I’ve distro hopped quite a bit over the last few years. I’ve realized recently that I tend to gravitate toward KDE Plasma as a desktop environment, but I don’t take advantage of the customization as much as I could.

As I sit here looking through the KDE Plasma settings I’m curious to hear what are some favorite things to change in any DE. Please share what you like to do when you get a vanilla install. Do you have a favorite icon pack? Do you have a favorite theme? Any particular widgets that you would recommend?

I’m sure there is more out there than I can think of. Please share!

Edit: I can’t respond to everyone, but this is a great discussion. So many good suggestions and ideas. Keep them coming!

    • psilotop@lemmy.worldOP
      2·
      16 hours ago

      “Indulge in nostalgia with useless 3D effects.” Is all I needed to read on that page ❤️

  • utopiah@lemmy.ml
    1·
    21 hours ago

    Window Rules and Custom Shortcuts from KDE Plasma, just earlier today I binded Meta+Ctrl+k to start Konsole in the directory of my latest modified prototype, open a per directory script which e.g. opens a browser tab, opens Vim in the file to edit, positions those windows properly, here browser on left half, console on top right corner.

    Window Rules with its window picker is very convenient to get conditions and properties to apply. Custom Shortcuts is just a list of shortcuts you can add to start anything from anywhere.

    Also I added my own wiki as a KRunner Web search, so if I type Alt+Space then PIM keyword it searches directly to my PIM from the center of my screen, also from anywhere.

  • Mongostein@lemmy.ca
    1·
    1 day ago

    I’ve only tried Ubuntu, Mint, and CachyOS.

    Didn’t like Ubuntu much, but probably because it was my first Linux attempt and I’d probably understand better now.

    Mint is cool, my laptop is running it, but the system settings being individual apps is frustrating, especially when you can’t remember the name of the one you want and there’s 2 display ones? Grrrrr

    I like Cachy a lot. I haven’t used it as much as I’ve only put it on a second laptop to use as a media centre in conjunction with Plasma Big Screen, but I’m thinking of switching my laptop over to it because it feels mostly the same in desktop mode, but the system settings are unified and a lot easier to deal with.

    (My desktop is still a Mac, I haven’t converted completely sorry)

    • Breadhax0r@lemmy.world
      2·
      17 hours ago

      For ages I’ve had my task bar on the side of my secondary monitor. When I first had to start using win 11 at work and I found out they had disabled the ability to move it I got so irrationally angry lol. It was the straw that broke the camels back and I went home and started down the linux rabbit hole fueled by sheer spite.

    • psilotop@lemmy.worldOP
      1·
      2 days ago

      Oh awesome. Do Klassy and Kvantum overlap? Seems like they both modify the windows.

      You’re not the first person to mention wobbly Windows. I definitely have to give it a try, sounds fun!

      • Random Dent@lemmy.mlEnglish
        2·
        2 days ago

        I’m not 100% sure, there might be a bit of overlap between them but I’ve never personally had any trouble running them side-by-side.

        And yeah I love wobbly windows. I’m so used to them now that if I have to use Windows or something with non-wobbly windows it feels wrong now lol.

        Oh yeah, another one I’ve recently discovered that looks interesting is Quickshell. I haven’t used it much yet though, I made a semi-functional panel with it and that’s as far as I got. But it looks like you can do a lot with it once you get the hang of it.

        • psilotop@lemmy.worldOP
          2·
          2 days ago

          Quickshell looks interesting, basically building your own desktop environment. That’s probably the next step after I figure out what customization I want.

          Thanks for the input! Much appreciated

  • flameleaf@lemmy.mlEnglish
    3·
    2 days ago

    Papirus icons, Phinger cursors, $HOME/.config/xfce4 copied from previous install.

  • monovergent@lemmy.ml
    3·
    2 days ago

    Focus follows mouse and unchecking the option to auto raise the active window. Couldn’t live without it and being used to it has made me extremely clumsy when I do pick up my Windows work laptop.

    I change the taskbar clock to be a one-line MM/DD HH:MM:SS format, drop in my customized locale (based on en-US for maximum compatibility, but without having to deal with US formats and units that I’m not fond of), and point the taskbar shortcut for my text editor to a script that creates a pre-named file and launches the editor with autosave enabled. Because having to manually save and come up with a name for your spur-of-the-moment notes sucks, automatically generating 20260831_text_1 is so much better than a, b, a2, etc.

    XFCE specific, I get rid of the second panel full of launchers. Acquired taste, but also Chicago95 theme and icon pack.

  • JTskulk@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    2 days ago

    I like to set up klipper actions to do automation on certain clipboard actions. I have them for sending certain URLs to special programs, converting credit card charge emails into a new item in a spreadsheet, doing 2 bandcamp things. I used to have some cool automation set up with starting and stopping activities, but they removed that functionality and now I have a worse one with the command output widget. I also love using window rules to customize my programs and where and how they appear.

    • psilotop@lemmy.worldOP
      1·
      2 days ago

      The email to spreadsheet idea is fantastic! I have my credit card email me for every purchase so the format is uniform no matter where I buy…

      • JTskulk@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        17 hours ago

        Yeah it’s great. I click on the email, press ctrl-a to select all, ctrl-c to copy, win-r to run action on clipboard (there’s an option to do this one automatically). It then runs a script that parses that text to get the good bits and reformat it. I wrote it for Chase, not sure if it’s helpful if you want it.

  • rsky@lemmy.ml
    4·
    2 days ago

    I always install Guake. It’s a drop-down terminal emulator and it can be heavily configured with hotkeys. I have it pop open/close with one key and I can split the terminal horizontally or vertically as many times as I want with a couple other hotkeys.

    It’s so ridiculously efficient (as a developer) that I can’t stand to not have it installed at this point.

  • sudoer777@lemmy.mlEnglish
    3·
    2 days ago

    I’m curious to hear what are some favorite things to change in any DE.

    I like using a tiling wm instead of a traditional de which is keyboard-centric and lays things out nicely instead of overlapping everything which is kindof stupid. niri and noctalia v5 is my current stack. I also have the settings defined in Nix and synced to other user accounts.

    Any particular widgets that you would recommend?

    I have the CPU/RAM/Swap/Temp monitors in my bar so that I can keep tabs on the CPU/RAM/Swap/Temp on my computer and if a freeze or lag spike occurs I have a better idea of what’s going on.

    Do you have a favorite theme?

    Catppuccin, which has a Nix module that styles my apps as well. For font I use Inter and JetBrains Mono Nerd Font set through the Stylix module

  • thingsiplay@lemmy.ml
    3·
    3 days ago

    In KDE my favorite is an extension to the window manager, for auto tiling: https://codeberg.org/anametologin/Krohnkite or install it from Settings > Window Management > KWin Scripts, then click “Get New” and search for “Krohnkite” by anametologin. Development is a bit slow at the moment, but it does the job well.

    I like that there are different layouts available, meaning different logic how a window should be placed and sized. I can switch between layouts on the fly. Every virtual desktop can have their own layout by standard, in example my fourth desktop is always untiled like a normal desktop. Exceptions to specific windows or applications to not tile them can be added too. So the usual stuff. It comes with some features not seen in other tiling window managers. In example I can convert any window into a “Dock”. A dock would then be always at the edge or screen, similar to the KDE bar; basically making the screen area to tile windows smaller. Super cool.

    Edit: Rephrased a bit to make it more clear and added some more info.