Digested HN comments:

I really do feel like XFCE on x11 is the logical choice, it “just works” and every app runs well

Also try LXDE and LXQT if you would like a ‘lighter KDE’ vibe instead of the ‘lighter gnome 2’ vibe of XFCE.

I’m a longtime fan of XFCE. I try all sorts of DEs from time to time on spare computers, but I reliably come back to XFCE, which is really just a fairly low-resource, stable embodiment of the classic GNOME feel.

I’m genuinely wondering why everybody hates modern GNOME.

Wayland just seems really unstable to me

Xfce is the definition of comfy computing.

I used XFCE in 2009 when I had an underpowered netbook. It was ugly then though, and as far as I know it’s still ugly today.

Been happy with XFCE for many years now. I switched to it, when they scrapped Gnome 2. I don’t care much about looks, though. It never distracts from what I actually want to work on, has all the functionality I need and more, and never gets in my way.

Yeah, I’ll keep it.

XFCE is fantastic for “I need a quick and dirty GUI for this server”. Absolutely fantastic.

I know it can be made “pretty”, but I don’t have the patience for that.

I just can’t get xfce to look right with my monitor resolution

In an ideal world where corporations kept all their laptops which windows 11 forced upgrade breaks, XFCE would be a great solution.

Simple enough to lock down and easy enough for most users to understand without too much training.

This aint an ideal world though.

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