Greetings, I come as an Ubuntu/Unity user and what has kept me around is the wonderful support for a 3x3 virtual desktop setup and hotkeys to move around the desktops in 2d space. Does anything like this exist in any of the modern DE’s? I would love to try it out with cinnamon, plasma, gnome etc but there are so many and I only seem to find screenshots depicting linear desktops.
Confirming: KDE/Plasma has it natively. You can configure number of rows and columns, whether movement should be cyclic or not, and shortcuts to change desktop and to bring windows to other desktops. You can create and remove new virtual desktops on the spot by right-clicking the tray icon. Also shortcuts to get an overview of all desktops at once.
KDE also has a slightly different way of separating workspaces: “Activities” (which can co-exists with virtual desktops); although I don’t use it.