Ubuntu base, vanilla GNOME Shell. I like it simple.

I haven't tried KDE in probably ten years... I may have to try it again. Back then it was ahead of the curve in terms of looks, I think, but I found it really buggy.

I'm sure it's probably a better experience now though.

KDE Plasma just makes everything look so nice. Before I was using Cinnamon, since installing KDE. I haven't looked back. Really enjoying the "Nordian-Gobal" with a few personal tweaks.

Since I've started using tiling window managers like i3wm and dwm, I'll never be able to go back to something else.

I never was a big fan of Gnome to begin with. Something about the classic taskbar and menu will always hold a place in my heart. It's why all my Linux devices use either XFCE or MATE desktop environments.

I used to dual boot Ubuntu with Windows years ago. Nowadays though most of my computer use is on my work computer from home which has windows. So what I do is run a linux live boot of xubuntu on my work computer for personal use and use hard drives connected via usb. I've written bash scripts which auto configure it the way I want it during each live session. This way I don't have to worry about f'ing-up anything in windows and I don't get a call from the IT department the next day. The one down side of running xubuntu live though is that it doesn't come with nvidia drivers pre-loaded. The only linux distro I could find that has nvidia drivers pre-loaded to run on a live usb is PCLinux. PCLinux has a sweet looking KDE setup, but it uses RPM packages and is not really heavily supported so that's its downside. If I could just get a debian based distro with nvidia drivers pre-loaded it would be the perfect setup for me, but haven't had any luck finding one... arggghh!

Crunchbang was my favorite 10 years ago. I tried the new version about a year ago, not sure why I gave it up. For servers its Debian.
For desktop I tried Qubes also recently, but it looked like a bit much for everyday use.
I've settled on Mint Cinnamon. Good so far, except fingerprint login is buggy.

I feel like that is most PC's in general but then again I'm always installing/uninstalling one thing or another for whatever project I'm working on and some times just nuking my hard drive from orbit fixes my problems.

I run Mint on one of my machines and have for years. But somehow, over the course of time, my Linux machines start having weird dependency conflicts and issues and after 3-5 years it's time to backup the important stuff and start fresh. Sometimes that's easier than going down the rabbit hole of figuring out why "something that should work" doesn't work, haha.

I've gotten to that point on my Linux Mint machine and not sure what I'll replace it with. May just go raw Debian like I'm using now.

Honestly I just like the layout of mint. It just hits something for me that I can't put my finger on.

Sitting comfortably on Manjaro KDE Plasma at the moment.

Having replaced Kwin, default KDE window manager, whit i3wm, I got great experience both on laptop and on bigger screens.

Plus, not the pain of installing Arch but all the wisdom from ArchWiki and packages from the AUR.

Ah man, wasn't it Microsoft...

Currently using Microsoft Mobile Mouse. Recommend

I second this, I've always used wired.

Yeah, fact is only ports I have are a pair of USB-C, one of which is used for power supply.

Wireless is nice, but I would recommend a mouse with a USB receiver over Bluetooth If your laptop is USB-c only, check out this video: https://youtu.be/V-vFtiDYiIw.

in general bluetooth isn't reliable. if you want stuff to be reliable use a wire.

none, it's done by a cronjob.

terminator >>>

I like the default terminal on pop os. It's simple and just requires 1 click to create a new tab. Super useful.

XFCE terminal because I like the tabs but anything will do in a pinch.