I simply cannot believe that all the KDE applications won over the GNOME/MATE/GTK equivalents. Like seriously, KDE has the worst third-party support ever (meaning, very few third-party applications integrate nicely into KDE, and KDE applications integrate very badly into other environments). I understand that people don't like GNOME anymore, but at least this year I feel that the MATE developers have done an amazing job keeping GNOME2 alive (with the switch to GTK3, I'm expecting things aren't going to be so good in the future).

Why not? As long as they keep the interface itself and functionality the same, the widget toolkit shouldn't make a difference.

I read an article, a while back about KDE's interface, and I had to agree. Many apps are horrible, they seem like they're thrown together. The interface design team shot be fired and replaced.

That said while I do use none of the above (OpenBox), as far as DEs go I am partial to GNOME 3, the GNOME apps seem a little better as far as consistency (though not perfect) compared to the KDE equivalents.

those polls are highly imbalanced and have only little real value.
it's the fanbois who cast the most votes. maybe kde just has the most fans.

for all i know xfce could be the most used DE, but all its users are sane and sober and can't be arsed to participate in a poll like this

Really happy to see Slackware recognized. I am a rather new user but I find Slackware very friendly and stable. I wish and hope they continue the tradition in years to come

I thinks a good desktop OS (regardless of SystemD being used or not) has to have the following:
- Device driver out of the box
- Quick learning curve - reason being a desktop user is interested in using the apps not learning the OS e.g. in ubuntu just plug in a modem, turn on wifi, connect ethernet, etc. and it will work straight away. Now for Slackware...introduce it to someone new to GNU/Linux and they will hate it forever.
- Application database - almost every desktop app for MacOS or Win32 is available on the Ubuntu Software Center.
There are many reasons why Ubuntu is the best desktop distro but many here won't get it.

It's not that we don't get it, it's just that our definition of a "good desktop OS" is not the same as yours. "Best" is what works for you, and Ubuntu does not work for everyone. Application availability is not an issue, as Slackware provides me, and everyone in my home and office using Linux, with everything we need (except games, and I turn to Steam for those). In the end I figured out the Slackware was, for me, the best desktop distro, AND the best gaming distro, AND the best server distro.

But this for me is academic - Ubuntu caved to the systemd hype, Slackware did not. That alone was enough for me to hunt and destroy any remaining Ubuntu boxes under my control.

Is Yggdrasil Plug & Play Linux full of drivers for hardware that’s 10+ years old?

So is MX-16.

I have to disagree with your point about almost every MacOS and Win32 app being available in the Software Center. You’re right if you mean open-source stuff specifically, but you’re wrong if you’re including closed-source stuff.

There’s a ton of closed-source aren’t on Linux. Here are some examples: Blizzard games, Adobe Creative Cloud, Microsoft Office, Apple iMessage, iTunes, Sandvox, Pixelmator, SuperDuper, Carbon Copy Cloner, SmartConverter, Subler, Garmin Express, Razer Synapse(substitute available), Shazam, and TextWrangler.

Though, I realize most of the apps I just mentioned are only available on MacOS, since I’m still using MacOS as my primary OS. But what I like about Linux is that it’s like if you took the look of the Mac (depending on the DE you choose) and Terminal, and brought that over to the IBM Clones. It’s kind of like an open-source version of MacOS that you can run on any hardware much more easily due to having much better driver support. And since Linux is open-source and it doesn’t have a EULA which forbids its installation on non-Apple hardware (or hardware of its developing company), it can be legitimately run on any hardware if the drivers are there, and so companies will actually make Linux drivers for their hardware.

Also, due to the way drivers are packaged with the kernel, it’s easy to get hardware working with Linux, since the drivers are probably already in the kernel, so stuff often works out-of-the-box. A couple of great examples are Wi-Fi and sound. If you make a Hackintosh, you might actually have to make your own drivers by modifying Linux drivers with a program called MaciASL. But if you build a Linux PC, the drivers will probably already be in the kernel, and everything on your motherboard will work.

more like 20+.

Dang! That’s impressive! How do they keep the drivers working? I remember trying to get a ten-year-old GPU working in a 5-year-old PC running Ubuntu 16.04, but it didn’t work. I even compiled the source code from scratch, and that didn’t work. Do the maintainers of Yagdrasil ( I think I spelled that right) go through and fix the drivers so they’ll work in a modern OS? Or do they have some sort of compatibility layer or something?

i think you misunderstood something.
yggdrasil WAS the first live cd linux distro, and supports hardware from that era: 1992 - 1995.
it is nearly impossible to get it to boot on a current system.

Oh. I didn’t know that.

No wonder I haven’t heard much of it. Though, there are a at least a hundred different distributions

to avoid future embarassment:
https://distrowatch.com/
yggdrasil is not on the list.

Thanks.