Talk:Desktop environment

Please, please, please, monitor the page if you contribute/want to contribute, or are willing to update
There has been a lot of work done on DEs since this page was concocted. Things which were true two releases ago may not be the case w/ the current release. Are there identified experts/leaders in the various project who are editing this page? If not, are there current editors who can invite project leaders (if you have to use a press-gang it might be OK given the importance of this topic, just don't hit them too hard over the head) from at least the major desktop environments it might be very helpful.

Would it be considered acceptable to Wikipedia to have wiki content (at lot use Wikimedia so a little tiny script might do the trick) from the projects mirrored in Wikipedia? I don't think that the entire KDE user manual be included in Wikipedia, but summary of features would be very helpful. Who knows, maybe KDE, GNOME, LXQt, Xfce, and a few others could agree to use a common set of features to report...

Some pressing things which need to be fixed include:
 * The timeline graphic. We have another five years of growth (and even other DEs which use Qt, well, one now, but LXQt is quite worth talking about).  — Preceding unsigned comment added by DrKC MD (talk • contribs) 05:52, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Best to leave out external links to individual entries?
Assuming someone will make an entry for EDE, wouldn't it be best to leave the external links on the individual desktop environment entries? I think Gnome and KDE already have links off their page, and adding redundant links across multiple articles makes keeping the links up-to-date harder.


 * Yes, that is a good general principle. Done.--Eloquence*

Do window managers belong on the list?
According to my knowledge FluxBox and BlackBox are not DEs but rather WMs. Do they belong on the list? -- DNAdk 3/8-06


 * I'd say "no" - there's already a page for window managers, and if something just manages your windows, it's not really a full desktop environment. Guy Harris 23:34, 11 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Window manager, desktop metaphor and desktop environment are interestingly dependent concepts. Window manager actually redirects to X window manager and I think that's justified, the other windowing systems just don't separate the managing from the environment. Traditional window managers for X didn't implement the whole desktop metaphor, but they had to implement a minimal desktop environment for the system to be usable. The desktop was called the root window and the window manager would provide a menu to launch programs there. Minimized windows would have to be available either in a menu or as icons. Compare this to modern window managers such as Metacity, Kwin or Compiz that cannot necessarily be used without a desktop environment.
 * And things have changed a lot since these comments have been made.


 * I'm not saying that FluxBox and BlackBox should be included in the list of desktop environments, but for example Ion would in my opinion be both an X window manager and provide a full (unconventional) desktop environment for the user. --TuukkaH 09:22, 12 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm also not sure if Enlightenment should be on here. By my understanding Enlightenment is a window manager. In fact, the article for it calls it a window manager. Whenever I have used it, I don't recall there being a desktop instead it only managed windows, hence a window manager. --Harbit713 19:03, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
 * You are/were correct. Enlightenment is used like a desktop environment by people who find LXQt/LXDE/Xfce too bloated.

//All windows managers shall be moved to a separate page — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.247.186.212 (talk) 18:59, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Choosing images
I suggest we should remove the images of desktop environments, they look all the same and they are not interesting. A drawing that shows the elements of a desktop environment as discussed in the article could be a better choice. --TuukkaH 07:34, 5 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I see that they are all rather similar; yet they are all different. Are you thinking we should take one of these and label it like a schematic?  I suppose it could be done, but I am not certain it would look better. --Matthew K 02:59, 8 September 2006 (UTC)


 * After some thought, I think that perhaps leaving most of these here, but making the images a bit larger and adding captions that describe the differences between them would be the best approach. If there is no oposition to this idea, I will try it in a couple days and we can see what we think of it. --Matthew K 16:21, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Unnecessary external link
The most recent addition to this page is a link to a very short opinion about desktop environments... it just lacks substance to be a relevant reference here. Rather than just do it myself, I propose we remove the reference to http://www.evilbitz.com/2006/10/22/windows-customization-needs-help/ --Matthew K


 * I agree. I doubt it will help the reader understand what desktop environments are. --Chaos386


 * Done; if anyone has more useful/substantial external links, they are welcome to add them. --Matthew K 16:47, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Merge
The articles Desktop_metaphor and Paper_paradigm should probably be moved here as an introductory section. Dragice 06:41, 9 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Those two articles should definitely be merged, though I'm not sure that this article should be merged with them. — Omegatron 15:10, 22 November 2006 (UTC)


 * The 'paper paradigm' article was merged with the 'desktop metaphor' article at some point. I just thought you would like to know. 159.83.54.221 (talk) 02:00, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

SimpleKDE? AntiRight?
SimpleKDE? http://www.simplekde.org/node/7/default.htm AntiRight? http://www.nongnu.org/antiright/ -- Writtenonsand 00:53, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Clipboard
Would it be appropriate to mention that some DEs provide clipboard functionality? - dcljr (talk) 05:07, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

X Window System bias
The Windows and Mac OS desktop environments are easily the most used desktop environments in the world, being used by more people then the X Window System. It is then strange that first Windows and Mac OS don't get their own paragraphs and second that what they do have is so small and brief. The majority of the page is easily dedicated to the X Window System and environments which use it. I think there should be more information about the Windows and Mac OS desktop environments, which also link to the more complete articles about them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by DiablosDevil (talk • contribs) 14:07, 3 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Understood. But the fact of the matter is there isn't much done with the Microsoft types because there are no choices.  What is included with the OS is what you get.  Further, because the whole thing is proprietary there isn't much that can be said about it. - KitchM (talk) 03:55, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Was true then, is true now. However, there are some attempts to give Windows (I don't know about Mac OS/X--I just assume they all drank the KoolAid, or know how to install X Windows/Wayland plus whatever else they want) a different desktop.  I don't know anything about it as I can (mostly) live with Win10 when I am not using Linux (so long as I have Cygwin).  There should be some discussion about what has been done w/ the KDE for Windows project (basically it doesn't let you run KDE as your Windows desktop, but you can run Windows version of KDE applications with most of the infrastructure (dbus, akonadi, etc.) working (most of the time).
 * The big reasons, however, that X Windows (and now Wayland) based desktop environments are discussed here is that, as alluded to in the earlier post, users have a choice. An ever growing choice, ranging from minimalistic use of Enlightenment as a DE, to the all-singing-all-dancing DEs like KDE, GNOME.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by DrKC MD (talk • contribs) 05:40, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Desktop Environment vs. Shell
I was just looking at Shell (computing). Can a Desktop Environment be accurately described as a graphical shell? Karl Dickman talk 18:14, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
 * No. A shell is a script language interpreter or a program executor which communicates with kernel-near layers of an operating system; and a graphical shell is a window with a frame around a shell on top of a desktop environment (which becomes opened when it is started there as an ordinary application). This is intended to make working with such tool somewhat more nice and handy for the user (while making him residing in a GUI surrounding atmosphere), but the shell commands related to the script language and to program execution stay the same as in a non-GUI-environment. A.Abdel-Rahim (talk) 23:58, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, desktop environments can be and have been described as graphical shells (there are even articles for the Windows Shell and its replacements). In Unix-like systems "the shell" is the script language that you describe, but there's nothing preventing that the concept of "a OS shell" can be a graphical environment with visual commands (including commands that can't be issued through a non-GUI). Diego (talk) 21:20, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * This kind of language use will lead to an infringement of definition limits of the notion of "shell" that we were used to refer to. I wonder what can be won with such an undertaking. What makes it so uncomfortable is, that all the facets of multifunctionality of a desktop environment become jammed into the notion of "shell" with lots of portions of abstraction in it. A.Abdel-Rahim (talk) 22:18, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, this is the notion of shell used in the Wikipedia article -and I'd dare to say it is the original one. Given that it originated as a metaphor ("an outer layer of interface between the user and [...] the kernel") I can't see a reason why the name should be restricted to the unix family of CLI "shell applications" (the Bourne shell, the Korn shell, the z shell...) which stay within your particular definition limits. IMO the desktop environments fit very well in the described metaphor as the outer interface layer. Note that they do work as program executors, and desktops usually provide a script language interpreter through modules like Apple's Automator. Diego (talk) 22:37, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Why talk about CLI at all?
Related to the preceding: buried in the first couple of paras are a few words about CLI. Perhaps either (1) the CLI matter should be excised on the grounds that it's OT in this article; or (2) putative evolution of GUI from CLI can be mentioned ever so briefly in the first para, then forgotten. - Pete142 10:54, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Packed or Backed?
In the first paragraph, is the word "-packed" or "-backed"? - KitchM (talk) 03:57, 8 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I worked on the English usage in the first couple of paragraphs and in the process removed the nonsense word "-packed." - Pete142 10:34, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

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 * the archived versions, we need the early ones that work. &mdash; Dsimic (talk &#124; contribs) 20:58, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Invite to participate in a related discussion.
There is a underway discussion about desktop environments, I would be grateful if you participate in it:


 * Categories_for_discussion/Log/2016_October_31

Editor-1 (talk) 08:08, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

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Links to article "Comparison of X Window System desktop environments"
This article links to "Comparison of X Window System desktop environments" no fewer than four times, at least half of which serve no useful purpose to the article. (by which I mean being located in an almost identically named section just before the Gallery that is otherwise completely empty, and being linked to yet again under "Other articles".) I propose that these two occurrences be removed, which I would be happy to do if no one objects. 1980fast (talk) 06:35, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

Zorin OS does not use a custom desktop environment, should not be mentioned in "examples"
Title says it all, it's just GNOME 3 with the Arc Menu and Dock to Panel extensions pre-installed. All that's new is the themes, the Browser Manager, and the upcoming (as of April 2019) Zorin Connect software, which allows for phone syncing or something. I propose that it be removed from the section with examples of DE's. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:6C46:6180:5600:11D3:1ED6:CD0A:B5EC (talk) 22:42, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion: You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 15:23, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Deepin Screenshot.png