The best linux desktop environments

Desktop environments are the set of applications that allow you to configure the visual aspect and access to applications, in all operating systems. Generally, they all consist of icons, windows, wallpapers, widgets, toolbars, etc. Its objective is to provide a user-friendly and comfortable experience, as well as ease of access to all areas of the operating system.

The best Linux desktop environments

In Linux, we have many options to choose from. Inclusively, we can choose distributions with “the flavor” (environment) of our preference. Therefore, the selection among the available desktop environments can be as important as that of our distribution. For this reason, today we present you with a compilation of the best Linux desktop environments.

Plasma

We will start with Plasma, this environment is a combination of KDE (Kicker), from which it takes the desktop panels, the KDesktop root window and a widget manager.

It allows you to write small applications or widgets, called "plasmoids". This makes it one of the most customizable Linux desktop environments, it is impressive the level of control that the user can have over it.

Plasma has several points in its favor. The first, as we already mentioned, its configuration capacity and also, being able to add functionalities through plugins. The second is its powerful file manager, Dolphin. And finally, it is important to highlight the availability of the best office suites and incredible applications.

On the other hand, we could consider a weak point, the fact of having Kmail as the default email client. Since it is difficult to configure and make the settings in the contact book and calendar. But in general it is considered one of the best. Large distributions use it by default. OpenSUSE is one of them.

Unity

It is a great project developed by Canonical for Ubuntu. It was released in version 10.10 of Ubuntu Netbook Remix. His goal was to take advantage of small screens.

Technically it is not a desktop environment, Unity runs above Gnome (which we will talk about later) and uses most of its tools and applications.

We recommend you read: The best GNOME Shell extensions for Ubuntu.

Gnome

Gnome, acronym for English, GNU Network Object Model Environment, part of its popularization, I think it is due to the fact that Ubuntu chose it to be its desktop environment.

It is characterized by maintaining simplicity and providing greater ease to the user. Its strong point is the approach to touch devices. It is ideal if you have devices with a touch screen.

Other great aspects of Gnome, is the great integration with the email client, with calendar. On the other hand, as of version 3.18, it presents the integration with Google Drive, allowing users to remotely use that space for file storage and work with them without requiring a web browser.

Mate

Mate, derived from Gnome 2, its name comes from the South American mate plant, very popular in Argentina and used in the preparation of a drink that bears the same name.

The name change was necessary to avoid conflicts with the Gnome packages. But why that name? It derives from the philosophy of preparing the mate; It is for sharing, primitive but very efficient.

It was launched in 2012. It is currently the default Linux Mint desktop and is also officially available in distribution repositories such as Debian, Ubuntu MATE, OpenSUSE, among others.

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We invite you to read the guide to the best Linux distributions.

Cinnamon

Cinnamon development started by Linux Mint. It is derived from GNOME Shell and is intended to provide a traditional desktop environment.

Initially, it had too many bugs and problems. However, since its developers switched to long-support editions, Cinnamon has become extremely stable and bug-free. Since then, they have added many more features.

It is ideal for those who prefer an interface similar to the old Windows and want Gnome and its simplicity.

As I always tell you, in Linux we have hundreds of options to choose from and the best option will always be the one that is most comfortable and useful to us, according to our preferences.