Choosing a Desktop for Linux

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 There are quite a few desktop environments and these are too many to cover, so I will cover some of the main ones, even though some of you may wonder why I have not listed your favorite desktop environment. These are some of the more popular, listed in alphabetical order. If I do not list your desktop that you use daily, it does not mean it is not a good desktop, it just didn't make the list.


Most people using a computer have a desktop environment of some sort on their system. There still exists some system without a Graphical User Interface (GUI), but these are rare. Servers may not have a GUI, but most workstations have a desktop.



The Desktop Environment is the GUI used as an interface for the user to the underlying Operating System (OS). For example, you can create folders in the GUI with a mouse rather than typing in the command 'mkdir' in a Command-Line Interface (CLI) when you have no GUI installed.


  •   Starting a new Desktop Environment


Once you’ve installed a desktop, you can logout and at the logon screen, select your user name. In the lower right corner, there should be a cog wheel or another button. Once you click the button, you’ll get a list of installed Desktop Environments.

From the list, just select the Desktop Environment you want to use and then type in your password and log into the system with a new desktop.

For ArchLinux, the button is on the top right.

After changing the Display Manager for Fedora, the option is on the top left of the login screen.

I will concentrate on three different systems to install the Desktop Environments:

  1. Ubuntu
  2. Fedora
  3. ArchLinux

NOTE: For ArchLinux, I installed a desktop not used in this article to install the others from the CLI.

Also, be sure to perform an update from the repositories for your distro.

  •   Budgie


Budgie has efficient performance. There are quite a few distros that come with Budgie already installed when you install the OS.

For Ubuntu, go to a terminal and type in the following command:

`sudo apt install ubuntu−budgie−desktop`

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