This should be seen as a natural choice, because these people would certainly be better off with Linux Mint.
Lighten the workload for the dev. team. Running a DE is a different beast than maintaining a DE for a live environment and Plasma out of the box already gives a fairly complete experience.
There is one very important factor in this decision, this project is a hobby for us and we would love to do this for and with the community for years to come. 
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vote for
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well, my personal experience with newbies that I recruited to the Linux world is that only the ones starting with or migrating to KDE stayed. The ones that started with gnome either left because the DE in stock state is unusable, and the ones that had the nerve to configure it, left because the DE started crashing due to addon incompatibilities and they thought that’s just the linux way of things.
The ones that started with XFCE migrated to KDE because they didn’t want to downgrade to a old-fashioned Win95 like look and feel. The ones that started with cinnamon used it for quite some time, but then also migrated due to some random bugs and inconveniences.
I would definitely welcome the switch to KDE as default live-ISO environment. After all, everyone who wants something else can easily go that way in the online installer.
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Well - I would vote for XFCE to remain where it is - and I definitely see it as a simpler setup than KDE! If XFCE, if you want to change something, you find it and change it… when I try KDE you find it, and maybe it works - or more likely it partially works and you also need to do this…and that…and if you changed the other, then also this… and so on.
It definitely has a lot going for it in terms of capability - and it can be configured to be very nifty - but simple, I don’t see it (yet).
As for an old-fashioned look - I don’t see that either, and certainly not Win95! With (for example) whisker menu on a panel at the top, and plank providing app access down the left side - along with easy setting up for the min, max, close buttons on the correct (left side) Win of any age can’t compare! 
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Hm, for me the left side is by no means the correct one … and now? Am I cursed now?
It might be simpler for you as an individual but it isn’t simpler for the distro. We are carrying a ton of configuration to xfce to make it look and work like it does on the ISO. When xfce was frozen in time, it wasn’t a huge problem because we never had to change it. On the other hand, as xfce has started slowly evolving it has become an active challenge for us. We want to be able to build an ISO at any time and have it “just work”. With the state of constantly evolving packages on an Arch base this can be a challenge.
To be clear, it isn’t that kde is easier to configure, it is that we need to carry very little configuration in the first place. Plasma by default is usable and familiar to most people which means we need to do very little to it. Carrying less customization/configuration decreases the chance of breakage.
Because of Calamares, there are also advantages to being able to use a Qt-based environment.
I also think it is important to remember that people can install whatever DE they want. The only difference is the DE they will be using when they launch the installer.
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And indeed it is really about the minimalisation of workload and longlivety of the project.
We want to keep EndeavourOS running and not depending on personal likings or complex setups/changes, it have to stay easy to maintain for development and the user, now and in the future and to be sure we will be rolling into the future, we need to decide the best way to make that sure.
And for the Desktop on the ISO it is not XFCE4 or LXQT, nor most of the others the best consens is KDE.
But this does not say that you can not install XFCE4 anymore, it is still there same as GNOME and others.
It is only about the LiveSession that holds the environment for the installer, XFCE4 was never the default EndeavourOS Desktop also we had it setup appealing to many users (this was not the plan).
We choose it because in that time it was stable and had was very slow in progress and changes upstream, plus it was a good choice for the Live Environment compared to the other two kde and GNOME with endless issues running the in a live environment in that time (2019) this has changed completely… today you can use almost all Desktops on a LiveISO… aside from issues using wayland (still…)
And we are still in early development for this, the change has to prove itself first and we are running a thorough test period to see how this environment performs in all possible environments.
If it turns out to be problematic, we will not pursue the change.
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Not being a maintainer or a programmer I can honestely say to me it really doesn’t matter the DE that EndeavourOS chooses to use for a Live Environment. I only use a WM anyways. As you beautifully point out users are still very free to choose the DE/WM they want. I am all for you devs doing what is easiest to maintain as in the end I prefer functionality to looks. I use EOS do to the fact it comes shipped with what I would end up installing from arch to start with. There may be a few exceptions but for the most part its my script install of Arch. I personally thank each and everyone of the EOS team for giving and sharing your personal time to do this project. Rather you choose to change the live DE or not has no affect on my choice to continue to use the Best Arch based distro for my use. Long live Endeavour.
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Sorry - I should have specified ‘Western’ language norms there - you know, reading left to right and top to bottom - easily the most effective user interface given that ‘background’ - at least given a chance it is!
Of course, for right to left language users other norms can be expected to apply…
The thing I remember was all the ‘noise’ that eventuated when Ubuntu (with Unity) moved the min/max/close back to the left (where it originated) because it violated ‘norms’. The noise was made, rather than trying it out - and the right side thing only happened because of MS fears of legal woes with Apple, and even they still left a close option on the left for usability! Does anyone remember Win 1 (nobody remembers Win2) or such things as Motif etc? L to R and Top to Bottom was how it started, and I haven’t seen a reason to change when a choice is available.
I’m afraid that I didn’t make much out of that, because the configuration had already been done (and XFCE changes are not coming thick and fast as KDE changes) - but not being involved in actual ISO production I naturally am not ‘aware’ enough of the relative effort levels.
Does the ‘configuration database’ of XFCE not allow for a simple file copy to configure adequately - or perhaps a simple script to set it up ‘on the fly’ anymore? I guess I just don’t know anymore!
(what a shock at my age to falling behind!)
The method doesn’t matter in this case. The issue is that when you carry lots of customizations, when something changes upstream, the configs need to be updated to match the upstream changes.
By switching to a DE that needs less customization, even when something changes upstream, the chance of it breaking the ISO are much lower.
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That’s the point!
All the time with XFCE as desktop on the ISO no one complained about it, so choose what fits you best and no one will complain either.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPqhfAKTJ6k&t=704s
the new xfce?
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As far as I’m concerned, KDE is the almost polar opposite of Micro$haft. The “closest” thing to M$ is GNOME (with the developers’ attitude towards their users), but even that’s a big stretch, as they still promote Linux and FOSS in general and are still against proprietary software.
In contrast, KDE gives the users almost endless choices with their Plasma DE. For example, they not only allow theming, they encourage it (as seen here: https://youtu.be/RMXViPlehAo?t=134). And they also allow almost every default to be changed out of the box. Don’t like the Windows-like layout? No problem; you can change it to a dock with a few minutes of panel customization. Don’t want the close, minimize, and maximize buttons on the right side of the window title bar? Just go into settings and move the buttons to the left. No need for dconf editing or GNOME Tweaks. Same goes for font anti-aliasing.
Not to mention, they managed to get Qt from being freeware but still proprietary to GPL and then LGPL, making it FOSS.
Finally, I still believe Windows 11 copied KDE Plasma and did so very poorly. I mean, how do you screw up panel positioning when Windows XP - Windows 10 allowed it on any edge of the screen!?
TL;DR: KDE is nothing like Micro$haft; they’re everything that M$ isn’t, and that’s a good thing. One is a community and suite of FOSS apps and tools with what is almost certainly the most customizable DE on ANY OS, the other is a P.O.S. that exists to make money.
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And indeed it is really about the minimalisation of workload and longlivety of the project.
We want to keep EndeavourOS running and not depending on personal likings or complex setups/changes, it have to stay easy to maintain for development and the user, now and in the future and to be sure we will be rolling into the future, we need to decide the best way to make that sure.
I agree. Using a popular and well-established DE with many contributors really does make a difference to a project. That’s not to say Xfce is bad, it’s really good, but it’s not as heavily developed as KDE Plasma or GNOME 40 or later. (Between the two, I’d definely choose KDE Plasma over GNOME, as it will be familiar to more Windows users while still being a good showcase for Linux, and that’s important as we approach Windows 11’s end of life, which may bring more Windows users over to Linux.)
Personally, I think we need more KDE Plasma focused distros; we don’t have enough ones in the mainstream, and of course, this is just the default; I’m 99.9% sure the online installer isn’t going anywhere; users can still install Xfce, LXQt, GNOME, MATE, Cinnamon, or whatever you want with the online installer. I bet the customizations to Xfce take time and resources away from the development and maintenance of EndeavourOS, so with that potentially solved, it could lead to more positive work on EndeavourOS!
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I dived into the documentation and yes, I have to agree, maintaining KDE is going to far simpler.
KDE Plasma 6 (not yet out) release cycle will also be better managed for distro releases too. They’ve decided to make that a focal point, with major releases every two (2) years and only minor point releases in between (for bug and stability).
I can fully understand now why that may likely become the default, and I appreciate that change.
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Also, for Plasma 6, KDE Plasma is gaining a new feature that might be helpful in this potential decision:
Welcome Center now has a “Live environment” mode that can be used by distros to show a special page in their live environments, including a nice friendly button to launch the installer (if the distro configures it appropriately; see the documentation here)
Could this be used to launch Calamares from that button? I mean, given Calamares is Qt-based anyway, I do think this would be a good move.
As for the potential worries that the live environment would be harder to run on older and/or less powerful computers, KDE Plasma is actually fine running on most computers. Unless you’re running on a computer that literally 15 years old or older, I think KDE Plasma 5.27 & 6 will be fine for the live environment. And besides, this won’t be the only option. The online install would still be around.
(BTW, this came out not too long ago, and I just want to share this with everybody.)
The EndeavourOS Welcome app already has a button to launch the installer, and it also has options for a number of things that people might want to do before they start the installation.
I can see it being more useful in other non Arch distros.
