Desktop environment

Should beginners even care?

The desktop environment (DE) is the collection of all the graphical elements that you can see on the desktop, such as windows, toolbars and icons – as well as a Window Manager, which is responsible for the appearance of the windows in the GUI. You’re unlikely to persist with a distribution if you detest the look and behaviour of its DE.

Zorin OS produces two free editions. The core edition, which is the subject of this Roundup, ships with the Gnome 3 desktop environment. It’s one of the oldest DE available and the default on dozens of Linux distributions. The Zorin Lite edition, intended for older machines, favours the lightweight Xfce environment.

Manjaro ships three official editions. We’ve featured the KDE edition in this Roundup, but the project also offers editions favouring Gnome and the Xfce desktop environment. KDE is well regarded as a highly configurable desktop environment. The Manjaro user community is also responsible for producing editions of the distribution featuring other desktop environments, such as Budgie, Cinnamon, LXDE, MATE, etc. The other three distros ship with their own home-grown desktop environments. The developers have spent considerable time and effort in producing an elegant and easy-to-use desktop in Deepin Desktop Environment (DDE). It has a blend of offerings from other desktop environments like KDE, Gnome, Budgie, etc.

Budgie is Solus’s home-grown desktop environment and is designed to provide a simple yet elegant experience.

Pantheon is a minimalist yet stylish desktop environment and the default on Elementary OS. Its intuitive design makes for a pleasant user experience.