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As for desktop environments, the choice is very easy. Because there are simply better options. For normal users, I always suggest KDE Plasma or XFCE, Cosmic is still in development but looks very promising, cinnamon also looks great, but I don't use it (I know it's a gnome2 fork). But for power users, the choice of WMs are pretty trivial. i3, xmonad, qtile, niri, leftwm, etc.
The experience of using a WM instead of a full DE is incomparable for professional and power users. That is why I LOVE XFCE because it is modular. you can use parts of the XFCE ecosystem in any WM (power manager, theme manager, file manager etc.) or just replace xfce wm with your WM of choice (although I don't recommend this).
I do use containerised solutions for a few things (e.g. conty[0] for Steam, and a couple of rocm containers for messing with ML things).
KDE is the default desktop and does everything I need. I haven't used gnome for a decade anyhow.
I like to think of my Desktop Environment as little as possible - if I'm thinking about it it's usually because it's getting in my way. In particular, I switched to Mate when the Gnome 3 team went Steve Jobs on us and implemented menus that couldn't be moved out of the way and a new desktop philosophy that didn't fit my current workflow. Gnome 2 worked just fine for my everyday work so by choosing Mate I know I'm getting a responsive, functional Destop Env. that won't throw random surprises at me.
There is a rich world of window managers, if you run a proper distro with X11. IceWM for example is a great building block for your own desktop, you can combine it with the file manager you prefer, or use a terminal instead for that, use it with a dock, tray and a helper like conky instead of the default task bar. The capabilities of real WMs are great, to pin windows (permanently), have workspaces, give overviews - and that's before going into the auto tiling direction.
But that's only if you want to have something custom. Otherwise KDE would be the default alternative to Gnome, then XFCE or LXQT for smaller desktop environments.
Yes wayland support is still experimental but I don't understand why you would voluntarily use it at its current change. X11 works perfectly fine.
Also good old Xfce. Honestly, even KDE is pretty decent again these days, I have heard. As Linux users we are spoilt with great options.
For my windows I only use keyboard shortcuts (no mouse) and full-screen windows (sometimes two half screen windows side by side), so I may be a bit weird.
No one wanted to support it, not just Red Hat.
https://mail-index.netbsd.org/netbsd-users/2025/06/06/msg032...
Probably going to regret asking, but what is a "redskirt"?
> doesn't matter which country you're coming from, your politicial views, your race, your sex, your age, your food menu, whether you wear boots or heels, whether you're furry or fairy, Conan or McKay, comic character, a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri, or just an boring average person. Anybody's welcomed, who's interested in bringing X forward.
Whoh. So normally people who talk like this are far from "strong and stable", it's a call for "all lives matter". I wouldn't touch this racist heap.
[Edit] And redskirt is just a misogynistic play on Star Trek red shirts. This dev sounds delightful.
> I wouldn't touch this racist heap.
You are clearly unhinged. I don't know how to bring you back to sanity, but as the americans say, one cannot reason someone out of a position they have not reasoned themselves into.
I am perfectly fine.
I suspect you double down because you are so captured by your emotions that you cannot possibly admit the lapse in critical thinking. I predict going that path won't take you far on HN.
Ah yes, the "all lives matter" rebuttal.
It looks more like one maintainer, and it's really not clear if his problem was with corporate control, or if he just fell out with everybody.
So, it would be awesome if somebody would just go ahead and re-fork it removing just the controversial stuff.
No one wants to work on it.
And why wouldn't someone be happy working on X11? It is an open source project, it is high impact work. I would jump at it instantly if someone paid me a competitive wage to do it. Or honestly even a bit under my normal expectation. Not every person wants to work on some ego-driven rewrite of a rewrite. Some people are fine working with legacy code.
Also there is a counter example right above my post. Someone was so motivated to work on it, they even forked it: https://github.com/X11Libre/xserver
Granted the fork seems weirdly ideologically motivated but anyway, case in point.
> Give me an option to donate directly to X11 development and I am gonna support it.
> I would jump at it instantly if someone paid me a competitive wage to do it
You guys should meet up.
If you insist on using Wayland, Hyprland is an excellent choice. It's the least broken tiling widow manager for Wayalnd. Sway was the original i3-compatiable replacement and it's still not all that great.