Best GNU Linux distro for GUI experience?

I am always experimenting with GNU Linux distros now for more than 10 years.
But I do not have complete understanding of it all yet, my favourite desktop environment of all time has to be KDE ever since the XP era.

But what is the best GNU Linux distro for a GUI experience somewhat comparable to Windows?
Is KDE really the best option here?
If so what underlying distro is best with it?

- In general I am looking for close to the complexity of Windows GUI as possible regardless how the GUI looks.
- High stability.
- Supports mainstream computer systems specially laptops with Intel/AMD.

I have good experience with Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Mint and a few other obscure once but not these usually had their quirks.

Sorry if I come off as extremely ignorant, because I am in this regard to Linux, I have used Windows for 20 years but with recent drivers on AMD side forcing me to upgrade to Windows 10 has made me look for alternatives.

 

There is no best because Linux has never had a good desktop environment. From my old AT&T 3b1 to the present there simply isn't any desktop environment on a Linux distribution that I would call "good" and only one UNIX environment that I do call "good". There are usable environments like Cinnamon. There are pretty environments like Enlightenment. There are minimal environments like Xfce. There are kitchen sink environments like KDE. But none are what I would call "good". MacOS 10.6 is a good UNIX desktop, the last of the MacOS line that I call "good", entirely because since 10.7 Apple have been making MacOS look and act like a tablet (read: not a desktop).

Funnily enough, I think Windows 10 with WSL is one of the better environments for a GNU userspace right now, which is why it's my daily driver at work and at home. It's probably the only environment that meets all of your requirements.

 

Thank you for honest answer, it looks like mostly the same conclusion I have had after years with Linux.
I suppose I will stick with Windows then as my main driver and maybe hope that IBM acquisition of RedHat may bring a proper desktop experience in the future as IBM used to be really good at GUI design.

 

I wouldn't hold my breath. IBM have said they're going to leave Red Hat pretty much alone and as-is which means the focuses remain servers and software development. I expect RHEL will eventually supplant AIX as the supported OS on POWER systems and that's mostly servers and supercomputers where graphical desktops aren't a thing.

 

I've been running various Unices/Linux for the better part of 35 years (BSD 4.3, SunOS 3/4, Solaris, OpenSUSE, Fedora, Oracle Linux, even Slackware in the mid 1990's). These days I use Fedora and OpenSUSE. My own (strong) preference is KDE. I don't care for the direction GNOME has been taking, what with reducing configuration options all the time. I'm distinctly an old timer who first cut my teeth on X10R2 or thereabouts; I like focus follows mouse and intensely dislike either click to focus or autoraise. KDE mostly works pretty well with that. I've found that Fedora, OpenSUSE, and even Oracle Linux have perfectly good KDE environments. I'm sure RHEL and CentOS do too.

I can't say what's "most like Windows", since for all intents and purposes I don't use Windows and really haven't for 20+ years. Windows 10 (which I boot just often enough to keep it up to date and to update my BIOS) is just plain ugly. XP was generally the best (from a usability standpoint) of all of them, although that's not saying much, but you probably don't want to be running that now.

 

So Chrome OS is the only hope for extensive desktop experience then in the future?

I like KDE too I feel its got the most potential out of any the GUI interfaces for Linux although its closer to Windows 2000 in functionality than if anything in fact I found Linux file managers to be pretty basic barebone compared to the Windows 8.1 file manager which is beast specially if you get extensions for it with tab views and bulk work features.
Unless you know a really good file manager for Linux that is as powerful as the W8.1/W10 one, Linux GUI Task Manager also pretty bad at least the ones built into most distros.

And I agree that Windows 10 interface design is awful in fact its regressed in design while feature wise its even more complicated now for no good reasons while Windows Vista which really revolutionised GUI interface experience for desktop in my opinion really fleshing out desktop GUI for humans so that even a kid could learn to use it again however if you know the right commands the CMD or PowerShell was and still is much faster than navigating all the advanced settings in Windows Vista.
Windows 7 refined the Vista experience but it also lost a lot of its really overbuilt effects, gloss and all the other shine, W8.1 regressed in these sections even more (if we see past the tiles) very flat look in general and Windows 10 really look like Windows 2000 with a more modern Googleish design theme placed ontop of it with logos looking like they came straight out the 90s and now that there two "control panels" one is settings and the other the old control panel which makes everything much more confusion but even more so because the Settings panel is so flat in design there no colour language or graphical designs to make things easy to distinguish.

But there are a lot of good new features in Windows 10 too though, ability to swap audio channels with two clicks REALLY helpful, the events history and warning list, multiple desktops finally integrated after 20 years LOL
Running tasks list is graphical now, vastly better optimised for touchscreens while retaining classic desktop experience.
The start menu in Windows 10 sucks though unless you utilise the tile sidepanel and add all the shortcuts its somehow similar or just use ClassicShell to get the old one back.

KDE once existed for Windows as well back in the day, that was really cool, wish they brought that back LOL

 

So I'm a krusty old command line jock. As I said, I've been using various Unices since the mid 1980's, prior to Linux. I don't have a whole lot of use for file managers; I use Dolphin when I do. One of the few things I use Dolphin for is actually due to a lacking feature, namely the lack of ability to mount (via FUSE) an mtp device such as an Android phone (I wish the fool thing would simply present as a USB storage device, but it doesn't). KDE has the kio system which sort of half emulates a filesystem for KDE apps, but it isn't the same thing since I can't actually use it as a proper filesystem with e. g. rsync or other command line things. I see there is a KioFuse project, which is a step in the right direction.

If I need to operate on a bunch of files I write a shell or perl (now I'm really dating myself) script to do it. I'm too lazy to do the same thing twice; that's what computers are for, and scripts are a great way to do that.

I basically use X to let me get a lot more schtuff on the screen than I conveniently could via the text console, even at UHD resolution. I have scads of emacs and xterm windows (now I'm *REALLY* dating myself!), overlapping every which way, and use alt+F1/F2/F3 to raise/lower/minimize them as I need to. And there are graphical things (such as browsing, photo and video work) that simply can't be done or are very restricted on a text console (no, wget/curl is not a browser; lynx is, but it has a lot of, well, limitations).

The thing I find annoying in general about Windows 10 is exactly the touchscreen emphasis of it. I don't have a touchscreen and wouldn't use it if I did (for a tablet or phone it works, but not for a laptop or desktop/server). Then there's the nonsense about it wanting to download a few GB of games as soon as it's turned on, which I'm never going to play and originally was a real problem on my then-1.5/.368 DSL link (it would completely hose the network for everything else). I did figure out how to turn it off eventually (some registry entries), but updates were a pain because it used lots of connections, again hosing the network for everything else. That's not a problem any more, but to say I wasn't thrilled about that was a massive understatement. But I really don't do anything in Windows besides update it every now and then. Maybe I should yank the Windows SSD from it and put in another one to add some storage, but I don't want to have to do HW changeouts if I do need to boot it. I guess eventually I'll just get a 2TB stick for Linux and clone my install onto that.

 

I hesitate to call ChromeOS a desktop environment. It's a stripped down Gentoo distribution with one application: the browser.

 

So, let's start by defining "desktop environment" more precisely. What does "somewhat comparable to Windows" mean, especially given how many different versions of Windows there have been?

 

There are some nice designs out there. Linux Mint is one of them because it's worked hard to copy Windows so new users would feel comfortable. Back around 2009-11 when KDE was trying to copy the look of Windows 7, had a nice, polished look to it.

My favorite back then was openSUSE. It rivaled the look of W7 before KDE was made to look flat like macOS and Windows 8.1/10

 

A desktop environment is a collection or programs which approximate a physical desk. Which, with one exception noted later, Windows has done since the very first release. This is where ChromeOS isn't a desktop environment. ChromeOS follows a different metaphor: the web portal.

The obvious (I think) next question is: what's the difference. My answer: creation vs. consumption. A desktop environment caters to the creation of media. A portal environment caters to the consumption of that media. Yes, a desktop environment can be used to consume media and a portal environment can be used to create media. In practice, crossing the streams makes for sub-par experiences for varying values of "sub-par". Want to play a song or a movie on Windows or KDE? You need to find your media player and start it and load your media file, or find your media file on disk somewhere and follow from that. On Android? Tap the screen a few times and it's playing. On the other hand, you want to type your thesis on an iPad? Good luck with that, but on Windows or KDE you start up Word or LibreOffice or some such, select a template if you want, and start typing. Creation vs. consumption.

So why do I say there has never been a good Linux desktop? This is supposition but it's because none of them want to commit to being a desktop. They want to be all things to all users with the idea that if they can cater to everyone then everyone will come. This is a mistake. A single UI can't be all things to everyone. Desktop and portal have fundamentally different, intrinsically opposed philosophies. Microsoft notoriously demonstrated this with Windows 8.

 

That doesn't answer my question, which was what it would take for a Linux desktop environment to be "somewhat comparable to Windows".

 

From the original posting"
- In general I am looking for close to the complexity of Windows GUI as possible regardless how the GUI looks.
- High stability.
- Supports mainstream computer systems specially laptops with Intel/AMD."

I've been using MX Linux since 2010 and found that I need to look no further for a Linux distribution that "just works" for me: https://mxlinux.org/
I use mainly old and obsolete Panasonic Toughbooks (CF-54, CF-53, CF-52, etc.) that work very well with MX Linux.
I'm able do everything that I need to do on a computer which is to:
Pay bills, read forums, order things from web based stores, look up a map, watch videos, and get on the company server via Citrix.
I'm fairly certain that most if not all distributions can be tweaked to look like any of the past windows (xp, 7, 8, 10) as well as apple's different versions of their operating systems.
The nice thing about Linux, is there are many, many different distributions to try out.

 

" close to the complexity of Windows GUI as possible" is subjective, which is fine, but it's very hard for a third party to evaluate against. I personally don't find KDE complex to use, but 10+ years of familiarity with it (combined with the facts that I've configured it to be a lot more like the much older window managers I used back in the mid 1980's and that I do a lot of stuff via command line rather than graphically) make it feel very straightforward to me.

Stability and supporting mainstream systems, on the other hand, is rarely much of a problem with any modern user-oriented distribution (as opposed to specialized ones such as Raspbian). The one thing that's a bit of a pain is laptops with muxless Optimus graphics systems (where there are two GPUs, the integrated one on most mobile Intel CPUs and a discrete one, usually nVidia, where one drives some of the outputs and the other drives the others, with no hardware to allow either GPU to directly drive any of the outputs).

 

The answer is implied by my argument: a commitment to being a desktop environment.

 

I've heard great things about Zorin OS: https://zorinos.com/
Should try it out sometime

 

Im going to check this out tonight hopefully thanks for sharing

 

With Windows desktop environment is vastly different from Linux in that it was designed since 95 to be solely used through graphical interface unlike Linux where the command line interface must be accessed if one were to complete more difficult tasks or repair something.

With Windows you can configuration a vast part of the system through GUI, for example I can move system folders where I want them through GUI, I can configure drivers through GUI and majority of settings a power user wants to access can do so through GUI, arguably if you want to fiddle with advanced settings the CMD or PowerShell is much quicker if you remember or wrote up all the commands for the settings you want but arguably creating a good shortcut system can equally be as quick.

One reason Windows since Vista is vastly superior to Linux GUI wise is the way you can configure shortcuts, you can create shortcuts virtually everywhere, in the explorer, in the taskbar you can pin shortcuts, right click on an icon and get lots of shortcuts, some software have their own variant of this.
Linux only recently started adding these features that we on Windows enjoyed for over a decade.
On Windows you can even create shortcuts on your right click quick menu, because Windows prioritised high flexibility with its GUI, I have tried so many GNU Linux desktop environments, no one come close to this but I am all but a newbie and I do not have time to try them all, that is why I want to ask the Linux community because you people use it everyday or more than me anyway and have different experiences.
Maybe there is a super GUI out there or maybe there is easier ways to replicate this complexity of Windows GUI experience.

Zorin OS I have tried many times but its unstable, the desktop environment on there is very temperamental and relays on GPU acceleration which is really bad because its really poorly performing in case your GPU fails and you need to run it without acceleration, on Windows its never been a problem because there always 2 or 3 modes to the environment, the non accelerated one aka Classic mode, then there is Aero Light and usually Aero full.

 

OK, you're asking for very specific capabilities (and there certainly are times in Windows when you need to use the command line, or regedit, which isn't really a lot different). But I would submit that at least occasionally having to use the command line doesn't make something not a desktop.

KDE allows configuring shortcuts. I expect that GNOME, Cinnamon, all the other variants on those do too. I can put a shortcut in my task bar; I have lots of them there. As for e. g. editing the desktop right click menu, here's a way to do it in KDE without use of the command line: https://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=289&t=133130 (and note that that applies to KDE4 too).

I don't know what "move system folders where [you] want them through GUI" means. If you're talking about partitioning disks, there's gparted (which is graphical) for that. I use Blueman to configure Bluetooth, and the KDE control panel to configure audio, which are among the more complex driver operations to configure in Linux (most other drivers don't need a lot of configuration). KDE works the same on Fedora and OpenSUSE, the two distributions I use.

Now, I do write a lot of shell scripts to do things, but I would expect that you'd need to do that in Windows too if you need any kind of conditional or non-linear logic. Those shell scripts can be assigned shortcuts. I usually don't simply because I'm comfortable on the command line (I've been using UNIX and Linux for the better part of 35 years), but there's nothing preventing you from doing so.

But you're talking about wanting to do advanced things -- not typical newbie things -- through a thin graphical environment that's really a simple overlay over the command line. Inexperienced users generally shouldn't try to repartition disks, fiddle with driver settings, etc. on any system except by following very specific directions.

 

Not windows like, but I have always been a fan of Gnome, especially Ubuntu. Simple enough and works. Now that Ubunutu has dropped that unity mess I have since left Centos to come back to a debian based distro.

 

Im liking Gnome so far, Im sure KDE is better for a "windows-like" environment though after figuring out what file explorer you like

 

KDE or any GUI for that matter under linux isnt bad save for unity. That GUI single handily killed my love for Ubuntu when it released.

 

I didn't use it for long and unity was probably why.

I might give mint / cinnamon a try but it will be a while as I try to make pop OS work for me

 

I work with Ubuntu, Fedora, and Open SUSE almost every day... But guess what these all run as VMs under Linux Mint. Opinions are going to vary, but to me, everything in LM is placed right where it should be. Everything operates as I expect it, and for anything else I've created shell scripts that I can run when needed.

To me, PopOS! was so much like Fedora, but I expect it was the Gnome3 desktop that gave it this feel.

 

I see a lot of love for LM here and Im sure its justified but I really want the feature of Pop_OS! for graphics switching. I know its proprietary so some die hard Linux users snub there noses at it but a machine should work me my use cases.

I still struggle quite a bit though, just diving in, no real actual experience with Linux prior to this.

 

Hm, dunno why someone would install another distro just for a desktop environment. I mean, all the major distro's have KDE, Cinnamon, Mate, Gnome and loads of others available.
Just install it, look for some theme you like, configure it the way you like and use it. I wouldn't spend my time reinstalling the whole OS just for a theme switch, not to forget that a lot of distro's do not much else then using Slack, Debian, Fedora as their base, repackage some things and make a whole new distro out of it. Some exist a bit longer, some not though better stick with a major one, look for something you like, do it the way you like.
It's not Windows with it's "take it or die" way.

 

I run latest Ubuntu 19.04 with the latest Gnome incarnation and it's actually pretty nice.

I agree about the pointlessness of touch-screen stuff of Win10, but you don't have to use it.