And how did you like or dislike it?
Basically it's missing the elegance of Gnome IMHO. Sure you can configurate most of it to be clean. Have you seen most peoples KDE screenshots? A big mess in most cases. I dunno if it's the DE to blame or the users. 
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Hahaha that is very hilarious because I encountered the same problem on Neon. I mean I could easily connect to the network from the taskbar but I could not find a way to do it from the settings app which I found odd. But I've noticed some very funny things like this on KDE. I noticed some very complex things were streamlined and very accessible but some very basic things such as connecting to a network were comically difficult. Although It could be that I just don't know how to use it yet 
You mentioned you tried to get Plasma running on Zorin... but I'm curious why would you want to do that instead of using a distro that comes with Plasma working out of the box, like say Neon or Kubuntu.
KDE is good but I still don't think KDE is the holy grail of desktop UI design... and I still think Gnome is unchallenged in some areas specifically touch support.
Hahaha, would you be surprised if I said KDE was founded by Germans? Source
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I have tried both. Including distros like SolydK, Kubuntu and others.
At least when I install Plasma on Zorin OS, it gives me some measure of control and configuration.
Also have you ever tried raw Debian? What do you think of that?
Yes, we knew it from the beginning.
Hence our household joke of German Logic.
There is something in KDE which completely goes against Japanese /French way of thinking.
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About the only Debian I found usable was Linux Mint Debian.
But then I am talking about Cinnamon desktop.
I am not so sure what you mean by PURE Debian.
Debian could be installed with various desktops, just like Ubuntu comes with various desktops.
Actually while we are at it, have you ever tried Deepin? While I liked its design, its inclusion of many non FOSS apps was a deal breaker for me.
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Deepin Linux is nice. If I shouldn't use Zorin OS I would use Deepin. It was the first reason I made icon themes by the way.
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I mean the original Debian, not a derivative like Ubuntu or Zorin. In the short time that I tried Debian, I came to the conclusion that it is perhaps the best option in terms of having control as you can choose which desktop environment to install, what apps are preinstalled, etc. That's why I was curious whether Aravisian had tried it or not.
But in my opinion, at the end of the day, the experience on all distros based on Debian are more or less the same.
But I've ALWAYS had problems with the Debian installer. I've tried to install Debian on at least half a dozen PCs but it had problems detecting the hardware on all of them. I eventually gave up on it entirely.
It definitely came on my radar and I've heard a lot from it, but I was never compelled to download it As you said, there are a lot of non-Foss apps on it and the organization behind it seems a bit shady. I really liked the UI design but I remember reading an article on how unoptimized their desktop environment is. And with all due respect, Chinese software have a terrible record of data mining and selling user data. So I really don't trust them and from my research, I did not find anything regarding how Privacy friendly Deepin really is.
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Actually, this sentence requires a clarification.
I meant usable by me - not an expert but an intermediate Linux user.
As it is clearly stated here:
Debian lacks a lot of firmware due to its kernel containing no proprietary binary large object (Blobs). And so, Debian is troublesome for firmware and drivers.
Debian is not for beginners.
Linux Mint Debian addresses this issue and one can install it more or less like Ubuntu - no need for search for or compile missing drivers from the source.
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If that is the case, you might want to try Linux Mint Debian.
At least, it is not based on Ubuntu like many distros out there.
I've never had any issue regarding hardware/driver on my average spec desktop machine.
Another user friendly Debian based distro is MXLinux. My husband (also an intermediate Linux user) has been using it without any issue on his circa 2014 HP Probook.
One advantage of MXLinux is that systemD is disabled in its default settings - but it could be activated it if one decided to do so.
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Same. I have tried it, but ran into such problems. I never got far enough to build an opinion.
Same. I read a Pop-Tech article touting about how great Deepin is. I downloaded a copy and tried it out.
The more I delved into the sources, the more I began to distrust it. Not out of it being Chinese, but due to their lack of openness and the presence of odd locked files in Root.
The performance of the Deepin desktop was "ok", not great. There was nothing thrilling about it.
If you are interested in another non-systemd Debian based Distro that is very well assembled - Devuan. It's a wee bit tricky to install for a beginner, but worth the effort. And firmware and hardware work very well.
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For me it was this article from Forbes:
In general, I enjoy reading the article by this author, Jason Evangelho
Since I only knew Forbes as financial/business news, it was a nice surprise to find this series of his contribution.
He also wrote several articles about Zorin: forbes zorin at DuckDuckGo
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I use Dash to Plank and Blur my Shell
Hello, I would love to know about coolest gnome extensions you use or may have used that is worth sharing.
Mine are -
Burn my windows (with incinerate theme)
GameMode
Logo Menu
Media Controls
I assume you are aware of this thread: Which Gnome extensions do you use on Zorin OS?
[EDIT: for clarity, this post and some others have since been moved/merged here. So can now discard my comment.]
oh. i searched for it but didnt find it. my bad.
yeah thanks.
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@jayesh
I currently have
ArcMenu
Audio Output Switcher
Caffeine
Color Picker
I actually just installed GameMode as I use it quite a bit. TY
Logo Menu is also very cool. Looks kinda Mac-like for people into that. Did not know this existed