Thanks for the hint that there are usable calculators for desktops. However, I switched to python and julia REPLs years ago and never came back to GUI-Calculators.

I remember trying just about every GUI calculator I could find and trying to get one I could actually tolerate. Any calculator which pointlessly hid what you’d written from you every time you added an operator like KCalc did was automatically out, which disqualified a surprisingly and disappointingly large amount of calculators. Any calculator without a standard skeuomorphic interface was also out, because I didn’t feel like relearning how to use a calculator.

I used GNOME calculator for a while, but switched away because I found the interface for programmer mode to be hella confusing when I really just wanted to have hexadecimal and binary modes. I also used Uno Calculator for a while, a direct port of the Windows 10 calculator, but the port was a bit rough and fonts didn’t work so well, otherwise it would’ve been perfect. I finally settled on Deepin Calculator. A bit basic and completely unthemable beyond switching between dark and light themes, but it was very easy to use and had all the functionality I needed. I can’t for the life of me remember why I didn’t just go with Qalculate!. I know for a fact I tried it and it seems like it would’ve been perfect. I’ll probably just be using KCalc from now on, tho.