For the most part, as a full time Linux user I am quite content - it is displayed on a nice screen, I'm using my wonderful old clicky KB and trackball & it is these things which make for an easy & comfortable experience. BUT... There are some things that are missing, some simple - some not so simple. Here's a goofy one to start my list here=> Chameleon Clock. A very small, simple numerical clock display that I had parked at the lower left of my windoze desktop, always visible. There is nothing like it for Linux unless one is a Conky wizard, which I am not - so I settled that little need by moving the panel clock to the lower left, which is OK for now & close enough to where I habitually look when I want that info. Desktop weather info ?? I haven't found any working options. I tried My-Weather-Indicator, but it will not allow any entry for its location field and the automatic choice it offers is broken. Screenlets used to include a version of that, but again - no current way to make that app install & function anymore. OK, those are trivial - but here's a biggie IMO: Desktop email notifications that are visible, audible and linger more than 5 seconds !! There exists no option for this that I am able to find - tried all those that I could find, and none work as described. Neither TB nor Seamonkey do any more than making a single sound & showing a self-closing banner for 5 seconds no matter what the time setting is changed to. So, unless one is rooted at their desk, one must re-check the email clients manually just to know if anything has arrived as opposed to only bothering with email when notified. This, when I have to leave the room for a while & upon returning that is what I do whereas before I could see either a lingering banner and/or a flashing taskbar entry telling me there had been an email arrival or 3. (Side note...yes, there are totally separate email checkers - but having to manually enter the info for each account into one of those is not an activity I will prefer to do, thanks.) Multiple Font Removal: How this need was discovered is like so... U/M came with a truly ancient release of Libreoffice - which can be updated to the latest via removal & installing new...all good thus far & definitely worth that effort...but=> It become obvious pretty quickly that LO also installed HUNDREDS of totally non-english fonts. These are just a useless, cluttered mess, for which very little to clean exists. Found a script to remove some of them, but the font list dropdown remains a nightmare to use with ~90% of the entries looking like scribbles to my english-only self. Font manager apps ?? Sure, there's a few - and guess what - they either just display the same mess, or, they will remove the fonts one by one with a bunch of confirmations for EACH one. Woof. I have no plan to change OS & none of the above is too terrible to live with - but there is DEFINITELY room for improvements !!!
About weather info, depending on the DE the weather applet may allow to display weather on the desktop. Budgie weather applet can do this but the one for Cinnamon has no such option there and there is a weather desklet for Cinnamon, not sure about Mate and others. There is also Conky widgets and you seem to know about them but I don't think it's hard so to configure it. There is a few things that I miss too, mostly the ability to view images inside zip files by opening an image and just clicking next to see the other images, on Linux I have to close the image and open the next one, maybe it depends on the file manager I used mcomix for that purpose before but since it is a GTK2 app and not updated I chose to not use it anymore. If anyone knows the solution please tell. I also rather not switch back because a few things that I miss or are annoying me. If there will be a case where I need to use Windows then I will use a VM but I am avoiding using Wine and Windows VM unless it's really a must, that way I force myself to live with what is available on Linux.
As i'm using Arch for several years, maybe Evolution Mail can show notification more than 5 seconds and automatically prompt for new mail (when it still launched or not cause run in the background when closed). For the rest i don't know. Just be carefull if you use vpn, because some mail provider like hotmail or live, gmail etc.... could block your email account when checking for new messages (False IP when vpn enabled).
Thank You for your thoughtful reply Windsman !! I have yet to use Evolution but do intend to set it up with 2 of my email accounts soon. In the email notification realm what really amazes me is how there are a handful of things which claim to handle that function, but they simply do not work as claimed at all. As to the email clients themselves, for example: Under that -other- OS Thunderbird's notifications work just as they should & I was able to use 2 different portables of it - one of which would flash its taskbar entry for new emails until it was looked at, the other was set to show a tray icon change - so both had easily visible things showing that new emails had arrived. But Linux Thunderbird ?? Pffft - no such luck. Thanks Again !!
@smallhagrid Have you ever try to install "Enhanced Desktop Notifications" add-on for Linux when using thunderbird?
Huge Thanks for this suggestion Windsman !! Checked right away, and sadly=> This add-on is not compatible with your version of Thunderbird. Works with Thunderbird 5.0 - 60.* Mine is v68.2.2 & in the reviews the only Linux user said it didn't work with v60.33 I've searched multiple times in hopes that something new would show up but Mozilla stuff just ain't so good as it used to be and having to meet the Oauth2 demands means using a recent version only - a real catch-22.
Install Mailbox Alert from Thunderbird Add-ons Verify that notify-send binary is located somewhere in $PATH and is functional (provided by libnotify-bin package in Debian-based ecosystems) Map accounts/folders in Thunderbird to absolutely any permutation of flags/parameters your heart desires as enumerated at `man notify-send` ... Profit! Odds and ends: xosd (the libxosd2 and attendant binaries) provides another, lower-level framework to listen for and display graphical system notifications in the style of a media player OSD and which can also be plugged into Mailbox Alert via the `osd_cat` command, in a pinch. Closing thoughts: Everything you describe missing is a built-in part of the KDE Plasma 5 desktop environment since at least...5.15.1 (rough guess, no guarantee of accuracy re: timeline) from the Weather Widget that accepts any location served by Open Weather Map to the management of any number of fonts/font families from the settings GUI to uber-granular controls for every bloody notification that has ever/will ever appear on the system (this one goes a bit overboard, IMO). At the risk of being labelled a KDE fanboy, I think you may just be in need of a DE whose feature-set priorities more closely align with your own than MATE currently does. Just my two kibibytes, though.