How to choose a Linux desktop environment

Linux has created a friendly environment that gives us the possibility to choose. For example, most modern Linux distributions offer different desktop environments for us to choose from. In this article, I will pick some of the best desktop environments you might see in Linux.
Plasma

I think KDE's Plasma desktop is the most advanced desktop environment. (Translator's Note: Nothing is the best, only the most appropriate, after all, everyone's preferences are impossible Exactly the same). It's the most versatile and customizable desktop environment I've ever seen; even Mac OS X and Windows
can't match the user's complete autonomous control.

I love Plasma because it comes with a very good file manager —— Dolphin. The reason I prefer Plasma to the Gnome environment is the file manager. The biggest pain with Gnome is that its file manager ——Files—— prevents me from doing some basic tasks, such as batch file rename operations. This operation is very important to me because I like to shoot, but Gnome makes it impossible for me to rename these image files in batches. With Dolphin, this operation is as simple as walking in the park.

And, you can enhance the functionality of Plasma with plugins. Plasma has a number of basic software such as Krita, Kdenlive, Calligra Office Suite, digiKam, Kwrite, and a host of applications developed and maintained by the KDE community.

The only flaw in the Plasma desktop environment is its default mail client ——Kmail. Its setup is difficult, I hope that Kmail settings can configure the address book and calendar.

Most of the major distributions, including openSUSE, use Plasma as the default desktop.
GNOME

GNOME (GNU Network Object Model Environment) was created in 1997 by Miguel de Icaza and Federico Mena because KDE uses the Qt toolkit, and This toolkit is released using a proprietary license. Unlike a lot of custom KDE, GNOME is focused on making things simple. Because of its simplicity and ease of use, GNOME has become quite popular. And I think the reason why GNOME is popular is that Ubuntu—— using GNOME as one of the mainstream Linux distributions for the default desktop —— has a huge boost.

As time changes, GNOME also needs to make corresponding changes. As a result, the developer introduced the GNOME 3 Shell in GNOME 3, which led to its new design specification. But this is also in conflict with Canonical's Ubuntu program, so Canonical developed its own shell called Unity for GNOME. Initially, the GNOME 3 Shell was troubled by a lot of disputes —— the most obvious is that many upgrades will not work properly after the upgrade. Due to major design changes and various issues, GNOME has produced many forks, such as the Cinnamon and Mate desktops.

In addition, what makes GNOME interesting is that it is optimized for touch devices, so if you have a touch-screen notebook

, GNOME is the best for you. The desktop environment of Taiwan

.

In version 3.18, GNOME has made some impressive changes. One of the most interesting things they have done is the integration of Google Drive, where users can mount their Google Drive as a remote storage device, so you don't have to use a browser to view the files inside. I also like the excellent mail client that comes with GNOME, which comes with a calendar and address book. Despite so many excellent features, its file manager makes me no longer use GNOME because I can't handle batch file renaming. I will stick to Plasma and continue to fix this minor bug by GNOME developers.
Unity

Technically, Unity is not a desktop environment, it is just a graphical shell that Canonical developed for Ubuntu. Unity runs on the GNOME desktop and uses many GNOME applications and tools. The Ubuntu team has branched out some GNOME components to better meet the needs of Unity users.

Unity plays an important role in Ubuntu's convergence program. In Unity 8, Canonical is working hard to bring the desktop and mobile world together. Canonical also developed many interesting techniques for Unity, such as HUD (Head-up Display). They also use a unique technology in lenses and scopes to make it easy for users to find specific content.

The upcoming Ubuntu 16.04 will be powered by Unity 8, and users will be able to fully experience all the features developers have added for the open source software. One of the biggest controversies, Unity has the option to un-integrate Amazon Ads and other services. In the upcoming release, Canonical removed Amazon ads from Dash, but by default it guarantees the privacy of the system.
Cinnamon

Initially, Cinnamon was developed by Linux Mint —— This is the most popular distribution on DistroWatch.com. Like Unity, Cinnamon is a branch of the GNOME Shell. But it evolved into a stand-alone desktop environment, because Linux Mint developers branched many of the components of the GNOME desktop to Cinnamon, including Files —— to meet the needs of their users.

Because Linux Mint is based on the normal version of Ubuntu, developers still need to complete Ubuntu's unfinished goals. As a result, despite the bright future, Cinnamon is full of Bugs and problems. With the release of this version of 17.x, Linux Mint began moving to the LTS version of Ubuntu so they could focus on developing the core components of Cinnamon without having to worry about the code base. The benefit of moving to LTS is that Cinnamon becomes very stable and basically no Bugs appear. Now, developers have begun to add more new features to the desktop environment.

Cinnamon is their best desktop environment for those who prefer to have a good Windows-like user interface on top of GNOME.
MATE Desktop

The MATE desktop is also a branch of GNOME. However, it is not branched from GNOME 3 like Cinnamon, but is a branch of the GNOME 2 codebase that is now unguarded. . Some developers on the MATE desktop don't like GNOME 3 and want to "continue to GNOME 2, so they use this code base to create MATE. To avoid conflicts with GNOME 3, they renamed all packages: Nautilus to Caja, Gedit to Pluma, and Evince to Atril.

Although MATE continues GNOME 2, it doesn't mean they use outdated technology; instead, they use newer technologies to provide a modern GNOME 2 experience.

Having a very high resource usage is what MATE is most impressive about. You can run it on old hardware or on some newer but less powerful hardware, such as the Raspberry Pi or the Chromebook Flip. What makes it even more interesting is that running it on some powerful hardware can save most resources to other applications, while the desktop environment itself takes up very little resources.
LXQt

LXQt inherits one of the most lightweight desktop environments from LXDE —— It combines two open source projects, LXDE and Razor-Qt. The first available version of LXQt (v 0.9) was released in 2015. Initially, developers used Qt4, and later abandoned the compatibility to speed up development, moving them to the Qt5 and KDE frameworks. I also tried LXQt on my own Arch system, which is really a very good lightweight desktop environment. But before fully taking over the legacy of LXDE, LXQt still has a long way to go.
Xfce

Xfce is older than the KDE desktop environment and is the oldest and most lightweight desktop environment. The latest version of Xfce is 4.15, released in 2015, using a large amount of modern technology such as GTK+ 3. Many distributions use the Xfce environment to meet specific needs, such as Ubuntu Studio —— similar to MATE —— try to save system resources to other applications. And, many well-known Linux distributions —— including Manjaro Linux, PC/OS, Salix, and Mythbuntu —— all use it as the default desktop environment.
Budgie

Budgie is a new desktop environment developed and maintained by the Solus Linux team. Solus is a new release built from scratch, and Budgie is a core component. Budgie uses a lot of GNOME components to provide a gorgeous user interface. Since there is no more information about this desktop environment, I specifically contacted Solus' core developer —— Ikey Doherty. He explained: "We have equipped our own desktop environment & mdash; — Budgie desktop. Unlike other desktop environments, Budgie is not a branch of other desktops, and its goal is to be fully integrated into the GNOME stack. It was written entirely from scratch and was deliberately designed to cater to the experience provided by Solus. We will work with GNOME's upstream team as much as possible to fix Bugs and promote and support their work.
Pantheon

I think that Pantheon doesn't need to be specifically introduced, the beautiful elementary OS uses it as a desktop. Similar to Budgie, many people think that Pantheon is not a branch of GNOME. The elementary OS team mostly has a good background in design, so they will pay close attention to every detail, which makes Pantheon a very beautiful desktop environment. Occasionally, it may lack certain features on desktops like Plasma, but developers are actually doing everything they can to stick to design principles.

Conclusion

When I finished this article, I suddenly realized the great benefits of open source and Linux. There is always something for you. As Jon “maddog” Hall said on the recent SCaLE 14: “Yes, there are now more than 300 Linux distributions. I can try one by one and stick to my favorite one.

So, enjoy the diversity of Linux, and finally use the one that best suits your needs.