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What are some FOSS programs that you think are a far better user experience than their counterparts?
(sh.itjust.works)
I used Plex for my home media for almost a year, then it stopped playing nice for reasons I gave up on diagnosing. While looking at alternatives, I found Jellyfin which is much more responsive, IMO, and the UI is much nicer as well.
It gets relegated to playing Fraggle Rock and Bluey on repeat for my kiddo these days, but I am absolutely in love with the software.
What are some other FOSS gems that are a better experience UX/UI-wise than their proprietary counterparts?
EDIT: Autocorrect turned something into "smaller" instead of what I meant it to be when I wrote this post, and I can't remember what I meant for it to say so it got axed instead.
The GNOME desktop environment is way better than the proprietary alternatives in MacOS and Windows
I come from the tribe of KDE and I do not offer peace
I'm on KDE as well, but you've got to admit that the way Gnome's overview, virtual desktops, app menu, and search interface all work so seamlessly and logically together is a thing of beauty. Tap "Meta" one time and you can see all of your running programs, drag them between desktops, scroll to switch desktops, start typing to open apps and files... it just works. Meanwhile on KDE, it's a relative pain to remap the "Meta" key and moving windows between desktops still feels clunky even in the overview.
All of that said, I still prefer KDE. Plasma 6 is set to integrate many of the Gnome features above, and KDE's design philosophy as a whole is much more flexible. For example, I use two side-by-side monitors and it makes logical sense to imagine my virtual desktops as being sets of monitors directly above/below my physical ones that I can vertically scroll between. On KDE, it's easy to set my grid of virtual spaces to be one column with many rows and be done with it, or for someone else to pick the opposite, or for them to go with a full grid of spaces if they so choose. But on Gnome, even though the vertical layout used to be the default, their newly dogmatic insistence that we only slide sideways means I'm dealing with multiple plugins that often glitch or conflict with other parts of the UI.
Both systems have their merits and deserve a place. (But I'll gladly fight with anyone who denies that KDE is the obvious king)
GNOME itself might work, but the GNOME suite of software can not compete with the one from KDE. After suffering for months I switched from Ubuntu to Kubuntu and never looked back. (I'm consindering a switch to KDE on Debian due to Canonicals shenanigans though.)
You might also like Fedora KDE.
Probably, but I'm already heavily invested mentally into the Ubuntu/Debian ecosystem, .deb packages and PPAs and know how to navigate launchpad, etc. I'm not really looking for something new, just something that doesn't force snaps down my throat.
I migrated my daily driver from Ubuntu > Kubuntu > Nobara (based on Fedora), and I understand that fear of switching away from Debian after investing years into its ecosystem. Even still, Nobara has been wonderful and you might end up enjoying it (or another Fedora distro) just as much as I do. Like with Ubuntu/Debian, most apps are pre-packaged for Fedora, and the switch from one to the other is often as simple as trading
sudo apt installforsudo dnf install.If your shoes, the thing I'd be more worried about is the transition from Kubuntu (with its built-in tweaks that smooth out the rough edges of Linux and offer an "it just works" experience) to bare-bones Debian. Love 'em or hate 'em, Canonical put a lot of work into their distro and it became the go-to for a reason. That's actually how I found myself on Nobara - the promise of pre-applied usability tweaks. I'm not a gamer, but I love that media players, graphics packages, OBS Studio (which I use for Zoom meetings at work), and my condenser microphone all work out of the box. And then there's the gaming stuff as a cherry on top.
Really? The app suite is the one reason I won't use KDE. There are hundreds of apps made perfectly for Gnome that fit perfectly with the theme.
The thing I like about GNOME is it doesn't try to follow existing workflows, it is actually innovating in this area
What annoys me, is that I inevitably end up having both installed eventually, due to one app's dependencies or another's, & due to lack of experience repacking\compiling to avoid them
I went back to Windows a few years ago because I needed audio production software but would go back to vanilla Debian in a heartbeat if I needed a PC for anything else.
I switched to I3WM later on with my Debian PC and that was godlike too