That's already Windows 11.

Yeah, and garuda seems like a pretty shit distro IMO.

Well understandable , since thats the default look. But KDE is one of the most customizable DE, you could make it look like anything you want.

Kde defaults to a windows style layout, but it's very configurable by design. You can freely add and customize panels with different widgets. Kde has different design philosophies than Gnome. Even with a similar dock + menu bar layout, features vary or are handled differently.

KDE is for those who love customization. You can create an alien like Desktop that isn't Mac nor Windows similar. Its more about being able to change everything or most things.

Gnome should be more stable... because you can't change it into a buggy custom setup (except you use Extensions)

I'd say a benefit is that one can achieve the workflow of GNOME or macOS while having the configurability of KDE at one's disposal.

I think the people who likes the macos aesthetic are using KDE more than GNOME.

Not sure what to think of that large space use across the bottom on a widescreen display.

That's one reason why I downgraded from windows 11 to windows 10.

In standard KDE, the standard "start menu" at least is quite thin.

Thank you.

I'm using it as well. For me it was a great entry point to Linux. I wanted to start with Arch or a Arch distro right out of the box and Garuda works like a charm for setting up and maintaining everything. I will try setting up Arch by myself for the next time, but for now it's perfect for me.