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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Kubuntu or KDE Neon 100%
Ultimately they both use the KDE Plasma desktop environment, which is the only DE I've ever seen that has a proper modern look by default (others IMO look like either the 2000's or an OS 4 Kidz), as well as being pretty featurful for multi monitor productivity
Arch+KDE Plasma is what I personally am gonna switch to this summer
Check out KDE Debian spin too. I booted the live iso to check some stuff and was seriously impressed. Gave me the early ubuntu 10-11 vibe where the OS just stays out of your way.
Arch + KDE Plasma is very comfy, I used this myself for a few years and it felt super clean and unintrusive.
Its also pretty easy to get it setup to a semi-customized basic look and feel. Use one of the bigger themes, a popular Icon pack and a nice matching wallpaper as well as a little task bar customization and some widgets and youre set, and all this takes less than two hours.
I'm more of a window manager person myself (Qtile to be precise), and I imagine that's not really what you're looking for here, but DE-wise from what I've tried I like KDE and XFCE the most
I love me some good old MATE desktop. Especially with how Linux Mint customizes it, it's pretty good
Im honestly a GNOME person. Part of that is due to me needing magnification and a screen reader to use a computer for sure, but its also very keyboard driven and that is how i use computers
Me too, GNOME is great until you have to do something productive and you can't have desktop icons. The desktop icon extensions are bad, they don't allow for drag and drop from other apps / places and the icon grid works poorly compared to Windows/macOS.
I'm not aware of any distro that ships this by default yet, but Hyprland is my favorite visually so far. Excited for it to continue to develop. I'm sticking with Sway for now, Hyperland's grouping isn't nearly as extensive as Sway's tabbing and stacking, hopefully that will come eventually, but Hyprland sure does look amazing.
I have to remind myself to check on Hyprland again too, I'm on the same boat, currently on sway.
My main gripe with i3/sway is how you don't have an easy way to just go to the next window in the workspace... I just want to have a couple of shortcuts for cycling back and forth in the window list (regardless of how that list is ordered). The 4-directional approach i3/sway takes messes up with my keybinding workflow and if you have floating windows it makes it very awkward to try and select them, to the point that I end up using the mouse a lot more than I'd need to.
I fell in love with xubuntu ten years ago. I wouldn't change it for anything.
I run tiny core linux for the UI personally
The last “beautiful” out the box distro I tried was a small one based on arch called XeroLinux that was just a customised KDE Plasma.
Nitrux, it's a Debian distro with KDE, a rather classic pair indeed, but their Maui Kit is what makes it really stand out IMO... Well worth a look 😁
I've been using linux on and off since my first experiments with zipslack back in 2000-2001, and full time since 2006. I've bounced around distros, tried countless DEs and WMs, and I have to say, Mint Cinnamon was the first where I didn't have to immediately change the theme/icons/color schemes/etc. to make it look decent (in my opinion). And add to that a more traditional desktop paradigm at a time when others (unity, gnome 3) were trying something else, and I was a convert, and still use it to this day, some 8+ years later.
I’m not experienced in all the options, but am quite happy with Cinnamon on Mint. I tried ElementaryOS first, 18 months ago, but it wasn’t quite right. Cinnamon had given me a few points to tweak, but not too many that I’ll be sucked into it. I can do what I want on my computer and don’t feel like the OS ui layer is in my way.
I tried many but for me, Linux mint cinnamon worked. It was traditional, but still had pkeyof customisation options. Also, to top it all off, it's light enough and works on a 13 year old pc I've got here.
For some reason I find stock GNOME UIs appealing
I like qtile because it's configured in python. I used archlinux as os. It's hard to move to another distro after using archlinux for 15 years.
Pop yea? Yeah?!
GNOME with Dash to Panel is my favorite GUI, but I've been warming up to KDE since their Wayland VRR implementation is complete and working while GNOME keeps waffling over something as stupid as "omg what if we have to show a VRR toggle in the settings??? our users will be CONFUSED!!!!". While GNOME is very smooth and functional with extensions, this stupid limited mindset of the core developers prevents it from being a good choice for gaming. Mutter-VRR fixes it and actually works very well, but they keep breaking it with updates.