I have a desktop PC which double boots #Debian Sid and #Ubuntu 22.04. In Debian I use #Xfce4. In Ubuntu, #Gnome. I executed free -h after a cold boot on both, and, surprise! Gnome uses *less* RAM than Xfce4 (see screenshots). No cheating: Gnome is more modular than most people think, so you can mix and match stuff, making the system lighter or heavier depending on that. And yep, it could be even lighter... Just by removing the snap runtime, for example. ;)
@golemwire That sounds fair, customization may not be Gnome's strongest point, at least from a user perspective (Budgie, POP OS or the Zorin or Ubuntu desktops are -or were- built on top of Gnome, and are pretty different from "vanilla" Gnome). Personally I like the default UI and workflow, so I don't use plugins nor change appearance or anything, "it just works" as it is so I just launch my work environment and do my coding or whatever stuff, and Gnome stays out of the way. :D
@golemwire I am really a fan of KISS/UNIX philosophy and I have, say, very built from the ground up Arch and Void installations, so yeah, tinkered they are. ;) But when I need a machine to work with and fast, I can just throw Ubuntu LTS with Gnome on it: everything I need is already on repos or you can easily get from upstream, and all just works, mostly. :) With time dwm may come, but even on dwm the Gnome backup is nice to have. :)
@golemwire In Debian/Ubuntu I just install gnome-session, which is a stripped down version with barely no apps, just the desktop session. And then you can run mostly anything you want, not necessarily Gnome apps, for example Thunar instead of Nautilus. About core dependencies, well, non-systemd distros manage to run Gnome (using elogind AFAIK). Of course Gnome is not fully modular but a full fledged whole DE, but it can be reasonably stripped down and work with non-core components. :D
@array Huh, interesting. Thanks!
Do you know if gnome-shell is modular, or is it only modified via extensions?
@golemwire AFAIK gnome-shell (again, from a user's perspective... Some coding wizards could say otherwise ;) ) is not something that is thought to be too modified. Out of light/dark themes and stuff like keyboard shortcuts, accessibility settings and such, there's not much to tinker with. I know that's not the case with Plasma. If you are in the tinkerer side, stay with Plasma no doubt! ;) Me, I just lost time configuring dwm, but once it works as expected I let that sit and keep working. :)
When it comes to customizing my system & DE, GNOME has always been a big hang-up.