yonasuriv / dev-databank

Best Developers Tools and Tech Stack

Pentesting

Kali

-- Desktop Enviroment: Plasma, XFCE, Gnome

-- Available Versions: Bare Metal, Virtual Machines, Mobile, Live Boot & more

-- Download

Parrot

-- Desktop Enviroment: Electro Ara (Mate, KDE Plasma and XFCE)

-- Available Versions: Home, Security, Cloud & more

-- Download

Black Arch

-- Desktop Enviroment: -

-- Available Versions: Full, Slim

-- Download

Daily Use

Manjaro

-- Desktop Enviroment: Plasma, XFCE, Gnome & more

-- Available Versions: Full, Minimal

-- Download

Fedora

-- Desktop Enviroment: Plasma, XFCE, Gnome

-- Available Versions: Full, Media Writer (Live)

-- Download

Pop

-- Desktop Enviroment: Gnome

-- Available Versions: Full

-- Download

Solus

-- Desktop Enviroment: Gnome, Budgie, Plasma, Mate

-- Available Versions: Full

-- Download

Ubuntu

-- Desktop Enviroment: Gnome, Budgie

-- Available Versions: Full (Desktop), Server, Cloud

-- Download

Zorin

-- Desktop Enviroment: Gnome, XFCE

-- Available Versions: Full (Core), Lite

-- Download

How to choose the perfect Desktop Enviroment

I will try to cover all the desktop environments that are officially supported by arch linux. The list is provided in Arch Wiki

and i will simply follow the same order. And All of these are free. These are all also compatible as they are officially available in Arch repos. So, No issues of compatibility.

BEST DESKTOP ENVIRONMENTS

GNOME

Gnome is a modern desktop environment, the layout is different from other options but easy and intuitive to learn, it will give your computer a fresh start.

Pros: Modern. Highly popular. Has been around for a long time and is super easy and stable. seems like a tablet interface which looks more classy. Definitely the most popular and nicely documented. good number of extensions ready to be used.

Cons: A bit different from the traditional desktop and can be really heavy on resources.

KDE Plasma

Plasma desktop environment favors KDE/QT technologies and from all desktops it offers the most complete configurations and options inside a UI. The UI resembles Windows layout, if you know Windows inside out and are not overwhelmed with the amount of options available to you then this maybe the one for you.

Pros: Highly customizable. Full suite of almost all apps from text editor to Video editor. Huge User as well as developer base.

Cons: heavy on resources. A bit buggy due to heavy customizable features.

MATE

Mate provides an intuitive and attractive desktop to Linux users using traditional metaphors. MATE is a fork of GNOME 2.

Pros: Simple, Beautiful, Customizable and everything nice

Cons: No Cons except looks a bit traditional.

XFCE

Xfce is a lightweight desktop environment. It aims to be fast and low on system resources, while being rock solid. The UI layout resembles Windows OS, if you've never tried Manjaro or Linux before, this is a great starting point.

Pros: Modern and lightweight. Has both traditional and modern looks and available to customize.

Cons: Not many complaints here either, but you need to tweak it to make it look more pretty.

OTHER DESKTOP ENVIRONMENTS

Budgie

Budgie is a desktop environment designed with the modern user in mind, it focuses on simplicity and elegance.

Pros: beautiful and modern. mostly simple and does not confuse you much with too much configuration.

Cons: relatively young and may have some issues. Not much Documentation or forum activity as it is designed for specifically Solus OS which is not much famous.

Cinnamon

Cinnamon strives to provide a traditional user experience. Cinnamon is a fork of GNOME 3.

Pros: light and traditional. Improving constantly, thanks to the popularity. Good amount of forum activity, as it is adopted more and more OS’s. Really easy and simple.

Cons: still buggy in some areas.

Deepin

Deepin desktop interface and apps feature an intuitive and elegant design. Moving around, sharing and searching etc. has become simply a joyful experience.

Pros: Getting popular due to its intuitive design. has a elegant and beautiful design. All the effects and transitions are also pretty.

Cons: Designed for Deepin OS and not really much Documentation available.

Enlightenment

The Enlightenment desktop shell provides an efficient window manager based on the Enlightenment Foundation Libraries along with other essential desktop components like a file manager, desktop icons and widgets. It supports themes, while still being capable of performing on older hardware or embedded devices.

Pros: Really modern and has more of a something to learn to use it actually. But extremely advanced than other DE’s.

Cons: Sucks in Arch. Has many bugs. Practically No Documentation. Kind of Abandoned after dumped by the Bodhi linux distro.

LXDE

The Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment is a fast and energy-saving desktop environment. It comes with a modern interface, multi-language support, standard keyboard short cuts and additional features like tabbed file browsing. Fundamentally designed to be lightweight, LXDE strives to be less CPU and RAM intensive than other environments.

Pros: The description says it all.

Cons: Just the fact it is not as beautiful as the others.

Conclusion

There are lot many others which are unofficially supported through AUR. A DE is more than just customizable or free, The main thing to remember is the performance and cuteness. If you have a modern Computer, then go for the first few for simplicity, go for kde for high customizability and everything and the last ones if you are using old hardware bu still want good performance.