GNOME For example, GNOME once provided menu bars and then dropped the menu bar, you can see this by simply installing e.g. gedit or file-roller. GNOME requires priority for 3D graphics, if you have bad luck the combination of graphics driver and graphics doesn't work anymore, if you run GNOME, even if e.g. google-earth shouldn't cause an issue. If you set real-time priorities for audio, it will make the situation likely more worse. Even the name for idiotic crap, such as configurations that aren't human readable changed from gcrap to dcrap or similar. Somebody already gave a few KDE examples, so just a note regarding Qt. Qt was "improved" by dropping qtconfig, this is an issue what ever WM or DE you're using. GTK fortunately still provide .gtkrc-2.0 and .config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini. Xfce4 After an update e.g. a small window title bar with a clean design, became a fat thing with a Microsoft appeal. Enlightenment Was steady in always being buggy whenever I tested it and always providing blatant nineties look, with no option to get rid of it. Many basic DE applications are simply crap. E.g. try to disable or enable the bell for xfce4-terminal by the GUI. Then try to do the same by an editor to edit it's configuration file but find this configuration file for an older version and a new version of Xfce4. Resize the window of what ever terminal emulation that belongs to what DE ever you're using. What happens to wrapped lines? In the end you anyway will install a file manager, terminal emulation, editor or something else that doesn't belong to the DE. Some DEs make pluseaudio, GVFS and other things you might not need and that ould cause serious issues, a hard dependency, while those things could be optional dependencies, since if you replace them by empty dummy packages nothing evil will happen. At least GNOMEish apps allow to get rid of the green HDD killer GVFS by simply replacing it with an empty dummy package. I never found out what to remove to get rid of KDE's green HDD killer, after launching e.g. K3b my green HDD spins down and up and down and up ... until I restart the computer. The developers of those bloated DEs don't care about their broken virtual file crap. OTOH when I experienced that libfm-gtk wakes up green HDDs, used for e.g. lxpanel, a developer immediately fixed it. The long and the short of it, if you want to decide how your environment should work, what you need and what not, then better do not use ad DE such as GNOME, KDE, Xfce4 or similar, instead use a WM such as openbox, jwm or similar. 2 Cents, Ralf