Arch Linux’s pkgstats data provides one of the few large-scale, opt-in snapshots of how real users configure their systems. While not a perfect census (participation is voluntary), the long-running dataset offers a clear picture of how desktop environment and window managers’ preferences have shifted across more than a decade.
At the same time, the data (to some extent) also reflects a broader trend for one key reason: as you know, a default Arch installation gives you only a base system, and you build everything else according to your own needs and tastes. In other words, there’s no predefined desktop environment that users are locked into, unlike most other distributions.
That means these statistics give us a very accurate look at which desktop environments and window managers Arch users actually choose to install and use. But enough talk, let’s move on to the data.
Oh absolutely, it’s just missing some of the integration and features that KDE provides. I was speaking more of KDE in terms of hyperland or sway. Granted, it’s just copying over configuration files after you’ve futzed around getting things exactly how you want. Though that’s a bit much for me. Typically with KDE, I just set it to dark mode and that’s largely it.