Desktop Environments

Earlier, I spoke of various aspects of a Linux distro, and mentioned the concept of the Desktop Environment (DE). In this post, I will give a more in-depth explanation of DE's by pointing out some of their key points. Since they are the most widely used, I'm going to focus on GNOME, KDE, and Xfce.

File Manager
Also called a file browser, this is a program that lets the user graphically browse directories and files on a computer. In Windows, the file manager is Windows Explorer, and in Mac OS X, the file manager is Finder. There are several available file managers for Linux. Choosing one that works for you is important, because this is a program that you will be using quite often.

GNOME uses Nautilus as its default file manager, KDE uses Konqueror (which is also a web browser), and XFCE uses Thunar.

The future of the file manager is really open-ended. There are some cases in which the desktop metaphor is taken to the extreme, such as BumpTop. In other cases, there are simple tweaks to the current metaphor, such as switching from a navagational metaphor to an object-oriented metaphor (see The Spatial Way).

Window Manager
A Window manager is a program that controls the appearance and behavior of windows. The buttons that you click in the corner of a window to close, minimize, and maximize the window are part of the window manager. When you resize a window, you're using a function of the window manager. In both Windows and Mac OS X, the window manager is vendor-controlled. However, with Linux, you a free to use a number of window managers, and configure them to fit your needs.

GNOME employs Metacity,while KDE employs KWin, and Xfce uses Xfwm.

Beryl and Compiz seem to be rather popular window managers.

Applications
All DE's come with different applications. For example, GNOME's text editor is Gedit, KDE's is Kwrite, and Xfce's is Mousepad. However, this isn't a big deal since it's possible to install an application in a non-native DE as long as you have the necessary libraries installed. I use some KDE apps in GNOME, such as KAlarm, Rosegarden, and Creox.