Ditching XMonad for KDE Plasma 6
| ~2 minute read
After using XMonad for about 4 years, I thought I'd try to make a switch for the hell of it. For me, the WM Vs. DE debate cannot really be solved. A DE to me is less of a hassle for setting up and managing everything, even though WMs literally have reproduceable configs. After much thought, I decided to make the big switch to KDE for a while. Since Plasma 6 is new I thought I'd try it out.
I've been daily driving KDE for more than a month now.
How has it impacted my productivity?
For the first couple of weeks it was.. BAD!
I'm not used to touching my mouse for every little thing I do. It's especially bad when I'm multitasking. I'm getting used to it but initially it was bad.
But setting up everything was so much easier so you win some, you lose some! On XMonad I basically tweaked everything but on KDE Plasma I only changed some things, just the basic taskbar things, theme and accent color, some keybindnigs. It was so quick, you win some, you lose some I guess!
I love how KDE looks. Everything just looks good and comfy. I miss my terminal resizing whenever opened, but the taskbar and the notifications, KDE Connect are also very good! Also I've been using everything on pretty much the default theming (even Alacritty!) and pretty much everthing looks awesome!
Do I miss automatic tiling?
Fuck yes I do. From XMonad the only thing I miss is all those keybindings, the automatic tiling behaviour, the window movements and the sheer amount of control I have over it. If it wasn't for that, I'd never go back!
When I started using XMonad I had all the time in the world to tweak everything. It wasn't necessary, many people just use it with minimal config but that's just not me. Nowadays I want things to "just work" without having to need Arch Linux. For that, KDE is the best!
KDE has its own big downsides and I'll surely write about them soon. Until then, I'm on KDE for the time being; which definitely isn't permanent!
This is post 14 of #100DaysToOffload