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Why is it the default on most modern distros?

Because it is far and away the most feature complete, polished, and stable DE that exists in the Linux ecosystem. It requires zero learning curve, has an app suite that isn’t riddled with bugs, everything for the desktop user can be done in the GUI.

Like there is no alternative that does what GNOME does. It’s GNOME and forks of GNOME, a chasm, then KDE, another chasm, and then the DIY DEs/WMs dejour.

Umm.. what does Gnome have that KDE doesn't? To me they are equal in functionality, just that KDE isn't forcing the opinions of their developers on me and lets me choose what and how I want to do stuff. And has more features (file selection with image preview, yes, it exists!)

better accessibility for one, which is a major reason it's the often the only option in many enterprise distributions.

In the beginning, the licence and being C instead of C++, that is why it was started in first place. KDE is older and Qt licence was different in the 1.0 days.

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