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
      1·
      2 months 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 months 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 months 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

    • Matth@sh.itjust.works
      7·
      2 months ago

      What’s better with a drop down terminal vs a normal terminal invoked with global short key?

      It’s a genuine question, never heard about drop down terminal and looked it up. As I understand they are just normal terminal with a visual effect when they open. Am I missing something?

      • psilotop@lemmy.worldOP
        5·
        2 months ago

        I’ve used a drop down terminal before and I find the position convenient. I can never lose it among other windows and it’s always on top. If I want to see below, I just slide it back.

        Your point is correct, it is functionally nearly identical. Since the terminal is arguably the most important or most central piece of software, I do find it convenient to always have it in the same place and to give it priority over other windows.

        This is definitely a matter of opinion, I do admit

  • mmmm@sopuli.xyz
    5·
    2 months ago

    Haven’t had a vanilla install since KDE 5 came out, but the biggest thing I use far from the default install is Karousel

    • thingsiplay@lemmy.ml
      3·
      2 months ago

      I’m a regular auto tiler, but tried a few alternatives such as Karousel to see how it works out. Its not really for me, but it worked fine and did what it should in my experience. So another recommendation if anyone wants a Niri like experience with Karousel addon. Another curious one is Mouse Tiler, which is a completely different method of manual tiling.

  • thingsiplay@lemmy.ml
    5·
    2 months 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.

    • JustEnoughDucks@slrpnk.net
      2·
      2 months ago

      I always used this but sometime in the past few months, it started ha ing a bug where I can no longer click on 90% of the title bar (vertical direction) and I have to until and retile all windows open to be able to close anything. Very annoying and I am about at the point to stop using it lol.

      • thingsiplay@lemmy.ml
        1·
        2 months ago

        There was a time when it was indeed very buggy. That was around the time when it transitioned to Wayland, and also when KDE 5 changed to KDE 6. Nowadays for me it is solid (with an exception of fullscreen issue with RetroArch). Granted I don’t have any title bars, so maybe I’m missing out on that bug. Looking at the Issues list, I could not find anything related to your description. So it doesn’t seem to be common problem. Also a few days ago an alpha version of the next version is released, so at least we can update soon. Maybe it works better then.

  • flameleaf@lemmy.mlEnglish
    3·
    2 months ago

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

    • psilotop@lemmy.worldOP
      2·
      2 months ago

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

  • StrawberryPigtails@discuss.tchncs.de
    3·
    2 months ago

    It’s been a while since I’ve done a clean install, but I think the only thing I do to KDE is install Yakuake and set up 4 virtual desktops. Very handy when I’m working on my more involved projects.

    • OhVenus_Baby@lemmy.ml
      2·
      2 months ago

      Do the Desktops persist between reboots? As in each work space can become a running working space on its own or they reset and it’s just organization?

      • StrawberryPigtails@discuss.tchncs.de
        1·
        2 months ago

        It’s more an organization thing.

        The desktops themselves persist however I have it set to reset to empty desktops on boot. There is an option in KDE settings to automatically restore previously open applications when you boot up, but my workflow is never the same from project to project.

        I’m not sure anymore which is the default behavior. I think I remember having to change the setting at some point and that’s how I know it exists.

  • nyan@sh.itjust.works
    3·
    2 months ago

    The colour scheme. White screens are one of the things that trigger my migraines.

    This in turn leads to my modifying several other visual aspects of the desktop, because a lot of widget set themes come with scrollbars that don’t work well with really dark colours. I also turn animations and automagic snapping and desktop navigation facilities off, because I find them annoying. Kindly behave like it’s 1999 and don’t do anything I don’t explicitly tell you to do, Mr. Desktop.

    And then I embed a conky instance in the second desktop for general monitoring—CPU activity (composite and by thread), memory in use, disk space, network usage, temperatures, fan levels, and greediest processes all conveniently in a single view that doesn’t require me figuring out what I did with the window.

      • nyan@sh.itjust.works
        3·
        2 months ago

        I chose a slightly different way of achieving what that extension does, and long ago set my browser not to allow websites to choose their own colours. That does partially break a few sites that don’t handle their images properly, but overall it’s workable and gives me white on a slightly different dark colour for each browser profile.

        • digitalhippie@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          2·
          2 months ago

          Interesting method, I didn’t even know that was possible. Would you mind sharing how you achieved that? I would be interested in comparing the two. Dark Reader does add some overhead which is noticeable on my older machines

          • nyan@sh.itjust.works
            2·
            2 months ago

            It’s a normal browser setting left over from the early days of the Internet, when most pages did little or no theming (or did it badly). My primary browser is Pale Moon, which exposes the setting as a dropdown under Preferences > Content > General > Colors. Firefox also exposed the setting on its settings page the last time I checked, although it may be a checkbox there. It’s also a boolean in about:config, browser.display.use_document_colors.

            Chrome-family browsers may not have such a setting, unfortunately. The only one I keep handy is Vivaldi, which doesn’t have it but does have a “Force a dark theme on all websites” checkbox (under Settings > Appearance > Website Appearance).

    • psilotop@lemmy.worldOP
      1·
      2 months ago

      Totally agree on dark themes, my eyes can’t take bright white screens.

      The performance monitor is a nice touch, I think I’ll include that. Thanks!

  • monovergent@lemmy.ml
    3·
    2 months 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.

  • sudoer777@lemmy.mlEnglish
    3·
    2 months 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

  • MalReynolds@slrpnk.netEnglish
    3·
    2 months ago

    KDE here.

    Icons: Candy; Plasma Style Sweet; Window decs : sweet-dark; Autohide Icons-only task manager at the bottom (RIP Latte :( ), always on top panel for my secondary monitor, autohide top panel on the primary.

    I actually use and like Activities, I have General, Game, Code, System, Work all with their own workflows and pinned apps etc.

    I lean pretty heavily on mouse gestures using logid with a MxMaster 3. Switch activities, control music, switch apps etc.

    I have the gesture button pop up Kando which can do ALL sorts of things, basically I can do 90+% of things super fast without touching the keyboard. Not that I dislike the keyboard, using it now, but sometimes I don’t want to bother.

    Top centre of panel has a command output widget with cat CurrentShort.txt which pulls local temp/humidity from a couple of sensors via HomeAssistant. Hover has weather scraped from Aus BoM and a bunch of other informative stuff and if I click it it runs a script with

    kdialog --geometry 1024x1024 --textbox /dev/stdin <<< $(cat CurrentInfo.txt)

    which pops up a dialog with a weeks forecast among other things. I also use the command output widget for cpu/gpu temps and fan speeds to the left of the status bar, which is on the right.

    The Wunderground widget is pretty cool too, find local weather stations and pop them in a panel.

  • wallwood@lemmy.ml
    2·
    2 months ago

    I don’t fiddle with my KDE much, but with every fresh install I always set the dock to auto-hide and fit-content.