I used to use Gnome all the time but I have to install a bunch of extensions for it to be usable. This one addon, I think it was called window list, is the most important and invaluable one of them all. There is no way I can use Gnome without it and I don't understand how other people have the patience to deal with not having that. The number of times I updated Gnome and found out window list was so out of date the only way I could get it working was if I download the source code and fix the issue myself, is too damn high. That addon should be part of Gnome by default.

Now I use cinnamon or kde depending on which one works better in that respective distro's repository. Some installations of your favorite desktop environment come with better configs than others. For example last time I tried KDE on Ubuntu, it was a broken buggy annoying mess to the point it was was less functional than Windows 11's ui. On Arch, KDE is the epitome optimization and polish. On Arch, cinnamon is respectably borked out of the box. Cinnamon on Ubuntu usually only comes with a few bugs however I rarely end up finding a way to fix said bugs.

LXDE is the same across distros usually but I only use it if running Linux on an absolute potato. That lack of a start menu search is awful, I don't miss those pre-search bar era uis. I need a search bar dammit.