When you think of Linux, you probably think of Ubuntu first, and with Ubuntu comes GNOME, the desktop environment most people are familiar with. On top of Ubuntu being so massively popular, GNOME is also the default desktop for a lot of well-known distros, including Debian and Fedora, so it's no wonder it's the most popular.

But popularity doesn't always equal quality, and upon switching to the latest version of KDE Plasma, I was instantly in love with it, much more than I ever was with GNOME. KDE Plasma quickly became my favorite Linux desktop, and I believe it would be yours, too.

It feels more familiar

A proper taskbar to start with

Right off the bat, KDE Plasma feels better because it's simply more familiar to someone who's used Windows all their lives, which is the case for most people trying Linux for the first time. Plasma gives you a taskbar that looks and functions much like the Windows taskbar, though, in typical Linux fashion, you have plenty of options to play around with if you want to change things up.

But that familiarity doesn't just matter when you're looking at a static desktop. It also matters when you're actually using the computer, and GNOME also has a UI that can be a little too overwhelming to an extent. Particularly, the app launcher taking over the entire desktop makes for a pretty frustrating experience that constantly feels like it breaks my flow. It just removes the context of what you're looking at when all you need is to open an app.

In KDE Plasma, you have an application launcher that looks similar enough to the Windows Start menu, and a search bar that opens within it. You can also use Krunner, which opens at the top of your screen, but it never fully changes the context of what you're looking at, and it just feels far more comfortable.

Customization is powerful, but easy

GNOME extensions are nice, but convoluted

Another thing I love about KDE Plasma is the degree of customization it offers in an accessible way. GNOME is heavily customizable, but only really through GNOME extensions, which aren't surfaced to the user and don't have a great way to test them and see what they're like. Extension managers don't show a whole lot of information, and your best bet is using the GNOME extensions website, but everything about it is just a bit convoluted.

It feels like finding good extensions is too reliant on word of mouth, rather than having a nice way to browse them. And without extensions, GNOME is way too limited in how it lets you customize the desktop, making it feel rigid and boring.

KDE Plasma just feels more capable, even though there's definitely a bit of a learning curve, too. The taskbar at the bottom of the screen (technically called a panel) is composed of various applets, and you can add panels to any edge of the screen, and move applets to any panel you want, as well as choose the position of each applet in that panel. You can easily move things around to your heart's content, and all of these capabilities are just part of Plasma, you don't need to find an obscure extensions platform or anything. KDE Plasma applets are listed with a screenshot, and it's easy to add and remove applets on the fly, so there's less of a hurdle to trying different things. Discovering these customization options for the first time is probably the biggest hurdle here, though you'll see it right away by just right-clicking the panel.

Plus, visual customization goes much deeper with Plasma compared to GNOME without extensions. There's a whole theming section in the System Settings app with options for global themes, icon themes, colors, and much more, and it all works seamlessly and provides a ton of customization options to get just the right look. Plus, you get good previews of each theme before installing it, so you know what you're getting into most of the time.

Window management is nearly perfect

Again, no extensions needed

One of my favorite bits about KDE Plasma is its window management, which takes some lessons from PowerToys on Windows 11. Using the appropriate GNOME extension, you can actually replicate PowerToys pretty well, but Plasma has this feature built right into the default experience, and it's wonderful.

Basically, you can define any number of areas on the desktop that you want to be able to snap apps to, designing a tiled interface where all your apps fit. Then, while you're using your apps, you can drag them, hold Shift on your keyboard, and it will automatically highlight the designated areas for you to snap a window to. You can just drag a window into that general area and it snaps into it perfectly.

This is far better than the default window management in GNOME, and, in my opinion, better than a typical tiling window manager. To my knowledge, no other desktop behaves like this by default, whether it's on Linux or other platforms. I love that I don't have to look for janky solutions that don't play well with the default behaviors.

Adding features that matter

KDE Plasma 6.6 brought some big news

On top of the basics that KDE Plasma has done well for a long time, it's also amazing to see how much work the team consistently puts into improving the desktop with legitimately helpful features, which you may not even think of bny yourself. KDE Plasma 6.6 had a couple of these that are very noteworthy.

One is an option to hide any given window from a screencast. How often have you had to carefully handle your open windows to avoid sharing sensitive information during a call, or maybe hide Reddit during a work meeting? Or maybe you're using recording software like OBS and you don't want to have to minimize it and then trim the video so you don't show that window. This option lets you make it so that a given window is completely invisible in recorded videos or screen shares, so you never have to worry about making sure that window is minimized or on a different screen.

Another thing KDE Plasma 6.6 allows is creating a "virtual screen" for apps like OBS, where you can open apps that are only shown to the recording software. Again, this makes it easier to record videos like tutorials without having to juggle different apps and worry about what's visible and what isn't. It's seriously cool. And the KDE team makes big additions like this fairly frequently with its updates to Plasma, so things are always exciting.

KDE Plasma is the best Linux desktop

It may be outrageous to some and too predictable for others, but KDE Plasma is my favorite Linux desktop by far, and the fact that it keeps improving steadily makes the decision to keep using it very easy. I have no intention of going back to GNOME, and I recommend trying out KDE Plasma yourself if you haven't already.