ WMs=$(echo $(aptitude -F '%p' search '?provides(x-window-manager)') | sed -e 's/ /|/g;s/\+/\\&/g;s/.*/(&)/')
$ curl -LORs https://popcon.debian.org/by_inst.gz
$ gzip -d < by_inst.gz | sed -e '/^#/d' | awk '{if($2 ~/^'"$DEs"'$/)print $2;}' | tac
$ gzip -d < by_inst.gz | sed -e '/^#/d' | awk '{if($2 ~/^'"$WMs"'$/)print $2;}' | tac
$

[-]

rwa2@reddit

What happened to compiz-fusion? That was the fancy 3D exposé desktop with all the bells and whistles not too long ago.

Still provides some unparalleled over the top effects for doing presentation spotlights / highlights / fireworks / ripples / wobbles

[-]

Keely369@reddit

KDE or Gnome with 'Burn my Windows' gives a lot of the same goodness Compiz provided.

[-]

michaelpaoli@reddit

It lacks the Provides tag x-window-manager

$ apt-cache show compiz | grep '^Provides:' || echo 'has no Provides tags at all!'
has no Provides tags at all!
$

Feel free to report the bug (if it's not already submitted).

These packages have both window and manager in the Description field, but lack the x-window-manager Provides tag, but it probably also includes a lot of false positives:

$ echo $(aptitude -F '%p' search '?and(?and(?description(window),?description(manager)),?not(?provides(x-window-manager)))' | sort)
9menu aewm++-goodies afterstep-data android-platform-frameworks-native-headers apt-offline apt-offline-gui arctica-greeter-remote-logon ascd ascdc asmail asmixer awesome-doc awesome-extra bbmail bbpager bbtime blackbox-themes boomaga bumblebee-status bumblebee-status-doc bwidget byobu cage caja-admin choosewm compiz compiz-bcop compiz-boxmenu compiz-core compiz-dev compiz-gnome compiz-mate compiz-plugins compiz-plugins-experimental compiz-plugins-extra compiz-plugins-main compizconfig-settings-manager copyq deb-gview dex dunst dvtm dzen2 e2wm efl-doc elpa-exwm elpa-eyebrowse elpa-perspective emacs-window-layout emerald emerald-themes enlightenment-data enlightenment-dev fbpager frescobaldi fspanel fsviewer-icons fusion-icon fvwm-icons gentoo gir1.2-meta-muffin-0.0 gir1.2-mutter-11 gir1.2-ukwm-1 gir1.2-wnck-1.0 gir1.2-wnck-3.0 gkrellm gkrellm-cpufreq gnome-session-flashback gnome-shell-extensions gnome-tweaks gnumeric golang-github-kardianos-service-dev grabc grun gsimplecal gtk3-nocsd hpanel i3 i3blocks i3pystatus icewm-common icewm-lite icoextract-thumbnailer impass impressive-display imv jgmenu jgmenu-xfce4-panel-applet kbdd kdocker keepass2 keepass2-doc kwin-common kwin-data kwin-dev kwin-style-breeze kwin-wayland libafterimage-dev libafterimage0 libafterstep1 libanyevent-i3-perl libbt-dev libbt0 libcompizconfig0 libcompizconfig0-dev libefl-all-dev libemeraldengine-dev libemeraldengine0 libghc-xmonad-contrib-dev libghc-xmonad-contrib-doc libghc-xmonad-contrib-prof libghc-xmonad-dev libghc-xmonad-doc libghc-xmonad-prof libgtk3-nocsd0 libkdecorations2-5v5 libkdecorations2-dev libkdecorations2private10 libkf5windowsystem-data libkf5windowsystem-dev libkf5windowsystem-doc libkf5windowsystem5 libkwineffects14 libkwinglutils14 libmarco-dev libmarco-private2 libmetacity-dev libmetacity3 libmuffin-dev libmuffin0 libmutter-11-0 libmutter-11-dev libmutter-test-11 libobrender32v5 libobt2v5 libukwm-1-0 libukwm-1-dev libvalapanel-dev libwings-dev libwings3 libwmaker-dev libwmaker1 libwutil5 libx11-protocol-other-perl libxcb-ewmh-dev libxcb-ewmh2 libxcb-icccm4 libxcb-icccm4-dev libxcomposite-dev libxcomposite1 libxosd2 libzeus-jscl-java libzeus-jscl-java-doc light lightdm-autologin-greeter ltpanel lxhotkey-core lxhotkey-data lxhotkey-dev lxhotkey-gtk lxhotkey-plugin-openbox lxpanel lxsession mapivi marco-common mat2 matchbox-panel-manager matchbox-themes-extra mate-desktop-environment-core mate-tweak menu menu-l10n menu-xdg metacity-common metacity-themes muffin-common murrine-themes mutter-11-tests mutter-common nautilus-admin notion-dev nsxiv obconf openbox-dev openbox-gnome-session openbox-kde-session password-gorilla pconsole pekwm-themes pngphoon python-ewmh-doc python-psutil-doc python3-compizconfig python3-ewmh python3-i3ipc python3-psutil python3-showinfilemanager python3-smmap python3-tmuxp ratmenu sawfish-data sawfish-lisp-source sawfish-themes simple-ccsm simple-image-reducer suckless-tools sugar-session surf-display sway sway-backgrounds sxiv tcllib tcvt tdc telepathy-haze testdisk texlive-base tint2 tkdesk tmuxp trayer tuxcmd ukwm-common unagi unagi-dbg unagi-dev unclutter-xfixes vdesk veyon-configurator vim-scripts wbar wdm windows-el winwrangler wm-icons wmaker-common wmaker-utils wmanager wmauda wmbubble wmbutton wmcalclock wmcpuload wmctrl wmdiskmon wmdocker wmfsm wmget wmifs wmload wmlongrun wmmemload wmmixer wmmoonclock wmnd wmnd-snmp wmppp.app wmpuzzle wmrack wmsun wmwave wmweather wmweather+ wmwork wsdd x2gothinclient-displaymanager xbindkeys xfce4-session xfce4-taskmanager xfdesktop4 xfe xfe-i18n xfe-themes xfwm4-theme-breeze xgterm xkbind xmobar xorg xpra xssproxy yabar
$

[-]

throwaway89124193@reddit

Lxqt!! It's the only one i like using haha

[-]

redoubt515@reddit

I like Budgie, I stopped using it until they implement wayland support, but I think its a pretty nice DE.

[-]

DavidJohnMcCann@reddit

I use Xfce. It was actually the first open-source DE and for me it remains the best. As one of the developers once said, it aims to just do the job without getting under your feet or in your face.

The first GUI I ever used was IceWM, but with WMs there's always some feature I need that they don't have.

[-]

Business-Help-7876@reddit

CDE, it's super efficient and optimized for 90s workstations, but you need almost all X deps

[-]

Maykey@reddit

My fork of niri "called" rice_combined. (It's a branch name with combined other branches, some features from them I propose to the main repo, without luck so far)

It has fancy transparent overview, sway-like modes to easily switch between keybindings on the fly, and a special queue of keycodes that can emulate keyboard presses. The queue is used by very primitive password manager that uses this queue. Insecure as keycodes can be seen by ps aux for now, but keepassxc passwords can be seen by examining clipboard(I read several ways to make keepassxc's autotype work, but it just doesn't, so I gave up and made my own autotype with blackjack and hookers)

[-]

sidusnare@reddit

WindowMaker

[-]

mmmboppe@reddit

ratpoison

[-]

rwa2@reddit

... tiling wm because we don't need no mice

[-]

bruce4343@reddit

I've gone back and forth between mate and xfce (currently mate) for my desktops quite a few times but both are comfy not too flashy and don't get in your way

[-]

FairyToken@reddit

https://hikari.acmelabs.space/

Hikari - A Wayland Compositor

[-]

XzwordfeudzX@reddit

Rio from plan9port if you want a completely different experience.

[-]

Johnginji009@reddit

enlightenment ( bodhi linux ) ,lxqt ,budgie ,openbox ,icewm

[-]

Jv5_Guy@reddit

Sugar

[-]

Big-Afternoon-3422@reddit

Cosmic

[-]

BiteFancy9628@reddit

Openbox

[-]

BasedArzy@reddit

I've used Budgie for probably 7 or 8 years now?

Works great, feels comfy.

[-]

randomcharacters859@reddit

My favorite was always Enlightenment.

[-]

Savings_Walk_1022@reddit

try sxwm. it does use x instead of wl though

[-]

Great-TeacherOnizuka@reddit

Cinnamon

[-]

pibarnas@reddit

pekwm

[-]

ntropia64@reddit

I don't think it's such an exotic and unknown WM like blackbox, but since nobody mentioned it, FluxBox. It was my go-to WM to replace KDE for low-resource environments and laptops.

Since Xorg is going to be abandoned soon, I'm working toward replacing it with Sway, which I feel shares a lot of conceptual similarities.

(Man, I just realized I'm going to miss the slit with the moon phases widget and the LED displays for hardware resources...)

[-]

zlice0@reddit

fluxbox!!!

convince me on wayland... go...

[-]

CLM1919@reddit

I use LXDE (which is technically a Desktop Environment built on OpenBox)

but found it suited me better for daily driving than the OpenBox implementation in CrunchBang++ (distro).

Oddly, under running the same apps D12/LXDE and #!++ performed about the same on my low end Chromebooks - I still use #!++ on a 2nd laptop sometimes as a "smart monitor", but only for a few select apps and to keep extra web pages viewable.

IceWM is on my summer list for making another boot-able sd-card.

[-]

uberbewb@reddit

I always liked budgie Pantheon seemed nice too

[-]

Rerum02@reddit

Budgie was pretty good on my laptop, just waiting for them to move over to Wayland (laptop has a HiDPi screen)

[-]

SAJewers@reddit

They said in their last blog post back in January it would be shipping Q1 2025, so hopefully it's soon

[-]

TCB13sQuotes@reddit

Look, I'm not going to say I like or I don't like your DE choice... and before anything else let me say I hate GNOME very much. However... the "you can pick whatever DE you want" idea is mostly BS, it just take 5 min to install some application that depends on GTK and you're suddenly dragging 90% of GNOME's dependencies into your system and you end up with a frankenstein of a system that can even be worst than running GNOME as is from the begining.

Yes, it's sad, but it's the type of bs we deal with.

[-]

NatoBoram@reddit

Snaps and Flatpaks can really help with that

[-]

TCB13sQuotes@reddit

Yeah and they also help to make sure your password manager can never communicate with your browser, and more space and more time to start.

[-]

NatoBoram@reddit

Relatable, haha

[-]

midnight-salmon@reddit

FVWM! Complex config but you can really make it into whatever you want. Mine is set up to look and function like the CDE but more minimalist (no big bar at the bottom; as lovely as that was, it's not ideal for wide-screen monitors).

[-]

fashice@reddit

I switched many times. Always going back to xmonad.

https://www.henriaanstoot.nl/2023/08/30/linux-window-managers-and-distributions/ (Need to add hyprland)

Enlightenment is still going strong (2024)

[-]

djustice_kde@reddit

i was an E15/16 user as a teenager. good times. after i grokked the Qt3/4 api, KDE was the only way. unreal engine is Qt. google earth is Qt. write once, run everywhere. i shudder at the thought of the verbose java classes, android intents, the never ending rc files..

[-]

SoftwareAlert@reddit

Wayfire Easily reprogrammable with c++ and has a bunch of unique features, like rotating or say rotating windows, which functions as a stress ball, so productivity rises.

[-]

TheBigJizzle@reddit

Try out a tilling window manager maybe? I love em personally

[-]

emrldgh@reddit (OP)

i'm currently on hyprland lmao im looking to switch to a DE bc i dont really like tiling the more i try it

[-]

TheBigJizzle@reddit

If only I've read the entire post, MB!

I've heard good about Cinnamon in that case

[-]

abotelho-cbn@reddit

There's a reason the common ones are common. They support Wayland.

[-]

pc_load_ltr@reddit

Ubuntu Budgie has been a fantastic distro. I've been using it since 20.04. As a dev, I needed something that just worked out of the box but with more sane defaults. I also wanted something more modern looking than the MATE desktop that I had used prior. I haven't checked around as of late but I believe Budgie may still have about the best theming/layout capabilities you'll find. You can make your desktop look like just about anything else super easy (check out the long thread on Ubuntu Budgie's forums of users showing off their desktops). At the time I chose MATE way back when, one thing I liked about it was its complete support for drag/drop. Back then, Mint's other editions didn't have quite as broad of DnD support and when I made the move to Budgie, it was after making sure that Budgie did (again, I'm a dev and DnD matters a lot to me -- it's all about workflow). And speaking of workflow, the Shuffler app in Budgie is a really good window tiler that compliments other Linux niceties such as having multiple workspaces. System updates are smooth as hell on UB... Oh, and it's plenty fast. I'm running it on a Celeron without issues... BTW, I highly recommend anyone looking to distro hop spend some quality time on distrosea.com. There, you can easily short-list a lot of Linux distros by test driving them right in your web browser. Good luck on your search!

[-]

Sure_Research_6455@reddit

i've been using exwm for YEARS

[-]

bubblegumpuma@reddit

I am very partial to XFCE and LXQT. Both have them have been around in one form or another for a very long time (LXQT was kinda sorta once LXDE) and provide a very solid and stable baseline experience. They're also pretty modular, you can take each of the components and use them in some window manager based environment, or take whatever window manager you please and substitute it into XFCE or LXQT's session. That's also how they're providing initial Wayland support - XFCE might write a Wayland compositor in the future, but for now, they are porting everything else and recommending people to use a standalone compositor like labwc or sway.

I also like to point out that XFCE's 'transition' to Wayland is being done in a way that lets them maintain the X11 session alongside the Wayland session for as long as they need to, by using an intermediary library that translates between the two protocols as necessary. As a late adopter of Wayland, I really like this approach - I've got nothing against Wayland, I've been experimenting with it lately on systems where Wayland compositors are noticeably more performant, I'm just resistant to change.

[-]

bunkbail@reddit

forget about cutefish, the fish is dead dead

[-]

emrldgh@reddit (OP)

poor fish :(

[-]