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Linux
Desktop Environment
Unix
Unix-like
What are the best UNIX-like Desktop Environments for beginners?
6
Options
Considered
52
User
Recs.
Jan 15, 2024
Last
Updated
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6
Options
Considered
Best UNIX-like Desktop Environments for beginners
Price
License
Programming Language
--
Xfce
Free
GPL, LGPL, BSD
mostly C
--
Deepin DE
-
Mostly GPL
Mostly C++
--
Cinnamon
-
GPL
mostly C
--
KDE Plasma
-
-
-
--
GNOME
Free
GPL
mostly C
See Full List
--
Xfce
My Rec
ommendation
for
Xfce
My Recommendation for
Xfce
All
11
Experiences
2
Pros
8
Specs
Top
Pro
•••
Low system resource consumption
Not just helpful for older computers where few system resources are available, but also simply for those who want to get the most out of their systems.
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PerfectMictlanpachecatl's Experience
EASY TO WORK WITH DOES NOT USE TOO MANY RESOURCES
See More
Specs
License:
GPL, LGPL, BSD
Programming Language:
mostly C
Widget Toolkit:
GTK+
Available on:
*nix
See All Specs
Top
Pro
•••
Best for newcomers
Any one new to Linux feels comfortable using it.
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Cees Timmerman's Experience
Light weight, fast, and closest to Windows.
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Top
Pro
•••
Highly customizable
Xfce offers plenty of settings, and even things like theming XFWM is a simple task (it's just a handful of images.) Many possible permutations of window colors, borders, fonts, etc. Compositing can make it look downright sexy.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Adheres to standards
A priority of Xfce is adherence to standards, specifically those defined at freedesktop.org allowing for interoperability and shared technology for X Window System desktops. This interoperability is particularly significant for users looking to, e.g., run alternative window managers.
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Top
Pro
•••
4.14 has beautiful and functional notifications
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Top
Pro
•••
Low resource usage combined with flexible configuration
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Works on a wide variety of platforms
Xfce can be installed on several UNIX platforms. It is known to compile on Linux, NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, Cygwin and MacOS X, on x86, PPC, Sparc, and Alpha.
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Top
Pro
•••
HiDPI support
After release 4.14 Xfce supports HiDPI.
See More
Hide
See All
Free
Recommend
13
--
Deepin DE
My Rec
ommendation
for
Deepin DE
My Recommendation for
Deepin DE
All
12
Pros
10
Cons
1
Specs
Top
Pro
•••
A modern de for Linux
Deepin is the first DE for Linux which looks and acts like a modern environment. Basically, Deepin succede where Gnome 3 failed
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Top
Con
•••
Your data may end up where you don't want it
Deepin is almost completly developed by chinese. While this is not bad, there were cases where they collected telemtery data without consent
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Specs
License:
Mostly GPL
Programming Language:
Mostly C++
Widget Toolkit:
Qt, Deepin Tool Kit
Top
Pro
•••
Easy to use
Deepin DE is very simple.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Includes quality programs
It has some of it's own programs which are quite beautiful.
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Top
Pro
•••
Quite lightweight
Deepin 15.7 has been optimized and now uses less than half the system resources of prior editions.
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Top
Pro
•••
Has a Windows-like and Mac-like interface
Easily switchable between the two, as well!
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Top
Pro
•••
Touchscreen friendly
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Option to turn off mouse acceleration in the settings
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Top
Pro
•••
Very beautiful
Deepin DE has some blur designs which make it very beautiful.
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Top
Pro
•••
Available for a lot of distros
Deepin DE is currently supported on Deepin OS, Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, Arch Linux, Gentoo, Fedora, Sparky Linux, Puppy Linux, Pardus, Antergos and Manjaro.
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Top
Pro
•••
Stable
See More
Hide
See All
Get it
here
Recommend
7
--
Cinnamon
My Rec
ommendation
for
Cinnamon
My Recommendation for
Cinnamon
All
24
Pros
15
Cons
8
Specs
Top
Pro
•••
You can easily get it to look like Windows
You can get it to closely look and behave like Windows with considerable ease. This is a good thing for those switching from Windows, because it gives them a familiar environment, cutting down on the learning curve a bit. Among the popular DE's this is the one that gets you closest with great ease.
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Top
Con
•••
Conservative design and UX choices
Tries to be too much like traditional Windows (XP, Vista, 7).
See More
Specs
License:
GPL
Programming Language:
mostly C
Widget Toolkit:
GTK+
Available on:
*nix
See All Specs
Top
Pro
•••
Very easy to customize
It's very easy to customize using the built-in theme and applet tools. It automatically installs themes and desktop/panel applets for you, so you mostly won't have to go search online for them.
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Top
Con
•••
Sometimes freezes
It can sometimes freeze which is really annoying.
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Top
Pro
•••
Traditional desktop with the recent features
Cinnamon is a modern desktop that has the latest features, but at the same time it sticks to its way as a classic desktop and ignores trends/hypes like client side decorations or popovermenus.
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Top
Con
•••
Few themes
Rather than using actual GTK theming, Cinnamon appears to vye for its own strange infrastructure that isn't compatible across any other desktop.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Designed for traditional desktops
Intended for large-screen, non-touch devices that extend traditional concepts with functionality and good looking aesthetic.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Needs more choices for useful panel applets
Cinnamon still lacks some useful choices for panel applets. For excellent management of panels and a rich choice of useful panel applets, it's better to rely on Xfce.
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Top
Pro
•••
Fast, elegant and stable interface
Cinnamon uses a traditional desktop userflow that most computer users are familiar with.
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Top
Con
•••
Sound Settings not automatic
On Windows, for example, you can unplug a speaker and it will switch back to the laptop-speaker. In Cinnamon, you have to do it manually.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Very well supported
Has a great community and is very well supported through Linux Mint website.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Uses GTK
Nowadays, GTK is designed with GNOME, and only GNOME, in mind. Non-GNOME applications which attempt to utilize it suffer as a result.
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Top
Pro
•••
Cinnamon provides control of icon placement on multiple monitors
Cinnamon provides control of the placement of desktop icons on multiple monitor setups. This feature has been buggy, but in my testing of Linux Mint 19, this feature appeared to be stable. Thus, Cinnamon joins KDE and Windows in enabling this capability. For example, in a setup with 2 or 3 monitors, you can put the desktop icons on the right-hand monitor. With other DEs, the icons always move to the left-hand monitor.
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Top
Con
•••
Crashes
Despite Cinnamon being on its stable third version it still crashes occasionally, ranging from plugins all the way to drivers.
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Top
Pro
•••
Works well with cairo dock on bottom and cinnamenu on top
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Top
Con
•••
Cumbersome main menu
Main menu takes a lot of space and is cumbersome to navigate.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Vertical panel already available
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Can run apps meant for any other desktop environment
Cinnamon can run any app meant for any other DE, meaning the user can have apps for XFCE and KDE simultaneously and they will run as smoothly as if they're being run in the corresponding DE.
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Top
Pro
•••
Actively developed with useful new features in each release
E.g vertical panels are now there.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Lots of downloadable free themes
Plenty of themes, ready and free to be downloaded and applied with just a couple of clicks in a few seconds, with the file sizes mostly around 0.5 - 1MB.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Nice themes and extensions
Very easy to make this desktop your own both in terms of looks and functionality.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Update Manager is the best
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Stable DE
See More
Hide
See All
Get it
here
Recommend
10
2
--
KDE Plasma
My Rec
ommendation
for
KDE Plasma
My Recommendation for
KDE Plasma
All
14
Pros
8
Cons
6
Top
Pro
•••
Active development
See More
Top
Con
•••
Stability problems
Under certain conditions, most of KDE's components can be highly sensitive to race conditions, which leads to KDE applications frequently crashing, and, on rare occasion, kdeinit itself locking up.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Looks beautiful
The design of the three built-in desktop themes; Air, Breeze, and Oxygen, are very beautiful to some.
See More
Top
Con
•••
HiDPI support is spotty
The log in screen as well as some other components of the OS do not scale properly under HIDPI. Everything in the log in screen will be displayed too small, as well as some areas of the OS.
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Top
Pro
•••
Very modern UI
Windows 10 Users should be able find their way around easily with basic controls like start menu and tray bar.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Poorly named app menu with too many apps starting with "K"
This is better in KDE Neon with minimalist apps, which indeed in itself points out the problem.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Widgets
Just like back in Windows 7 days use desktop widgets.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Perceived clunkyness and slowness
Compared to other options, KDE is still perceived slow. Especially, the desktop takes a few seconds to login. Mouse pointer can feel sluggish, or laggy, on older systems.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Make it yours literally
Use built in settings, or download icon packs and design directly through the settings and tweak them to your liking. You can even make windows look completely like glass when active or inactive.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Interfaces are inconsistent and ugly in 4.x
While parts of KDE in 4.x can be very good looking, a common opinion is that the style is too hobbled together with inconsistent icons and styles clashing with each other.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Can change the desktop style to a Mac like style
See More
Top
Con
•••
KDE is awesome but it is overcomplicated for newbies for sure
Way too many options for newbies to digest before the learning curve is over.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Fairly Large Amount Of Themes
Large amount of themes: https://store.kde.org.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Open source
See More
Hide
See All
Get it
here
Recommend
6
1
--
GNOME
My Rec
ommendation
for
GNOME
My Recommendation for
GNOME
All
15
Pros
7
Cons
7
Specs
Top
Pro
•••
Very polished
GNOME has a well-rounded set of features meaning that any user will be able to get around it and not miss anything from other desktops.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Fairly resource intensive
DE is fairly resource intensive compared to other options like LXDE.
See More
Specs
License:
GPL
Programming Language:
mostly C
Widget Toolkit:
GTK+
Available on:
*nix
See All Specs
Top
Pro
•••
Extensions
They provide the user with a plethora of customizations and tweaks.
See More
Top
Con
•••
No desktop icons
When you install it, you haven't folders or files in your desktop... you need to install an extensions to able to show icons on desktop.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Lots of apps
Dozens of great apps are made specifically for GNOME.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Standardized
The desktop layout is not as modifiable as some other options, and certain settings require additional software (such as Gnome Tweak Tool) to reasonably modify.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Activities overview
Grid-style app menu.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Hides many settings
GNOME sometimes reduces the whole interface to the absolute minimum, a few examples: GNOME hides many advanced options/settings in its interfaces Toolbars can't be edited without external tools Menubars have been removed in favor of a hamburger menu Newer GTK versions remove icons inside popupmenus and menu mnemonics
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Dynamic workspaces
Setting provides for effortless workspace management.
See More
Top
Con
•••
No tray support by default
An extension has to be installed to get tray support.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Decently Customizable
Only decently customizable.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Designed for tablets before desktops
Said a million times already by the other cons but the design is for tablets, even though the primary usecase is on laptops.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Many Themes
Lots of themes for Gnome (can be found here).
See More
Top
Con
•••
Kinda complicated
See More
Hide
See All
Free
Recommend
5
2
--
Pantheon
My Rec
ommendation
for
Pantheon
My Recommendation for
Pantheon
All
14
Pros
6
Cons
7
Specs
Top
Pro
•••
Looks amazing
Looks absolutely amazing. Very nice to use. Amazing UX.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Few configuration options
It is pretty bare-bones on a stock install, but further configuration options can be added through various official tweak tools.
See More
Specs
License:
GPL
Programming Language:
C
Widget Toolkit:
GTK
Languages:
Vala
Top
Pro
•••
Simple, clean aesthetic
Nonintrusive and easy to overview workspace.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Too simple
Good for people who want a plug and play simple Desktop Environment. But for a multitasking / entertainment / cutting edge or Gaming Rig this is not the answer.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Smooth, subtle animations
Nearly everything is animated, but it's not over the top.
See More
Top
Con
•••
No icons on desktop
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Highly modular
While built to be integrated, Pantheon is also highly modular. Shell components like the Panel, Dock, and app launcher can be swapped out with limited repercussions.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Slow maintenance
Any significant updates come with new release, which usually takes 2-3 years. Hence gets obsolete with current software.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Unofficial Debian port
Unofficial Debian port is available here.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Not available for major Linux distributions
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Works on Ubuntu
Supports Ubuntu.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Buggy
See More
Top
Con
•••
Not highly customizable
Few configuration options.
See More
Hide
See All
Get it
here
Recommend
3
3
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