Desktop Environment - Desktop Environments For The X Window System

Desktop Environments For The X Window System

On systems running the X Window System (typically Unix-like systems such as Linux), the desktop environment is much more flexible. In this context, a desktop environment typically consists of a window manager (such as Metacity or KWin), a file manager (such as Nautilus or Dolphin), a set of themes, and programs and libraries for managing the desktop. All of these individual modules can be exchanged and individually configured to achieve a unique combination, but most desktop environments provide a default configuration that requires minimal user input.

Some window managers such as IceWM, Fluxbox and Window Maker contain rudimentary desktop environment elements, while others like evilwm and wmii do not.

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, for example, provides so-called KIO slaves which give the user access to a wide range of virtual devices. These I/O slaves are not available outside the KDE environment.

Initially, CDE was available as a proprietary solution, but was never popular on Linux systems due to cost and licensing restrictions. In 1996 the KDE was announced, followed in 1997 by the announcement of GNOME. Xfce is a smaller project that was also founded in 1997, and focuses on speed and modularity, just like LXDE which was started in 2006. A comparison of X Window System desktop environments demonstrates the differences between environments. Today, GNOME and KDE are the dominant solutions, and these are often installed by default on GNU/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 along with GNOME. Still active, the Appeal and ToPaZ projects focus 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 Linux 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, those users with old slow hardware often use alternative desktop environments specifically created for low-performance systems. The two most common lightweight desktop environments are LXDE and Xfce. Both use GTK+, the same underlying toolkit as GNOME. Razor-Qt is also considered a fast desktop environment because it is based on Qt technologies, the same underlying toolkit as KDE. While still a new project, Razor-Qt already contains the key DE components.