It’s in the eye of the beholder, of course. But it would be great to see some solid recommendations.

  • Emerald@lemmy.world
    64·
    5 months ago

    I don’t think it’s the distros job to look visually appealing. That’s the job of the desktop environment. Seriously I wish distributions would just ship vanilla desktop environments. All of the themed variants always have some issues. Maybe I’m just old and stubborn but that’s my opinion.

    • secret300@lemmy.sdf.org
      12·
      5 months ago

      Fuckin same. It took so long for me to realize a lot of issues I had wasn’t because gnome was shit, it was because every distro fucks with gnome until it’s unusable. I finally tried fedora and now gnome is my favorite DE and I love the workflow.

    • tmpod@lemmy.pt
      3·
      5 months ago

      Yeah, distros should, at most, change the default accent color and some pannel icon, but no more than that.

    • Einar@lemm.eeOP
      1·
      5 months ago

      Granted.

      For a beginner, however, this is a difference that would take some explaining. As you said, some distros heavily theme the desktop environments (DE) before shipping, so in that sense the question is fair.

      By extension, of course, I am with you, as with the right amount of work, any distro can run any DE and make it look any way.

  • thingsiplay@beehaw.org
    63·
    5 months ago

    The distribution doesn’t to too much, its mostly the desktop environment. I like the look of KDE Plasma the most. But usually I craft my own look after a while.

        • boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net
          10·
          5 months ago

          Absolutely. GNOME often looks better, but it just doesnt work. Basic things everywhere are removed or not added.

            • boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net
              3·
              5 months ago

              So you mean…

              • editing images (in the viewer, screenshot tool)
              • being allowed to customize the UI of any app
              • changing the login screen (gdm) background
              • creating a textfile from the filemanager
              • editing .desktop entries graphically
              • …

              ?

              Hahaha, I disagree

              • dallen@programming.dev
                1·
                5 months ago

                Yea, none of those things matter to me.

                Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had plenty of fun customizing DEs but I don’t really need that on my daily driver. I also have more of a terminal based workflow so perhaps shell customization scratches that itch for me.

                To each their own :)

                • boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net
                  1·
                  5 months ago

                  This is not about customizing. What app do you use for editing images, or dont you do this at all?

                  On GNOME either using Gwenview (KDE) or GIMP, Krita, Kolourpaint, Pinta would work. Which are all very big programs.

          • Nik282000@lemmy.ca
            2·
            5 months ago

            I have given in to GNOME. Set dark mode, install the extension “Tactile” and never touch the setting again.

          • pukeko@lemm.eeEnglish
            12·
            5 months ago

            The thing I’ve learned in the many years of watching this fight is that the things Gnome people (of which I am one, though I have immense respect and appreciation for the KDE project) don’t like about KDE tend to be the things KDE people like about KDE and vice versa.

            • GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml
              4·
              5 months ago

              These projects are almost diametrically opposite. GNOME tries to provide a very simple, solid but not very configurable desktop with good accessibility and stability while KDE tries to make a very configurable and powerful environment that can be customized to anyone’s needs. I don’t like KDE because it’s unstable, way too powerful for my personal needs (their “simple by default; powerful when needed” concept doesn’t really work) and I just don’t like the UI. Though KDE’s better performance is an objective advantage.

              • pukeko@lemm.eeEnglish
                3·
                5 months ago

                I tend to agree. I mean, the gnome workflow is more appealing to me (though I have since moved to a WM), but my dislike of KDE comes down to (a) too many options everywhere and (b) it looks too “sharp”. If KDE had an “I’m done fiddling” mode that hid most of the options and I found a softer theme, I’d probably like it fine.

                Absolutely nothing I just said should take away from others’ preference for KDE. I’m glad we can like what we like.

              • pukeko@lemm.eeEnglish
                4·
                5 months ago

                It seems to still be strongly gnome-adjacent, which fits with the softer, “calmer” aesthetic Pop has, but with functional tweaks that are more aligned with Win11/KDE (absolutely intended as a positive statement, as far as moving the ball forward on UX design). I worry that team KDE won’t like the “sane defaults” simplicity that it appears to have inherited from the gnome days, but that might just be the part of me that experiences terminal choice paralysis every time I fire up KDE. :)

    • Responsabilidade@lemmy.eco.br
      10·
      5 months ago

      Agreed. I think it’s not about distros we should have pay attention, but desktop environments.

      And about “most appealing” DE I think it’s subjective. Surely KDE has the most flexible structure and may be exactly what you want, but Gnome is also appealing for some people (myself included).

      Again, there is no right or wrong, just personal preferences

      • MonkderDritte@feddit.de
        2·
        5 months ago

        You don’t need much to make something look fancy or modern. Even XFCE can look modern.

        edit: made it less offensive.

        • Responsabilidade@lemmy.eco.br
          1·
          5 months ago

          Good for you that you like your XFCE environment

          I would like to see how your desktop is, if you don’t mind

          However, again, it’s personal preference

          • MonkderDritte@feddit.de
            2·
            5 months ago

            Can’t. feddit.de can’t upload images and in browser i suddenly get a server error(?) with my lemmy.ml account.

            Well uh, left bar with virtual desktop overview bottom, window buttons top, autoexpand
            right bar with network and systemload bars top, sensor numbers bottom, fixed size
            top bar Android style with left hand clock and date, whiskermenu (symbol view) as the empty space in the center (title only and whitespaces as title), right hand systray with mail and connman-gtk, pulseaudio plugin. Bars are on intelligently autohide, theme is Adapta.

            This is on my notebook with touchscreen.

            Nice thing is, XFCE can pin bars to specific displays or main display. Meaning, if i plug my ultrawide in, the top bar stays on notebook while left and right bar switch to the ultrawide, a center bar with Wiskermrmu with list view for desktop usage appears.

    • twinnie@feddit.uk
      3·
      5 months ago

      Somebody needs to tell me what they’re doing to Plasma to make them like it so much because when I install it with Breeze it just looks like Windows 2000.

      • thingsiplay@beehaw.org
        6·
        5 months ago

        Windows 2000 looks nothing alike KDE Plasma with Breeze theme. But besides that point, you don’t have to like what others like. It’s just taste.

      • Ephera@lemmy.ml
        1·
        5 months ago

        I don’t really care how it looks precisely, so long as its semi-professional and consistent in its style.

        Like, I change the font to Fira Sans, because Noto Sans gives me depression, but the rest of my customizations are all just to carve out my ideal workflow.

    • BlueSquid0741@lemmy.sdf.org
      3·
      5 months ago

      I took it as a question of which distro looks nicest out of the box (like, which distro manager has made real effort to make something particularly nice looking).

  • pelotron@midwest.socialEnglish
    24·
    5 months ago

    Garuda Hyprland edition. All the neon-RGB styling of Garuda gamer on top of Hyprland’s smooth UI.

    • GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml
      5·
      5 months ago

      Upvoted. I forgot about this distro. I don’t like its neon style at all but it’s something different and pleasing for some people.

      • pelotron@midwest.socialEnglish
        4·
        5 months ago

        It’s finally an opinionated distro I agree with. Of course you can get anything to look like anything but I just like how they picked a path and went so far down it to make their own unique out-of-the-box experience.

    • BarbecueCowboy@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      5 months ago

      I don’t like some of the other decisions in Garuda, but it’s become hard to get away from it when even regular non-technical people who see it are like “Whoa, what is all that” and you literally just finished installing it and didn’t even change the wallpaper. It’s a very different feeling from what I’m used to with Linux and I’m into it.

  • southsamurai@sh.itjust.works
    23·
    5 months ago

    You’re asking about the desktop environment and its default settings, which may or may not be the same on any given distro.

    But I have a tie between Plasma and Cinnamon (mint’s DE). They both take only minor tweaking to get where I want them, and I can use them both out of the box with zero complaints.

    • LeFantome@programming.dev
      4·
      5 months ago

      Many distros customize the colour schemes and theming of their desktops. The out-of-the-box XFCE in EOS looks nothing at all like vanilla XFCE for example.

  • Everett@reddthat.comEnglish
    20·
    5 months ago

    The new COSMIC desktop by System76 and Pop!_OS is very promising. I’ve been running the pre-alpha, and have been very impressed.

  • HouseWolf@lemm.eeEnglish
    14·
    5 months ago

    EndeavourOS has a pretty nice colour scheme and wallpaper going by default.

    If I was forced to use a default distro look, it would be that or Linux Mint probably.

  • Caveman@lemmy.world
    12·
    5 months ago

    I think GNOME looks very visually appealing with it’s consistency. The Libadwaita library has a nice aesthetic and looks very clean with nice spacing for elements to “breathe”.

    I still prefer KDE since I can tailor the look to my needs and I prefer to have clutter over extra clicks. (I have top bar with “Opened programs”, Launcher, System tray, Time and a global menu and KWin script for managing Activities)

    I feel like modern era of design has gone a bit overboard with the “clean” direction. It can be contrasted with Windows XP where you click “All programs” and you literally get all programs in the start menu with options of how to run or open them. I prefer to do “Menu” - > “Submenu” - > “Thing I want”.

    Come to think of it I should probably make a launcher for KDE.

  • boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net
    8·
    5 months ago

    You mean Desktop?

    Distro, I think Lubuntu does LXQt better than Fedora LXQt.

    But LXQt is a huge mix of mostly KDE Theming.

    • Goingdown@sopuli.xyz
      2·
      5 months ago

      Hardy Heron

      Ah, I really liked Ubuntu looks in old (4.04 - 8.04) versions. The brown/orange is so much better than the newer gray/purple/red whatever. Since 10.04 the theme and color scheme has been awful.

  • Fonzie!@ttrpg.network
    7·
    5 months ago

    Linux Mint has a smooth, out-of-your-way look & feel to either MATE or Cinnamon that just makes me feel at home