Installation
Each distribution has a bias for a specific desktop environment
Dstribution maintainers tend to choose a specific desktop when they start. This does not lock you into a specific one, but installing another desktop will require a lot of software. This software is the foundation that implements all the graphical components, such as frames, buttons and menus. The major packages also have projects that create specific applications that match the look of their own desktop. Many of these can be used in other environments in case you want a particular one. It will be graphically inconsistent but works well.
The Plasma project from KDE has many such projects, so if you have a Gnome desktop and want to switch you may end up with a multi-gigabyte install. If you choose to install all recommended packages, you will have access to the ‘K’ applications. These are great applications, but on each system you should choose either Gnome or KDE to avoid disk space waste. Of course, you have many other options that can really mess up your settings.
Cinnamon, meanwhile, doesn’t require anything from its Gnome ancestor – it has replaced it all with its own packages.
You can install many of the minimal ones with your package manager. Suckless dwm is an alternative minimal option that needs to be compiled from source and changed to your settings. This is actually easy to do, the tricky part is to configure it to your liking. To get some inspiration, check out the build of Luke Smith; https://github.com/lukesmithxyz/dwm. You need to add a few programs and compile them yourself. You need to be fluent with compiling software and handling patches.
Awesome, meanwhile, comes with a basic setup and is easier to set up than some of the other options because there are many themes to choose from. It is also available in your repository as a fresh version.
Regolith comes in an impressive state – it is easy to install and has decent defaults. It requires Gnome, however, because it replaces gnome-shell, which draws down the impression. You also need to be careful when you try it out together with Gnome. You may find that there are some changes to your gnome-shell session after first testing Regolith.