gtk3, gtk4 (probably?) qt, qt in flatpak, gtk3 in flatpak, gtk4 in flatpak (probably)... I'm just not fighting it anymore
this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2025
307 points (97.8% liked)
Linux
57937 readers
1677 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Meanwhile kde:
Kde has mostly small padding and alignment issues instead of having a completely random design.
I can live with that.
Honestly I just want KDE to do the backbone and GNOME to do the designs.
Adwaita apps look just right, minimalistic yet powerful, pinnacle of modern simplified designs. Everything you actually need is close, and the rest doesn't clog the view.
The rest of GNOME is heavily meh. Customization is next to nothing, and generally any workflow falling outside the one window = one task paradigm is gonna be a pain. Settings are convoluted and sometimes straight up unreachable without additional tools or config edits (and sometimes they don't even apply).
I guess what unites Adwaita and GNOME project overall is the stubborn adversity to users making it comfy for themselves - it's the GNOME way, or no way. And while Adwaita is at least actually good in its defaults, GNOME is not.
KDE, on the other hand, is brilliant as a desktop environment, but menus could be so, so much better. So, when I have a choice, I use Adwaita-themed apps on KDE. With proper theming on KDE side of things, they come together just right.
Agreed completely.
KDE just feels better and more performant. Even if GNOME Shell uses less memory in its own, it doesnt always feel good to use.
However GNOME Shell and Adwaita are beautiful, consistent, and designed through human feedback. KDE is fragmented, too nested, and has so many conflicting designs.
Its not possible to make KDE feel exactly like GNOME Shell but I wish I could.
This is kinda how I feel about gnome too. I haven't really gave it a full proper try but it's just so hard to do any kind of customization that I just kind of gave up and switched to kde.
Some points are valid, but this looks more like the author (of the image) wanted to highlight as much as possible to confirm their own bias (that it's not well designed). Maybe I'm being ragebaited, but here we go:
Yeah, one shows breadcrumbs and the other a title.
First one is the "start menu" button. The tasks could also have text labels on them, of course they can have a different width to an unrelated element.
It can show two lines of text (as evidenced by the third item in the same row). It would look pretty bad if every item was centered on their own.
It looks good, but the red line the author connected from the snowflake to the horizontal line of the "H" doesn't necessarily back their claim that this is "absolutely pixel perfect alignment" because the horizontal line of the "H" might not be geometrically centered to the line height of the text and you could also have different characters in different languages.
Yeah, some elements like the scrollbars aren't positioned well (in this screenshot, this is a bit outdated tbh). But there's also the concept of a visual center as opposed to the geometric center.
Pixel perfect doesn't mean that things will feel aligned. This is a very naive vision of UI design. I'm not saying that things can't be improved but this is not a valid point
GNOME: Designers trying to Develop a desktop. KDE: Developers trying to Design a desktop.
Yeah there's no way I could come close to as-good as their UI. I'm just here to watch the CSS nerds fight
i found the original in reddit, from about four years ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/tffr4l/some_kde_plasma_uiux_problems/#lightbox
(i'm not saying it's related, but at least people should be able to read the text now)
Thanks, I updated my post.
Looks much better to me nowadays, although yes, I am not using the default Breeze theme. But if there are any problems in the theme I am using, they are much more likely to not be present in Breeze.
Some "issues" pointed out in the picture are not issues at all.
The "Different font styles and sizes" for example, because they are used for different things with different scopes and user interaction.
I am very glad that you have found what makes you happy, keep using what you like- those icons hurt my soul
Those icons are definitely for someone, just not me.
All of that and it's still nicer to look at for me haha.
I feel it has gotten much better in recent years. The first time I tried KDE 5 it looked weird to me. But now I acutally quite like KDE 6. Or maybe I've just learned to tolerate it...
Oh for fuck’s sake…
Actually, I don’t. What am I looking at?
I have a theory that if everything was pixel perfect, centered, perfectly aligned and looked the same, the thing would look too sterile. There's basically a perfect world, written down in books and texts that is being taught to students and there's the real world. In many areas, these two do not match and the above image is the result of someone's text book world view not matching the real world.
Could the discover store have a better UI? Yes. Will a centered, down-anchored, pixel perfect button make it better? Subjective.
Wabi sabi windows!