What makes Linux appealing to me is the extent of customizability, but I didn’t find many answers when looking up with desktop environment is them most customizable. Some say KDE is most customizable than say, Gnome, but doesn’t Gnome support CSS customization while KDE doesn’t?
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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.
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.
Probably Emacs. /j
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. Using X11/DK as the WM, sxhkd for keybinds, polybar, and bemenu with frequency as an app launcher. 100% keyboard driven.
I used Sway on wayland for a bit but I couldn’t deal with the way screen sharing worked.
Sometimes I’ll be on Zoom keys and see a co-worker struggling to resize/move windows around and I just want to scream.
Yeah roll your own everything even greeter is the way forward if you want to customise.
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 ©, Xmonad (Haskell), and AwesomeWM (lua) that let you customize them through programming.
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.
They’re all exactly as customizable as you are willing to alter them.
