- Desktop Environments
- DE is the acronym for Desktop Environments
- A desktop environment is a collection of software designed to give functionality and a certain look and feel to an operating system
- Linux GUI software can usually run perfectly fine on any of these desktop environments
- The most popular desktop environments can be categorized by the amount of overhead required to run them: heavy, medium, and light-weight
- All DEs rely on a Widget Toolkits
- All DEs rely on a Window Manager
- Compositing window managers can offer Grid Tiling as an extension
- The heavy-weight: All of these look beautiful
- Gnome 3
- Beautiful but offers minimal customization
- Is usually the default DE for big distros
- A good choice for beginners
- KDE Plasma
- Beautiful and highly configurable (the most configurable)
- A good choice for power users
- Cinnamon
- A good choice for those who just want something that works
- Is the most similar to Microsoft Windows
- Gnome 3
- The light-weight: Just enough graphics to look good
- Xfce
- Works the same for over 25 years
- Very popular with experienced users and with long-time users
- Xfce
- Gnome 3 (GNU Network Object Model Environment)
- #1 The most popular DE due to being the default DE for many of the most popular Linux distros but not because its actually the best
- Good examples: Fedora, Ubuntu, RHEL
- 2011 initial release
- Uses the GTK+ Toolkit
- Gnome is the flagship desktop environment for most of the big distributions because
- Gnome is released on a six-month cadence, everything is released at the same time.
- Ubuntu and Fedora six-month releases are tied to the Gnome releases
- Gnome LTS is supported for a very long time
- Gnome offers such minimal user customization that it is difficult for the end-user to break
- Gnome looks attractive and modern
- Some people really hate gnome (article, reddit, article)
- Linus Torvalds quotes about Gnome
- “This ‘users are idiots, and are confused by functionality’ mentality of Gnome is a disease. If you think your users are idiots, only idiots will use it. I don’t use Gnome, because in striving to be simple, it has long since reached the point where it simply doesn’t do what I need it to do.”
- I wish the gnome people had understood the real rules inside the kernel. Like “you never break external interfaces” – and “we need to do that to improve things” is not an excuse.
- Gnome 3 is an unholy mess
- My thoughts on Gnome
- I have used Gnome more than any other DE, it was the only desktop I actually used for over 15 years, but only because it was the default with Ubuntu
- When using large monitors, I have had to rely on third party extensions to make windows tile into specific grids. After the Gnome API changing broke my preferred extensions I decided to stop using this DE and began distro-hopping and desktop environment testing
- #1 The most popular DE due to being the default DE for many of the most popular Linux distros but not because its actually the best
- KDE Plasma 5
- #2 Most popular worldwide and #1 Most popular in Europe especially Germany
- 2014 initial release (for version 5)
- Uses the Qt Toolkit
- Good examples: OpenSUSE, Manjaro, Siduction, Kubuntu, KDE Neon
- KDE Plasma is not the flagship desktop environment for most of the big distributions because
- KDE Plasma does not have a homogeneous relase cadence and life cycle like Gnome does, there is no harmony across critical parts of the KDE Plasma stack.
- KDE Plasma LTS only covers Plasma and not the framework and gears (applications)
- KDE ecosystem has more than double the number of components of Gnome
- Note: KDE Plasma 6 is proposed to align releases in a more distro-friendly manner
- My thoughts on Plasma
- It takes longer to get comfortable with compared to Cinnamon or Gnome, but it is amazingly customizable
- This is the best DE for users who want a modern and beautiful desktop and want to customize and tinker with their environment as it is way more customization than Gnome
- Xfce
- #3 Most popular worldwide
- 1997 initial release
- Uses the GTK Toolkit
- Xfce was one of the original X11 desktop environments
- Xfce was originally called XFCE (XForms Common Environment) but no longer uses XForms for the toolkit
- This is a lightweight DE that is highly customizable
- This DE more than any other DE adheres to the UNIX mentality of being backwards and forwards compatible
- Cinnamon
- #4 most popular worldwide
- 2011 initial release
- Is a Gnome 3 fork by Linux Mint
- Uses the GTK toolkit
- Attempts to be more traditional than Gnome 3
- I like this a lot, its much more useful and enjoyable than gnome, also more consistent in usability and feel
- Deepin Desktop Environmet (DDE)
- Might be more popular than the above DEs but I wouldn't know because its extremely unpopular in the west
- Beautiful and heavy, similar to MacOS, uses Qt
- DDE/LightDM (Uses KWin)
- LXQt (Lightweight Qt)
- For very low end computers
- Uses the Qt Toolkit instead of GTK
- Is basically a rewrite of LXDE using QT instead of GTK3 (which the team considers unfavorable)
- Is replacing LXDE in popularity
- LXDE (Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment)
- For very low end computers
- GTK2 Toolkit
- Many developers have abandoned LXDE for LXQt
- Budgie
- by SolusOS
- Uses GTK3
- Panthea
- By Elementary OS
- Beautiful, looks like MacOS and is good for those coming from MacOS
- Moksha
- by Bodhi Linux
- Enlightenment 17 continuation
- COSMIC (Computer Operating System Main Interface Components)
- System76 PopOS adopting this soon
- Redox uses this by default
- Written in Rust, not based on Gnome, using Iced toolkit
- UKUI Ultimate Kylin UI
- For the Chinese market
These DEs have a few dedicated developers
- MATE (MATE Advanced Traditional Environment)
- Gnome 2 continuation
- Unity
- Gnome 2 fork by Canonical (Ubuntu 10-16)
- Abandoned by Canonical but is now maintained by a some dedicated developers
- Gnome 2
- Was the most popular desktop for a long time
- Trinity
- KDE fork for low end equipment
- Lumina
- Enlightenment
- Project is officially dead?
- Weston
- For embedded desktops running on Wayland
- FluxBox
- CDE (Common Desktop Environment)
- This is probably what I used on Sun workstations in the 90s