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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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KDE, because I'm too lazy to switch back to XFCE, which offered every feature I already use in KDE except without the stuttering, the bugs, and the update cycle that breaks things way, way too often on a rolling release distro.
Or openbox. My old laptop has openbox, but that's more for screwing around with EWW than doing day-to-day things.
Xfce
I've daily driven every major DE except KDE (GNOME, Xfce, MATE, Cinnamon) and I always ended up switching back to xfce. I'm not a fan of GNOME's workflow and since it's not that customizable without extensions, that made me switch from it very quickly. I used Cinnamon on Mint for a few months and while the experience was mostly fine, it sometimes felt a bit laggy. As for MATE, while I love the GNOME 2 layout and it's a relatively lightweight DE, I encountered plenty of visual bugs there and I could very easily replicate that GNOME 2 layout on Xfce (without a system menu, but still).
Nobody uses cinnamon? Honestly - I really like using cinnamon with Debian. I heard that they promised not to fuck with the UI for no reason unlike... everyone! @Mwa Cinnamon is a fairly nice, easy to use desktop - I don't really care which is better, but if they change it, you have to re-learn it. Top tip for UI design - don't think that your users want to re-learn how to interact with your UI - they might go outside, or elsewhere.
XFCE + Compiz
The unholy combination of accelerated 3D graphics and performance, all without the stupid drawbacks of wayland.
Runs much lighter than KDE even with all the 3D cube and windows stuff enabled.
Extremely customizable as well. XFCE already does a great job of UI/UX, it just lacks a compositor to add flare (xfwm4 has no animations, only some blur effects).
Gnome with dash to dock and the app indicator extensions.
Cosmic, just trying it out because i liked the extensions system76 made for gnome, and cosmic DE is more native experience of that.
I have gnome installed and setup as a backup, plus I use its greeter, but I am another who does not really want a full DE and instead using Sway as my WM day to day.
I have two 32"@4k monitors so normal manual floating window management just annoys me, I greatly prefer tiling window management to auto sort my windows for me. Its extremely rare that I need to full screen anything on monitors this large to fit everything I want in width wise so I want multiple apps per monitor.
If all of this is managed dynamically for me, and I am not manually sizing or overlapping stuff, all the better. Couple that with easy use of multiple workspaces for different tasks (I typically use three per monitor), rarely do I have a need to manually resize anything. I have it setup to open my common apps on the right workspace for me, and each workspace set to the right layout for that set of apps, so much less faffing.
My (40%) keyboard(s) run QMK and are setup to enable most of my common combos, such as switching workspace, moving apps around are never more than two keys. The more I can do without moving my hands from the keyboard, the better for me.
Final thing is that Sway is wayland and for me extremely stable.
Cinammon cuz I didn't knew it doesn't like kde plasma and now I am too lazy to change it fora bit of time.