Desktop environments
Choose the base system that you want to customise.
Part of the joy of Linux being open source is that there are a number of desktop environments you can choose. This is entirely a matter of personal preference, based upon your needs and how powerful your hardware is.
While you can install multiple desktop environments on the same machine, it’s simpler to choose a distro of Linux that comes with it preinstalled. Most Linux operating systems also come with a set of applications optimised for the default desktop environment.
WHOSEBUNTU?
Up until Ubuntu 17.04 (Zesty Zapus), the default version of the ever-popular operating system made use of the Unity Desktop, which is still in use on the LTS (Long Term Support) versions of Ubuntu. However, Ubuntu 17.10 and onwards use the Gnome environment.
Gnome is designed for accessibility and productivity. Its official interface, the Gnome shell, incorporates a categorised Applications menu, system menu and a clock. It also supports an overview mode that enables you to view all currently active windows.
Certain applications such the AbiWord word processor or Evince PDF viewer are optimised for use with Gnome, which means they’ll display correctly and work with desktop widgets. You can find a list of these wiki.gnome.org if you wish to experiment. Visit www.ubuntu.com/ download/desktop to download Ubuntu 17.10.
A main rival to Gnome is the KDE Plasma Desktop, which is the environment of choice for operating systems such as openSUSE and Kubuntu. By default, KDE includes a small taskbar at the bottom of the desktop.
There’s also a huge KDE community that works in tandem with the developers behind Plasma to create custom applications, such as Okular, a universal document viewer and the Kontakt productivity suite in Ubuntu. The KDE version of Ubuntu itself is called Kubuntu and is available from kubuntu.org.
The KDE Plasma Desktop also supports a number of desktop effects such as Present Windows, which enables you to view and switch applications similar to Gnome’s overview feature. See userbase.kde.org/ Desktop_Effects_Performance#Desktop_ Effect_Performance for more details.
LIGHT AND NERDY
If you value speed over glamour, consider choosing a version of Linux using LXDE (Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment). LXDE has the lowest memory usage of major desktop providers and, as such, is perfect for older machines. Lubuntu, the version of Ubuntu running LXDE, can run quite happily on 512MB of RAM.
LXDE’s slick interface includes the LXLauncher, which enables you to launch applications at a dizzingly fast speed. The default PCManFM file manager is equally rapid, if rather basic. LXDE also incorporates the lightweight LXTerminal emulator and the zippy Openbox Window Manager. Download Lubuntu from lubuntu.net.
Special mention should also go to Xfce, which is also designed to be lightweight and fast but is rather more visually appealing than LXDE. It supports more advanced effects such as drop shadows behind windows, as well as a beautifully laid out file manager. The Ubuntu variant of Xfce is known as Xubuntu and is available from xubuntu.org.