Arch Linux’s pkgstats data provides one of the few large-scale, opt-in snapshots of how real users configure their systems. While not a perfect census (participation is voluntary), the long-running dataset offers a clear picture of how desktop environment and window managers’ preferences have shifted across more than a decade.
At the same time, the data (to some extent) also reflects a broader trend for one key reason: as you know, a default Arch installation gives you only a base system, and you build everything else according to your own needs and tastes. In other words, there’s no predefined desktop environment that users are locked into, unlike most other distributions.
That means these statistics give us a very accurate look at which desktop environments and window managers Arch users actually choose to install and use. But enough talk, let’s move on to the data.
Sway. Though I graduated from Arch to NixOS, sway remains as one of the core tenets of my personhood.
Weirdly, my Arch System has a bog-standard absolutely uncustomized kde plasma install.
Its the Debian system which has been customized to hell and back with i3 and lxqt. I’d like to switch to sway but my gpu does NOT like wayland.
I3. No desktop. Just me and the bash.
Expected it
KDE because it was recommended with cachy os, and i don’t really know enough or care enough to use something else 😅
They should do this for Mint. I want to know how many of us weirdos using KDE on Mint there are.
I did that before just getting Arch.
Also, I wonder if KDE on Ubuntu stuff still includes that FUCKASS FONTCONFIG FILE THAT MAKES EVERYTHING LOOK SHIT I SPENT 4 HOURS LOOKING FOR
Never tried Cinnamon(?) but to be honest, if I was forcred to use Mint, I probably would install KDE Plasma on the device.
Mint is said to be the perfect beginner friendly distribution. I am not sure, why. Robust and easy to understand package/update manager? If some of my f&f would ask to install them Mint, it absolutely would come with Plasma!
Robust and easy to understand package/update manager?
Honestly if it still has 2 gui package managers like when I last tried it that’s not true neither.
Ouch. That doesn’t sound good.
KDE works and Arch is easy to install.
Bash
the KDE Plasma desktop at 38.36%, nearly doubling the share of GNOME, which sits at 19.84%
Then xfce at ~11% and cinnamon, mate, etc. to round it out.
That feels about right. I know that when I go to set up a desktop system anymore, KDE is usually my default go to. It just works and doesn’t tell me no for the few customizations that I want to make. XFCE and the others are absolutely vital for lower power systems. But if you want a low-friction daily driver with plenty nice to haves and easily replicable, it’s hard to beat KDE.
Xfce is very replicable. Moving my install to a new system usually involves little more than copying the config files between home directories.
Does XFCE do Wayland yet?
Sort of.
Everything is Wayland compatible but there is no XFWM for Wayland. So, you use a Wayland compositor like LabWC with the rest of XFCE running on top of it. This is the default XFCE config on SUSE Leap for example.
XFCE is not quite as far along on portal support as GNOME or KDE though. Depending on your use case, you may still prefer running on Xorg.
You can run the XFCE apps on any Wayland desktop.
Oh absolutely, it’s just missing some of the integration and features that KDE provides. I was speaking more of KDE in terms of hyperland or sway. Granted, it’s just copying over configuration files after you’ve futzed around getting things exactly how you want. Though that’s a bit much for me. Typically with KDE, I just set it to dark mode and that’s largely it.
KDE has too much going on for me. I like Cinnamon for everyday use.
You mean like whiz bang zoom distractions or just a lot of stuff to download if you do a full install whether or not you’re going to use all the different KDE apps.
Yeah. All of the stuff i don’t use but sits there.
Fair enough. Though if you are comfortable in Linux. I can recommend Garuda’s KDE lite iso. Plasma, SSDM, and just enough other bits to get to the desktop. Missing a lot of other bits some would consider necessary. But it’s all just a pacman or yay away. No discover or most of the other KDE apps unless you ask for them. Definitely not for the terminal fearing crowd. But a bit less friction than vanilla arch.
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Does this count steamOS instances? Because that would really tip the scales in KDE’s favor.
I’d use Gnome if it had tray application icon support. I just cannot do without my tray icons for Dropbox.
I use KDE Plasma, btw.
Arch users: “Well now I’m definitely not using KDE”
Did you check the wiki to see which one it says to use??
While a CachyOS user, I’m old school (X11 user and maybe XLibre) with i3 as my WM of choice. I know, hate on me all you want because I use antiquated tech. It works, unlike Wayland which is still broken as of right now. I need some features not found in Wayland natively, and that requires I use X11 (thankfully, i3 is customizable with some decent plugins). I know about Sway, SwayFX and other i3-style compositors for Wayland, but they don’t work with NVIDIA as of right now I don’t think.
Niri. I know it’s not a DE, but it’s currently my fav.
I am also loving Niri
from my limited time using it I found niri to be actually so good. will switch over from hyprland eventually i think.
Do you happen to know how it is with a multi-monitor setup?
I finished setting up Hyprland 2years ago, then learned about the shit community literally the day after being “ah, finally done!” and haven’t found the energy to switch since.
I’m not really fussed about the community as long as the tool is good, which Hyprland is there’s no question about that.
Like I said I have very limited usage using niri after seeing a bunch of youtube videos praising it I decided to give it a try but I haven’t had time to fully configure it and move over just yet. On my dual monitor setup it worked fine. Really loved how you can expose all open windows with a simple multi finger swipe and how each monitor has its own space.
yup. I was tempted to give Hyprland a try but noped out for political reasons.
political reasons?
Most projects have codes of conduct, even if it’s something as simple as Wheaton’s Law.
The original creator of hyprland behaved in a way that made people leave the project (the “political” part comes from the creator’s discrimination). It was basically a good example for why projects should have codes of conduct.
There’s Hypr, which is the X11 version of it (of which I tested a bit on my own time).
Hypr Hypr How much is the fish?
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Waiting for a tiling window manager with nice animations
I think you have to code those yourself. I heard Niri had some nice animations, despite being a scroller. Hyprland has good animations if you put some time into it.
I do also understand if that was sarcastic. I’ve learned…
Not sarcastic, animations add greatly to the understandability of what’s going on which is helpful anyway and especially if you fat finger something.
But yeah I don’t especially want to put loads of time in either heh
