In computing, a desktop environment (DE) is an implementation of the desktop metaphor made of a bundle of programs running on top of a computer operating system that share a common graphical user interface (GUI), sometimes described as a graphical shell. The desktop environment was seen mostly on personal computers until the rise of mobile computing. Desktop GUIs help the user to easily access and edit files, while they usually do not provide access to all of the features found in the underlying operating system. Instead, the traditional command-line interface (CLI) is still used when full control over the operating system is required.
Gambas is the name of an object-oriented dialect of the BASIC programming language, as well as the integrated development environment that accompanies it. Designed to run on Linux and other Unix-like computer operating systems, its name is a recursive acronym for Gambas Almost Means Basic. Gambas is also the word for prawns in the Spanish, French, and Portuguese languages, from which the project's logos are derived.
Xubuntu is a Canonical Ltd.–recognized, community-maintained derivative of the Ubuntu operating system. The name Xubuntu is a portmanteau of Xfce and Ubuntu, as it uses the Xfce desktop environment, instead of Ubuntu's customized GNOME desktop.
A desktop environment is a collection of software designed to give functionality and a certain look and feel to an operating system.
LXDE is a free desktop environment with comparatively low resource requirements. This makes it especially suitable for use on older or resource-constrained personal computers such as netbooks or system on a chip computers.
MonoDevelop was an open-source integrated development environment for Linux, macOS, and Windows. Its primary focus is development of projects that use Mono and .NET Framework. MonoDevelop integrates features similar to those of NetBeans and Microsoft Visual Studio, such as automatic code completion, source control, a graphical user interface (GUI), and Web designer. MonoDevelop integrates a Gtk# GUI designer called Stetic. It supports Boo, C, C++, C#, CIL, D, F#, Java, Oxygene, Vala, JavaScript, TypeScript, and Visual Basic.NET. Although there is no word from the developers that it has been discontinued, nonetheless, it hasn't been updated in 4 years and is no longer installable on major operating systems, such as Ubuntu 22.04 and above. Its parent Microsoft seems to have shifted focus to Visual Studio Code and the .NET Framework, which runs on many operating systems, including Linux.
Lubuntu is a lightweight Linux distribution based on Ubuntu that uses the LXQt desktop environment in place of GNOME. Lubuntu was originally touted as being "lighter, less resource hungry and more energy-efficient", but now aims to be "a functional yet modular distribution focused on getting out of the way and letting users use their computer".
GTK is a free software cross-platform widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs). It is licensed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License, allowing both free and proprietary software to use it. It is one of the most popular toolkits for the Wayland and X11 windowing systems.
GNOME, originally an acronym for GNU Network Object Model Environment, is a free and open-source desktop environment for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems.
Unity is a graphical shell for the GNOME desktop environment originally developed by Canonical Ltd. for its Ubuntu operating system. It debuted in 2010 in the netbook edition of Ubuntu 10.10 and was used until Ubuntu 17.10. Since 2017, its development was taken over by the Unity7 Maintainers (Unity7) and UBports.
Leafpad is a free and open-source graphical text editor for Linux, Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), and Maemo that is similar to the Microsoft Windows program Notepad. Created with the focus of being a lightweight text editor with minimal dependencies, it is designed to be simple-to-use and easy-to-compile.
Ubuntu Kylin is the official Chinese version of the Ubuntu computer operating system. It is intended for desktop and laptop computers, and has been described as a "loose continuation of the Chinese Kylin OS". In 2013, Canonical Ltd. reached an agreement with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to co-create and release an Ubuntu-based operating system with features targeted at the Chinese market.
LXQt is a free and open source lightweight desktop environment. It was formed from the merger of the LXDE and Razor-qt projects.
Snap is a software packaging and deployment system developed by Canonical for operating systems that use the Linux kernel and the systemd init system. The packages, called snaps, and the tool for using them, snapd, work across a range of Linux distributions and allow upstream software developers to distribute their applications directly to users. Snaps are self-contained applications running in a sandbox with mediated access to the host system. Snap was originally released for cloud applications but was later ported to also work for Internet of Things devices and desktop applications.
KDE neon is a Linux distribution developed by KDE based on Ubuntu long-term support (LTS) releases, bundled with a set of additional software repositories containing the latest versions of the Plasma 6 desktop environment/framework, Qt 6 toolkit and other compatible KDE software. First announced in June 2016 by Kubuntu founder Jonathan Riddell following his departure from Canonical Ltd., it has been adopted by a steadily growing number of Linux users, regularly appearing in the Top 20 on DistroWatch.com's popularity tables.
Budgie is an independent, free and open-source desktop environment for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems that targets the desktop metaphor. Budgie is developed by the Buddies of Budgie organization, which is composed of a team of contributors from Linux distributions such as Fedora, Debian, and Arch Linux. Its design emphasizes simplicity, minimalism, and elegance, while providing the means to extend or customize the desktop in various ways. Unlike desktop environments like Cinnamon, Budgie does not have a reference platform, and all distributions that ship Budgie are recommended to set defaults that best fit their desired user experience.
Ubuntu Budgie is an official community flavor of Ubuntu. It combines the Ubuntu-based system with the independently developed Budgie desktop environment.
Deepin is a Linux distribution. It features the Deepin Desktop Environment (DDE), built on Qt and available for a variety of distributions. The Deepin userbase is predominantly Chinese, though DDE is in most prominent Linux distributions' repositories as an alternative desktop environment. The company behind the development, Deepin Technology, a wholly owned subsidiary of UnionTech (统信软件), is based in Wuhan, China.
Pop!_OS is a free and open-source Linux distribution, based on Ubuntu, and featuring a customized GNOME desktop environment known as COSMIC. The distribution is developed by American Linux computer manufacturer System76. Pop!_OS is primarily built to be bundled with the computers built by System76, but can also be downloaded and installed on most computers.
Q4OS is a light-weight Linux distribution, based on Debian, targeted as a replacement for operating systems that are no longer supported on outdated hardware. The distribution is known for an addon called XPQ4, which adds themes intended to replicate the look and feel of Windows 2000 and Windows XP.
