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!
kde plasma
Mouse: increase pointer speed to 0.8
Sound: change volume increment to 2%
Sound: mute notification sounds
Colours:
Breeze Dark
Material Black Blueberry Icons
Oxygen Neon Cursors
KDE-Story-Blue-SDDM (login screen) with a different background
Screen Locking:
Never
Power Management:
When inactive: Do Nothing
Dim automatically: Never
Turn off screen: Never
Session:
Ask for confirmation: Deselect
On login: Start with an empty session
Panel:
Long date
Date beside time
Modify system tray settings to show what I want
Widgets:
On panel:
Thermal monitor (1 for cpu, 1 for gpu)
Memory Usage
Desktop Folder
Folder View (set to a folder where I keep docs and spreadsheets)
Wastebin
Shutdown or Switch
Love this. Thanks for the breakdown! Some of these options are things that I only set if I happen to pass them. I don’t always comb through every option during a fresh install
I have distrohopped a couple of times, so the settings only take me a minute. It is possibly what drew me to kde plasma in the first place, the settings are very accessible.
Planning on going back to xfce though, since they are (I assume) much less likely to embrace ai crap.
I do love the idea that a desktop environment covers most of what you interact with. I feel like DE and package manager are like 90% of what makes me choose a distro
basically the same for me, although after a while (for me at least) the package manager gui is just mainly for updates. I rarely add new programs.
The operating system isn’t meant to be the feature/focus, it is just meant to work, and stay out of the way. Choosing a de you like is the best way to start distrohopping/finding a distro.