No desktop environment. Get a compositor, a runner/menu/app-grid, maybe a panel or dock, set some shortcuts, done desktop environment. It's how most of wayland outside KDE/Gnome currently works.
this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2025
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If infinite customization is what you're after you shouldn't use a DE. A WM like i3 och hyprland is much better suited for that
Agreed, but use sway instead of i3 for Wayland support.
Yeah roll your own everything even greeter is the way forward if you want to customise.
KDE has the most options out of the box. You can make it look like Gnome, or act like a tiling window manager, or like Windows 7, 10 or 11, just with the options it contains from the start.
Gnome comes with almost no options. If you add extensions, or know enough to make your own, the sky is the limit. But I wouldn't call that "customizable", you can write your own themes for Plasma, too.
Xfce is another one that's very flexible. But it's very hard to get it to look and feel modern, it will always be an old school desktop, no matter what theming and added docks you throw at it.
Uhm, XFCE literally looks like Android with a sidebar on my touchscreen-notebook.
EndeavourOS's default XFCE theme looks very modern to me ! I mean sure it looks more like old school windows era, but that doesn't bother me at all. I like simplicity and customizability.
What's cool about XFCE, its only about config files to customize your whole DE.
Probably Emacs. /j
Great operating system, that. Shame it lacks a text editor.
KDE if you want to just configure stuff. Gnome if you want to code or manually style stuff.
Doesn't gnome change their APIs all the time between minor versions, so themes and plugins have to be constantly rewritten?
Yes, that too. I should have said want to code stuff...and continue to maintain it...
I used to use gnome and I am heavily into customization. I gave up using gnome as they would constantly change things often for no real reason that whimsy, breaking previously working scripts, extensions and so on so I stopped using it. Its fine if you want to customize the basics like wall paper but I really wouldn't bother for in-depth customization. Not because it isn't possible, but because maintenance of it is a PITA.
This. Or a window manager to code the whole thing.
I customised Xfce a lot, only with menu settings. I removed the window tabs from the status bar, the focused window title is written on the status bar. The window manager was removed for bspwm. The result is an optimized screen space while keeping the convenience of a DE.
Btw, every.single.one of those one-icon plugins, like battery-indicator or pulseaudio-plugin, should at least have a icon-size chooser in their settings. Always needs debugger and some custom CSS.
xfce indeed.
KDE fs
Or roll your own via a compositor and various tools a la Hyprland
Yeah, I second this. You may want to look in to DEs/WMs like DWM (C), Xmonad (Haskell), and AwesomeWM (lua) that let you customize them through programming.
They're all exactly as customizable as you are willing to alter them.
Some make it easier, though.
Subjective. If you're talking about functionality, then GNOME wins. If you're talking about UI, then KDE might have the upper hand.
If you want to fundamentally change the way something operates, then it's neither of those.
If you don't mind me asking, what makes gnome more adaptable in terms of functionality than KDE?
Gnome is very functional, it's just meant to function one very specific way.
And please don't theme it.
edit: don't remember writing that wtf
I would say XFCE and Cinnamon; no two XFCE's look alike and Cinnamon can easily be molded into something very different as well.
I see a lot of people recommending KDE and Gnome; I've found those surprisingly rigid, although there are more guides on how to “rice” KDE into the most non-KDE things so there's that.