What are the best Linux desktop environments for developers?

Question

22

Options
Considered

941

User
Recs.

Jan 17, 2021

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

The Best 1 of 13 OptionsWhy?

Best Linux desktop environments for developers	Price	License	Programming Language
92 Xfce	-	GPL, LGPL, BSD	mostly C
82 Cinnamon	-	GPL	mostly C
76 LXDE	-	GPL	C
76 KDE Plasma Desktop	-	GPL, LGPL	Mainly C++
74 MATE	-	GPL	mostly C

See Full List

12 Other Options Considered

Cinnamon

Top Pro

Fast, elegant and stable interface

Cinnamon uses a traditional desktop userflow that most computer users are familiar with. See More

Top Con

Cumbersome main menu

Main menu takes a lot of space and is cumbersome to navigate See More

ConvivialIxtlilton's Experience

Easy to use, good for desktop. See More

Specs

License:GPL

Programming Language:mostly C

Widget Toolkit:GTK+

Available on:*nix

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

See All

LXDE

Top Pro

Energy saving and extremely fast

LXDE is a simple desktop without a lot of bells and whistles, this allows it to remain lightweight which helps conserve battery power and maintain its speed of use. See More

Top Con

Development has slowed

LXDE is slowly reaching End of Life, but will still receive new updates as long as GTK +2 is in use. LXQT could be a natural alternative. See More

Top Pro

Highly flexible

There are many customization options and possibilities to tweak the desktop, including widgets. 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

ConvivialKastytis's Experience

"Simple by default, powerful when needed" is really true for Plasma these last few years. The team lately focuses even on the small usability issues which makes this DE a joy to use. Stability has improved a lot since the early KDE4 days. The biggest plus is still imho the great suite of default KDE Apps, I especially love Dolphin, Gwenview, and Okular. See More

Specs

License:GPL, LGPL

Programming Language:Mainly C++

Widget Toolkit:Qt

Available on:*nix

Top Pro

Has a file manager that provides a good balance between power and simplicity

Included file manager provides several icon, list and detail views to choose from along with features such as tabs, bookmarks, tagging, previews and metadata, network file access, bluetooth file transfers to/from devices and excellent removable storage integration while remaining fast and easy to use. See More

Top Con

Bad integration of remote filesystems

Editing files in Kate, which were opened from remote SFTP (or other) connections in Dolphin does not allow seamlessly saving the file back to the remote connection without completely closing the file. That precludes easy iterative changes to remote files. See More

ArtisticIstustaya's Experience

Excellent integration between application through DBUS and easy to script automations with any language, including shell & python. See More

Top Pro

Keyboard friendly

Nearly all actions can be driven with keyboard commands. Window management, including effects such as desktop overviews, can be triggered with a keyboard control (or mouse gesture) and some even support filtering results (such as windows shown) by typing. The KRunner tool (default keybinding: Alt+F2 or Alt+Space) provides searching local files, online sources, unit conversions, math and more all from a keyboard driven interface. See More

Top Con

Fattest, most bloated, and uninspired DE around

Top Pro

Extremely stable

Solid as a rock linux desktop, just works. See More

Top Con

No official forum

Instead of having an official forum, users are redirected to their distributions support forums. You might get help at the Ubuntu MATE or Linux Mint forums but they are still mainly for distribution specific issues. See More

Specs

As all Qt desktop environments themeing is hard since you need to know C++ , there is a sideway using qss however its not as powerful as GTK, Enlightenment or Windows theming. See More

See All

Deepin DE

Top Pro

Very stable

It continues running smoothly over extended periods of time. Applications that used to crash in GNOME Shell(Skype for Linux, Wire, Firefox) give absolutely no problems here. See More

Top Con

Less lightweight than you would expect

Budgie has a nice and simple style, but the memory usage is quite high after booting. Thankfully, the lead developer is working to remedy this. See More

Specs

It runs for weeks on end without noticeably increasing its memory footprint. That is a vast improvement over GNOME Shell. See More

See All

Unity

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Can search windows with the keyboard by title/software. See More

See All

Pantheon

Top Pro

Great UI

Top Con

Lack of availability

Pantheon is working well in Elementary OS but installing it in most distributions will be a manual process requiring some tuning and fixes. See More

Specs

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Xfce

Top Pro

Low system resource consumption

For users with netbooks, tablets and older computers where not a lot of system resources are available. See More

Top Con

Outdated default UI

The default theme that comes with XFCE looks like something you would expect to find on Windows 98. Many PC users do not possess the necessary skills to configure XFCE in a way to look more modern. See More

CleverNona's Experience

Fantastic. I have it in my Archlinux in the last years. See More

Specs

License:GPL, LGPL, BSD

Programming Language:mostly C

See All

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What are the best Linux desktop environments for developers?

The Best 1 of 13 OptionsWhy?

Xfce

My Recommendation for Xfce

My Recommendation for Xfce

Low system resource consumption

Outdated default UI

Highly customizable

Default is a bit Ugly

It has perfect balance between simplicity and usability

Very slow development

Designed for productivity

Looks ugly out of the box

Classic and Familiar

No HiDPI support

Highly stable

Window titlebar text isn't always bang in the centre

It works well in remote environment without troubles

Sessions cannot be disabled

Adheres to standards

Missing some basic functionality for a desktop environment

If you used to love old Gnome DE you will love Xfce too

Looks dated

Easy to setup resource monitoring

Lack of mousepad functionalities

User-friendly

Lack of useful tools

Rock solid stability

Not a full DE

Works on a wide variety of platforms

Dated Point-and-click "desktop" metaphor

A true UNIX Desktop Environment

Can mimic HiDPI supoprt

Does what it's meant to do easily and efficiently

Excellent panel management and selection of panel applets

Well-defined Session Manager

Low resource usage combined with flexible configuration

Best for newcomers

Window manager (XFWM) is a compositing WM by default

HiDPI support

Easy to export or import configurations

4.14 has beautiful and functional notifications

Has a convenient launcher and a Genmon plugin

Manages multiple displays with choice of monitor for desktop icons.

Whisker Menu

Manages multiple displays with choice of monitor for desktop icons

12 Other Options Considered

Cinnamon

My Recommendation for Cinnamon

My Recommendation for Cinnamon

Fast, elegant and stable interface

Cumbersome main menu

Designed for traditional desktops

Needs more choices for useful panel applets

Very customizable

Sometimes freezes

Simple and complete therefore good for ex-Windows users

Conservative design and UX choices

Easy to relaunch if a crash occurs

Crashes

best for users coming from Windows

Sound Settings not automatic

Actively developed with useful new features in each release

Few themes

The keyboard shortcut design is very friendly to users with Windows background

Uses GTK

Very well supported

Looks dull

Stable DE

Lots of configuration options

Very easy to customize

You can easily get it to look like Windows

Traditional desktop with the recent features

Lots of downloadable free themes

Nice themes and extensions

Update Manager is the best

Works well with cairo dock on bottom and cinnamenu on top

Cinnamon provides control of icon placement on multiple monitors

You can easily get it to look like a Mac

Vertical panel already available