
In
computing
Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computer, computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and the development of both computer hardware, hardware and softw ...
, a desktop environment (DE) is an implementation of the
desktop metaphor
In computing, the desktop metaphor is an interface metaphor which is a set of unifying concepts used by graphical user interfaces to help users interact more easily with the computer. The desktop metaphor treats the computer monitor as if it is ...
made of a bundle of programs running on top of a computer
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...
that share a common
graphical user interface
A graphical user interface, or GUI, is a form of user interface that allows user (computing), users to human–computer interaction, interact with electronic devices through Graphics, graphical icon (computing), icons and visual indicators such ...
(GUI), sometimes described as a
graphical shell. The desktop environment was seen mostly on
personal computer
A personal computer, commonly referred to as PC or computer, is a computer designed for individual use. It is typically used for tasks such as Word processor, word processing, web browser, internet browsing, email, multimedia playback, and PC ...
s until the rise of
mobile computing
Mobile computing is human–computer interaction in which a computer is expected to be transported during normal usage and allow for transmission of data, which can include voice and video transmissions. Mobile computing involves mobile commun ...
. 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
A command-line interface (CLI) is a means of interacting with software via command (computing), commands each formatted as a line of text. Command-line interfaces emerged in the mid-1960s, on computer terminals, as an interactive and more user ...
(CLI) is still used when full control over the operating system is required.
A desktop environment typically consists of
icons,
windows
Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...
,
toolbars,
folders,
wallpapers and
desktop widgets (see
Elements of graphical user interfaces and
WIMP
WiMP is a music streaming service available on mobile devices, tablets, network players and computers. WiMP, standing for "Wireless Music Player," was a music streaming service that emphasized high-quality audio. WiMP offered music and podcast ...
). A GUI might also provide
drag and drop
In computer graphical user interfaces, drag and drop is a pointing device gesture in which the user (computing), user selects a virtual object by "grabbing" it and dragging it to a different location or onto another virtual object. In general, i ...
functionality and other features that make the
desktop metaphor
In computing, the desktop metaphor is an interface metaphor which is a set of unifying concepts used by graphical user interfaces to help users interact more easily with the computer. The desktop metaphor treats the computer monitor as if it is ...
more complete. A desktop environment aims to be an intuitive way for the user to interact with the computer using concepts which are similar to those used when interacting with the physical world, such as buttons and windows.
While the term ''desktop environment'' originally described a style of user interfaces following the desktop metaphor, it has also come to describe the programs that realize the metaphor itself. This usage has been popularized by projects such as the
Common Desktop Environment
The Common Desktop Environment (CDE) is a desktop environment for Unix and OpenVMS, based on the Motif (software), Motif widget toolkit. It was part of the UNIX 98, UNIX 98 Workstation Product Standard, and was for a long time the Unix desktop a ...
,
KDE
KDE is an international free software community that develops free and open-source software. As a central development hub, it provides tools and resources that enable collaborative work on its projects. Its products include the KDE Plasma gra ...
, and
GNOME
A gnome () is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and widely adopted by authors, including those of modern fantasy literature. They are typically depict ...
.
Implementation
On a system that offers a desktop environment, a
window manager
A window manager is system software that controls the placement and appearance of window (computing), windows within a windowing system in a graphical user interface. Most window managers are designed to help provide a desktop environment. They ...
in conjunction with applications written using a
widget toolkit
A widget toolkit, widget library, GUI toolkit, or UX library is a library (computing), library or a collection of libraries containing a set of graphical control elements (called ''widgets'') used to construct the graphical user interface (GUI) of ...
are generally responsible for most of what the user sees. The window manager supports the
user interaction
Ancient Egyptian roles
* User (ancient Egyptian official), an ancient Egyptian nomarch (governor) of the Eighth Dynasty
* Useramen, an ancient Egyptian vizier also called "User"
Other uses
* User (computing), a person (or software) using an ...
s with the environment, while the toolkit provides developers a
software library
In computing, a library is a collection of resources that can be leveraged during software development to implement a computer program. Commonly, a library consists of executable code such as compiled functions and classes, or a library can ...
for
applications
Application may refer to:
Mathematics and computing
* Application software, computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks
** Application layer, an abstraction layer that specifies protocols and interface methods used in a ...
with a unified look and behavior.
A
windowing system of some sort generally interfaces directly with the underlying
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...
and libraries. This provides support for graphical hardware, pointing devices, and keyboards. The window manager generally runs on top of this windowing system. While the windowing system may provide some window management functionality, this functionality is still considered to be part of the window manager, which simply happens to have been provided by the windowing system.
Applications that are created with a particular window manager in mind usually make use of a
windowing toolkit, generally provided with the operating system or window manager. A windowing toolkit gives applications access to
widgets that allow the user to interact graphically with the application in a consistent way.
History and common use

The first desktop environment was created by
Xerox
Xerox Holdings Corporation (, ) is an American corporation that sells print and electronic document, digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox was the pioneer of the photocopier market, beginning with the introduc ...
and was sold with the
Xerox Alto in the 1970s. The Alto was generally considered by Xerox to be a personal office computer; it failed in the marketplace because of poor marketing and a very high price tag. With the
Lisa
Lisa or LISA may refer to:
People
People with the mononym
* Lisa (Japanese musician, born 1974), stylized "LISA"
* Lisa, stagename of Japanese singer Lisa Komine (born 1978)
* Lisa (South Korean singer) (born 1980)
* Lisa (Japanese musician, b ...
,
Apple
An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...
introduced a desktop environment on an affordable
personal computer
A personal computer, commonly referred to as PC or computer, is a computer designed for individual use. It is typically used for tasks such as Word processor, word processing, web browser, internet browsing, email, multimedia playback, and PC ...
, which also failed in the market.
The desktop metaphor was popularized on commercial personal computers by the original
Macintosh
Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...
from
Apple
An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...
in 1984, and was popularized further by
Windows
Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...
from
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...
since the 1990s. , the most popular desktop environments are descendants of these earlier environments, including the
Windows shell
The Windows shell is the graphical user interface for the Microsoft Windows operating system. Its readily identifiable elements consist of the desktop, the taskbar, the Start menu, the task switcher and the AutoPlay feature. On some versions of ...
used in
Microsoft Windows
Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...
, and the
Aqua environment used in
macOS
macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...
. When compared with the
X-based desktop environments available for
Unix-like
A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X, *nix or *NIX) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Uni ...
operating systems such as
Linux
Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...
and
BSD
The Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), also known as Berkeley Unix or BSD Unix, is a discontinued Unix operating system developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at the University of California, Berkeley, beginni ...
, the
proprietary desktop environments included with Windows and macOS have relatively fixed layouts and static features, with highly integrated "seamless" designs that aim to provide mostly consistent customer experiences across installations.
Microsoft Windows dominates in marketshare among personal computers with a desktop environment. Computers using Unix-like operating systems such as macOS, ChromeOS, Linux, BSD or Solaris are much less common; however, there is a growing market for low-cost Linux PCs using the
X Window System
The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems.
X originated as part of Project Athena at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1984. The X protocol has been at ...
or
Wayland with a broad choice of desktop environments. Among the more popular of these are Google's
Chromebook
Chromebook (sometimes stylized in lowercase as chromebook) is a line of laptops, desktops, tablets and all-in-one computers that run ChromeOS, a proprietary operating system developed by Google.
Chromebooks are optimised for web access. They al ...
s and
Chromeboxes, Intel's
NUC, the
Raspberry Pi
Raspberry Pi ( ) is a series of small single-board computers (SBCs) developed in the United Kingdom by the Raspberry Pi Foundation in collaboration with Broadcom Inc., Broadcom. To commercialize the product and support its growing demand, the ...
, etc.
On tablets and smartphones, the situation is the opposite, with Unix-like operating systems dominating the market, including the
iOS
Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...
(BSD-derived),
Android,
Tizen
Tizen () is a Linux-based operating system primarily developed by Samsung Electronics and supported by the Linux Foundation.
The project was originally conceived as an HTML5-based platform for mobile devices to succeed MeeGo. It was backed by o ...
,
Sailfish
The sailfish is one or two species of marine fish in the genus ''Istiophorus'', which belong to the family Istiophoridae ( marlins). They are predominantly blue to gray in colour and have a characteristically large dorsal fin known as the ...
and
Ubuntu
Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed primarily of free and open-source software. Developed by the British company Canonical (company), Canonical and a community of contributors under a Meritocracy, meritocratic gover ...
(all Linux-derived). Microsoft's
Windows phone
Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued mobile operating system developed by Microsoft Mobile for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design languag ...
,
Windows RT
Windows RT is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft and released alongside Windows 8 on October 26, 2012. It is a version of Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 built for the 32-bit ARM architecture (ARMv7), designed to take advantage of th ...
and
Windows 10 are used on a much smaller number of tablets and smartphones. However, the majority of Unix-like operating systems dominant on handheld devices do not use the X11 desktop environments used by other Unix-like operating systems, relying instead on interfaces based on other technologies.
Desktop environments for the X Window System

On systems running the
X Window System
The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems.
X originated as part of Project Athena at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1984. The X protocol has been at ...
(typically Unix-family systems such as Linux,
the BSDs, and formal
UNIX
Unix (, ; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...
distributions), desktop environments are much more dynamic and customizable to meet user needs. In this context, a desktop environment typically consists of several separate components, including a
window manager
A window manager is system software that controls the placement and appearance of window (computing), windows within a windowing system in a graphical user interface. Most window managers are designed to help provide a desktop environment. They ...
(such as
Mutter or
KWin
KWin is a window manager for the X Window System and a Wayland (display server protocol)#Wayland compositors, Wayland compositor. It is released as a part of KDE Plasma, for which it is the default window manager. KWin can also be used on its o ...
), a
file manager
A file manager or file browser is a computer program that provides a user interface to manage computer files, files and folder (computing), folders. The most common Computer file#Operations, operations performed on files or groups of files incl ...
(such as
Files or
Dolphin
A dolphin is an aquatic mammal in the cetacean clade Odontoceti (toothed whale). Dolphins belong to the families Delphinidae (the oceanic dolphins), Platanistidae (the Indian river dolphins), Iniidae (the New World river dolphins), Pontopori ...
), a set of
graphical themes, together with
toolkits (such as
GTK+
GTK (formerly GIMP ToolKit and 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 s ...
and
Qt) and
libraries
A library is a collection of Book, books, and possibly other Document, materials and Media (communication), media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or electron ...
for managing the desktop. All these individual modules can be exchanged and independently configured to suit users, but most desktop environments provide a default configuration that works with minimal user setup.
Some window managerssuch as
IceWM
IceWM is a stacking window manager for the X Window System, originally written by Marko Maček. It was written from scratch in C++ and is released under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License.
It is customizable, relatively light ...
,
Fluxbox
Fluxbox is a stacking window manager for the X Window System, which started as a fork of Blackbox 0.61.1 in 2001, with the same aim to be lightweight. Its user interface has only a taskbar, a pop-up menu accessible by right-clicking on the d ...
,
Openbox,
ROX Desktop and
Window Makercontain relatively sparse desktop environment elements, such as an integrated
spatial file manager, while others like
evilwm and
wmii
In computing, a tiling window manager is a window manager with the organization of the screen often dependant on mathematical formulas to organise the windows into a non-overlapping frame. This is opposed to the more common approach used by stac ...
do not provide such elements. Not all of the program code that is part of a desktop environment has effects which are directly visible to the user. Some of it may be low-level code.
KDE
KDE is an international free software community that develops free and open-source software. As a central development hub, it provides tools and resources that enable collaborative work on its projects. Its products include the KDE Plasma gra ...
, for example, provides so-called
KIO
KIO (KDE Input/Output) is a system library incorporated into KDE Frameworks and KDE Software Compilation 4. It provides access to files, web sites and other resources through a single consistent API. Applications, such as Konqueror and Dolph ...
slaves which give the user access to a wide range of virtual devices. These I/O slaves are not available outside the KDE environment.
In 1996 the KDE was announced, followed in 1997 by the announcement of GNOME.
Xfce
Xfce or XFCE (pronounced as four individual letters, ) is a Free and open-source software, free and open-source desktop environment for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems.
Xfce aims to be fast and Lightweight software, lightweight whil ...
is a smaller project that was also founded in 1996,
and focuses on speed and modularity, just like
LXDE
LXDE (abbreviation for Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment) is a Free and open-source software, free desktop environment with comparatively low resource requirements. This makes it especially suitable for use on older or resource-constrained pe ...
which was started in 2006. A
comparison of X Window System desktop environments demonstrates the differences between environments. GNOME and KDE were usually seen as dominant solutions, and these are still often installed by default on Linux systems. Each of them offers:
* To programmers, a set of standard APIs, a programming environment, and
human interface guidelines.
* To translators, a collaboration infrastructure. KDE and GNOME are available in many languages.
* To artists, a workspace to share their talents.
* To ergonomics specialists, the chance to help simplify the working environment.
* To developers of third-party applications, a reference environment for integration. OpenOffice.org is one such application.
* To users, a complete desktop environment and a suite of essential applications. These include a file manager, web browser, multimedia player, email client, address book, PDF reader, photo manager, and system preferences application.
In the early 2000s, KDE reached maturity. The Appeal and ToPaZ projects focused on bringing new advances to the next major releases of both KDE and GNOME respectively. Although striving for broadly similar goals, GNOME and KDE do differ in their approach to user ergonomics. KDE encourages applications to integrate and interoperate, is highly customizable, and contains many complex features, all whilst trying to establish sensible defaults. GNOME on the other hand is more prescriptive, and focuses on the finer details of essential tasks and overall simplification. Accordingly, each one attracts a different user and developer community. Technically, there are numerous technologies common to all Unix-like desktop environments, most obviously the X Window System. Accordingly, the
freedesktop.org project was established as an informal collaboration zone with the goal being to reduce duplication of effort.
As GNOME and KDE focus on high-performance computers, users of less powerful or older computers often prefer alternative desktop environments specifically created for low-performance systems. Most commonly used lightweight desktop environments include
LXDE
LXDE (abbreviation for Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment) is a Free and open-source software, free desktop environment with comparatively low resource requirements. This makes it especially suitable for use on older or resource-constrained pe ...
and Xfce; they both use
GTK+
GTK (formerly GIMP ToolKit and 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 s ...
, which is the same underlying toolkit GNOME uses. The
MATE desktop environment, a fork of
GNOME 2, is comparable to Xfce in its use of RAM and processor cycles, but is often considered more as an alternative to other lightweight desktop environments.
For a while, GNOME and KDE enjoyed the status of the most popular Linux desktop environments; later, other desktop environments grew in popularity. In April 2011, GNOME introduced a new interface concept with its
version 3, while a popular Linux distribution
Ubuntu
Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed primarily of free and open-source software. Developed by the British company Canonical (company), Canonical and a community of contributors under a Meritocracy, meritocratic gover ...
introduced its own new desktop environment,
Unity. Some users preferred to keep the traditional interface concept of GNOME 2, resulting in the creation of
MATE as a GNOME 2 fork.
Examples of desktop environments
The most common desktop environment on personal computers is
Windows Shell
The Windows shell is the graphical user interface for the Microsoft Windows operating system. Its readily identifiable elements consist of the desktop, the taskbar, the Start menu, the task switcher and the AutoPlay feature. On some versions of ...
in
Microsoft Windows
Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...
. Microsoft has made significant efforts in making Windows shell visually pleasing. As a result, Microsoft has introduced
theme support in
Windows 98
Windows 98 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. It was the second operating system in the 9x line, as the successor to Windows 95. It was Software ...
, the various
Windows XP visual styles, the
Aero
Aero is a Greek prefix relating to flight and air. In British English, it is used as an adjective related to flight (e.g., as a shortened substitute for aeroplane).
Aero, Ærø, or Aeros may refer to:
Aeronautics Airlines and companies
* Aero (A ...
brand in
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, released five years earlier, which was then the longest time span between successive releases of Microsoft W ...
, the
Microsoft design language (codenamed "Metro") in
Windows 8
Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012, made available for download via Microsoft ...
, and the
Fluent Design System
Fluent Design System (codenamed "Project Neon") is a design language developed in 2017 by Microsoft. Fluent Design is a revamp of Metro (design language), Microsoft Design Language 2 that includes guidelines for the designs and interactions u ...
and
Windows Spotlight in
Windows 10
Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. The successor to Windows 8.1, it was Software release cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on July 2 ...
. Windows shell can be extended via
Shell extension
File Explorer, previously known as Windows Explorer, is a file manager application and default desktop environment that is included with releases of the Microsoft Windows operating system from Windows 95 onwards. It provides a graphical user i ...
s.
Many mainstream desktop environments for Unix-like operating systems, including KDE, GNOME, Xfce, and LXDE, use the X Window System or
Wayland, any of which may be selected by users, and are not tied exclusively to the operating system in use. The desktop environment for
macOS
macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...
, which is also a Unix-like system, is
Aqua, which uses the
Quartz
Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The Atom, atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen Tetrahedral molecular geometry, tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tet ...
graphics layer, rather than using X or Wayland.
A number of other desktop environments also exist, including (but not limited to)
CDE,
EDE,
GEM,
IRIX Interactive Desktop, Sun's
Java Desktop System,
Jesktop, Mezzo,
Project Looking Glass,
ROX Desktop,
UDE,
Xito, XFast. Moreover, there exists FVWM-Crystal, which consists of a powerful configuration for the
FVWM
The F Virtual Window Manager (FVWM) is a virtual window manager for the X Window System. Originally a twm derivative, FVWM is now a window manager for Unix-like systems.
History
In 1993, during his work analyzing acoustic signatures for the ...
window manager, a theme and further adds, altogether forming a "construction kit" for building up a desktop environment.
X window managers that are meant to be usable stand-alone — without another desktop environment — also include elements reminiscent of those found in typical desktop environments, most prominently
Enlightenment. Other examples include
OpenBox,
Fluxbox
Fluxbox is a stacking window manager for the X Window System, which started as a fork of Blackbox 0.61.1 in 2001, with the same aim to be lightweight. Its user interface has only a taskbar, a pop-up menu accessible by right-clicking on the d ...
,
WindowLab,
Fvwm
The F Virtual Window Manager (FVWM) is a virtual window manager for the X Window System. Originally a twm derivative, FVWM is now a window manager for Unix-like systems.
History
In 1993, during his work analyzing acoustic signatures for the ...
, as well as
Window Maker and
AfterStep
AfterStep is a stacking window manager for the X Window System. The goal of AfterStep's development is to provide for flexibility of desktop configuration, improved aesthetics and efficient use of system resources, and was used in such distributi ...
, which both feature the
NeXTSTEP
NeXTSTEP is a discontinued object-oriented, multitasking operating system based on the Mach kernel and the UNIX-derived BSD. It was developed by NeXT, founded by Steve Jobs, in the late 1980s and early 1990s and was initially used for its ...
GUI look and feel.
The
Amiga
Amiga is a family of personal computers produced by Commodore International, Commodore from 1985 until the company's bankruptcy in 1994, with production by others afterward. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16-b ...
approach to desktop environment was noteworthy: the original
Workbench
A workbench is a sturdy table at which manual work is done. They range from simple flat surfaces to very complex designs that may be considered tools in themselves. Workbenches vary in size from tiny jewellers benches to the huge benches used by ...
desktop environment in
AmigaOS
AmigaOS is a family of proprietary native operating systems of the Amiga and AmigaOne personal computers. It was developed first by Commodore International and introduced with the launch of the first Amiga, the Amiga 1000, in 1985. Early versions ...
evolved through time to originate an entire family of descendants and alternative desktop solutions. Some of those descendants are the Scalos,
the
Ambient desktop of
MorphOS
MorphOS is an AmigaOS-like operating system designed for Power and PowerPC based computers. The core, based on the Quark microkernel, is proprietary, although several libraries and other parts are open source, such as the Ambient desktop.
The p ...
, and the
Wanderer
Wanderer, Wanderers, or The Wanderer may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Film, television, and theater
* The Wanderer (1913 film), ''The Wanderer'' (1913 film), a silent film
* The Wanderer (1925 film), ''The Wanderer'' (1925 film), a silen ...
desktop of the
AROS open source OS. WindowLab also contains features reminiscent of the Amiga UI. Third-party
Directory Opus software, which was originally just a
navigational file manager program, evolved to become a complete Amiga desktop replacement called Directory Opus Magellan.
OS/2
OS/2 is a Proprietary software, proprietary computer operating system for x86 and PowerPC based personal computers. It was created and initially developed jointly by IBM and Microsoft, under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci, ...
(and derivatives such as
eComStation and
ArcaOS
ArcaOS is a Proprietary software, proprietary operating system based on OS/2, developed and marketed by Arca Noae, LLC under license from IBM. It was first released in 2017 and builds on OS/2 Warp 4.52 by adding support for new hardware, fixing ...
) use the
Workplace Shell. Earlier versions of OS/2 used the
Presentation Manager.
The
BumpTop project was an experimental desktop environment. Its main objective is to replace the 2D paradigm with a "real-world" 3D implementation, where documents can be freely manipulated across a virtual table.
Gallery
File:AmbientDesktop.png, Ambient
File:Solus 4.1 Budgie.jpg, alt=Bugie Desktop, Budgie
File:CDE 2012 on Linux.png, CDE
File:Cinnamon 4.2.3 screenshot.png, Cinnamon
Cinnamon is a spice obtained from the inner bark of several tree species from the genus ''Cinnamomum''. Cinnamon is used mainly as an aromatic condiment and flavouring additive in a wide variety of cuisines, sweet and savoury dishes, biscuits, b ...
File:COSMIC Epoch 1.0.0 alpha with apps.png, COSMIC
File:EDE desktop environment.png, EDE
File:VirtualBox Linux Deepin 20.1 LARGE 17 03 2021 11 00 50.png, Deepin DE
File:Enlightenment 0.26.0.png, Enlightenment
File:GNOME Shell 40 (applications grid).png, GNOME Shell
File:Gnustep.png, GNUstep
GNUstep is a free software implementation of the Cocoa (formerly OpenStep) Objective-C frameworks, widget toolkit, and application development tools for Unix-like operating systems and Microsoft Windows. It is part of the GNU Project.
GNUst ...
/ Window Maker
File:KDE_Plasma_6.3_desktop_screenshot.webp, KDE Plasma 6
File:Lumina1.0.0-TrueOS.png, Lumina
File:LXDE desktop full.png, LXDE
LXDE (abbreviation for Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment) is a Free and open-source software, free desktop environment with comparatively low resource requirements. This makes it especially suitable for use on older or resource-constrained pe ...
File:LXQt 1.0.0 Ambiance screenshot.png, LXQt
LXQt is a free and open-source software, free and open source lightweight desktop environment. It was formed from the merger of the LXDE and Razor-qt projects.
Like its GTK predecessor LXDE, LXQt does not ship or develop its own window manager ...
File:Ubuntu Mate 18.04.1 with MATE 1.20.1.png, MATE
File:Elementary OS 5.1 Hera.png, Pantheon
File:Razor desktop.png, Razor-qt
Razor-qt is a discontinued free software, free and open-source software, open-source desktop environment. It was intended as a lightweight desktop environment based upon the Qt (software), Qt application framework, and was "tailored for users ...
File:Rox-desktop-2004.png, ROX Desktop
File:Sugar-home-view-0.82.jpg, Sugar
Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose
Glucose is a sugar with the Chemical formula#Molecular formula, molecul ...
File:Screenshot of Trinity Desktop Environment (TDE) R14.0.5 Development.png, Trinity
The Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the Christian doctrine concerning the nature of God, which defines one God existing in three, , consubstantial divine persons: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God the Holy Spirit, thr ...
File:UDE Honeycomb.png, UDE
File:UKUI Desktop environment.png, UKUI (desktop environment)
File:Ubuntu Unity 22.10 desktop screenshot.png, Unity
File:XFCE-4.12-Desktop-standard.png, Xfce
Xfce or XFCE (pronounced as four individual letters, ) is a Free and open-source software, free and open-source desktop environment for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems.
Xfce aims to be fast and Lightweight software, lightweight whil ...
See also
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Wayland – an alternative to the X Window System which can run several different desktop environments
*
Comparison of X Window System desktop environments
References
{{Operating system