Linux desktop environments ubuntu

Ubuntu flavours

Ubuntu flavours offer a unique way to experience Ubuntu, each with their own choice of default applications and settings. Ubuntu flavours are backed by the full Ubuntu archive for packages and updates.

Kubuntu

Kubuntu offers the KDE Plasma Workspace experience, a good-looking system for home and office use.

Lubuntu

Lubuntu is a light, fast, and modern Ubuntu flavor using LXQt as its default desktop environment. Lubuntu used to use LXDE as its default desktop environment.

Ubuntu Budgie

Ubuntu Budgie provides the Budgie desktop environment which focuses on simplicity and elegance. It provides a traditional desktop metaphor based interface utilising a customisable panel based menu driven system.

Ubuntu Kylin

The Ubuntu Kylin project is tuned to the needs of Chinese users, providing a thoughtful and elegant Chinese experience out-of-the-box.

Ubuntu MATE

Ubuntu MATE expresses the simplicity of a classic desktop environment. Ubuntu MATE is the continuation of the GNOME 2 desktop which was Ubuntu’s default desktop until October 2010.

Ubuntu Studio

Ubuntu Studio is a multimedia content creation flavor of Ubuntu, aimed at the audio, video and graphic enthusiast or professional.

Xubuntu

Xubuntu is an elegant and easy to use operating system. Xubuntu comes with Xfce, which is a stable, light and configurable desktop environment.

A complete list of known flavours, editions and customisations is maintained on the Ubuntu Wiki’s UbuntuFlavors page.

Download an Ubuntu Appliance

Try a new class of Ubuntu derivative using Ubuntu Core

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SpicyTricks

One of the main feature of Linux Distributions, you can customize that with any Desktop Environments. Ubuntu is Popular and Best Linux Distro, used by many new Linux users. By default, Ubuntu is packed with Unity Desktop environment, also other flavors are available like Ubuntu Gnome, Ubuntu MATE, Ubuntu Cinnamon.

Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Elementary OS and Xubuntu are derived from the Ubuntu Distro. These Distros are also using different Desktop Environments.

If you don’t the Unity Desktop and want to use new Desktop, then read this post. Now, Using our Guide you can install the Following Desktop Environments in Ubuntu and enjoy with new Desktop in Ubuntu.

Do you know what is Linux desktop Environments ?

Desktop Environment comes with following tools that allows you to use your Linux Computer with GUI.В Many calls the Ubuntu Desktop Environments as Ubuntu desktop manager. Mostly Desktop Environment consists of the following components,

• Window manager
• Display Manager
• Terminal
• Panels
• Menus
• Widgets
• File Manager
• Browser
• Office Suite
• Text Editor

Lets see the best Desktops for Ubuntu and How to install them

10 Best Linux Desktop Environments for Ubuntu

1. GNOME Desktop

The GNOME Desktop is the Popular desktop environment for Linux and widely used by many users for the long time. Canonical developed the Unity desktop as default environment sometime for Ubuntu ago. Now they are again ditched the Unity Desktop and moving back to the GNOME.В GNOME Shell is the default desktop interface for Ubuntu since version 17.10. From Now, You can call this Ubuntu desktop environment.

GNOME is the default desktop environment PopularВ Linux distributions including, Debian, Ubuntu,В Fedora,В Kali Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise (exclusively), Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS, Oracle Linux, and SteamOS.В The defaultВ window managerВ in ubuntu w/GNOMEВ Shell is Mutter.

GNOME has core set of applications built by many developers. That includes the GNOME Graphic Shell,В Control Center,В Chat. Files file Manager etc.

How to install GNOME In Ubuntu and Linux Mint

Open the terminal in Ubuntu and run the following command to start the installation process in Ubuntu,

That will install GNOME desktop on your Ubuntu OS. Logout and Choose the Default Desktop as GNOME environment and use it. If you have any stability issues and want to switch back to Unity Desktop,

the run the following command in the terminal to remove the GNOME and its dependencies,

Run the following command to completely remove the GNOME system files in terminal,

Now, Restore the Unity Desktop by running the following command,

Then Login again, If you have any issues when in the Login screen, Open tty terminal by pressing the CTRL + ALT + F1

2. Cinnamon Desktop

Cinnamon is the most popular and Best Desktop Environment, Default one for Linux Mint Distro.В Cinnamon will give you the polished, Modern, Stylish and awesome desktop. The Windows users who migrated to the Linux Operating System will definitely love this Cinnamon Desktop. You can change the wallpaper, add and position panels, add applets to the panels, Desklets and get the unique interface.

How to install Cinnamon In Ubuntu

To Install the Cinnamon run the following command in terminal

To remove Cinnamon from the ubuntu, run the command.

3. KDE Plasma

KDE Plasma is also Popular DE like GNOME. It provides the much similar modern, stylish look like Cinnamon Desktop. It is so widely used because of its wide range default Applications. Looks familiar with Windows Desktop and provides the lots of widget to use in the panel.В KDE uses the KWinВ window manager.

How to install KDE Plasma In Ubuntu

To remove the KDE Plasma

4. XFCE

XFCE is very fast, light-weight desktop environment. It is light system resources and able to work in the low-level configuration systems. If you want the fast Linux system, then choose the XFCE desktop environment.

Xfce is based on the GTK toolkit, uses theВ Xfwm Window Manager. Xubuntu Distro uses the XFCE as a Default Desktop.

How to install XFCE In Ubuntu

To install additional apps and extension, use the following command.

If you want to install Xfce 4.12 on Ubuntu 14.04 and 15.04:

To uninstall PPA:

5.В LXDE

Like the XFCE, LXDE is also Light-weight Linux Desktop Environment. You can use this DE for older computer Systems. XFCE will only offers the very basic applications by default and uses low memory. So it is best suitable for older hardware.

It’s very simple to install the LXDE.

How to install LXDE In Ubuntu

Run the following command in terminal,

6. MATE

MATE is developed from the GNOME 2 Desktop Environment. Many users want the same old GNOME 2 when GNOME 3 was launched. That’s where the MATE Desktop born. You can use this DE in old or Modern Computers without any issues. In Linux Mint, thisВ lightweight MATE Desktop is provided alternative the default cinnamon in Linux Mint.

How to install MATE Desktop on Ubuntu

Run the following commands in terminal to install the MATE Desktop on the latest Ubuntu 16.04, and newer,

To Uninstall and Remove Mate Desktop:

Install MATE Desktop on Ubuntu 15.10. Run the following commands:

To uninstall and remove Mate Desktop:

7. Pantheon Desktop

If you want the Apple’s Mac OS like Desktop for Linux Ubuntu, then install the Pantheon Desktop. It was originally developed for the elementary OS and the default DE for it too.В Like the XFCE, LXDE, it is not a highly customizable and have only minimal default applications. However, you can use this for minimal user interface.

Install Pantheon Desktop Environment On Ubuntu

8. LXQt

LXQt was developed from the popular desktop environment LXDE and Razot Qt Project. It is alsoВ lightweight and fast desktop environment for Linux and BSD.LXQt is the latest version of LXDE and will be used by default for the most popular LXDE deskop distros like Lubuntu, Knoppix etc

How Install LXQt on Ubuntu

Just run the following command in terminal to install LXQt

9. Budgie

Budgie Desktop uses the GTK+ and was developed for the Solus Project.В You can install Budgie desktop on Ubuntu alongside Unity, GNOME Shell, and Cinnamon with no conflicts. There isВ Ubuntu Budgie flavor is also now available for Ubuntu 16.04.3

How to Install Budgie on ubuntu

For Ubuntu 16.04 LTS you need to run this command first:

For Ubuntu 17.04 you need to run this command:

Once you have the relevant PPA enabled you can go ahead and install (or upgrade) Budgie 10.4 by running:

10. Unity 8

Like I said before, Unity is going to be removed from the Ubuntu and added with GNOME.В However, If you still want to use the Unity on your ubuntu machine, the you can install it using the following commands.

How to install Unity 8 On Ubuntu

If you want to install on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

Add the Stable Phone Overlay PPA

Ubuntu 14.10 and 15.04

Ubuntu 12.04 and 14.04:

For setting up run the following command

To remove Unity 8 use this command:

Note that, Don’t install the All the Desktop Environments in same System before removing the previous one. If you install all DE in single system, it may damage your Current OS and you have to reconfigure it.

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How to Install a Desktop Environment (GUI) on an Ubuntu 20.04 Server

In Linux, this GUI (Graphical User Interface) is referred to as a Desktop Environment .

A desktop environment is a collection of components that make up the graphical user interface (GUI) – it’s made out of widgets, icons, toolbars, wallpapers, and more. I think of it as a theme, but going even further than that. A desktop environment changes the look and feel of your system much more than a theme.

What’s more, you have quite few great options to choose from.

Linux servers don’t come with a desktop environment installed by default, and in most cases it’s not needed. However there are cases when you do require a graphical user interface on your Linux server to get your work done.

Objectives

In this tutorial we’ll install some of the most popular desktop environments on a server running Ubuntu 20.04.

These may work on other Debian based distros as well, but that’s not guaranteed.

I’ll focus on some of the most popular desktop environments available, however there are other ones that you can install, that are not listed here.

Table of Contents

Prerequisites

• Access to a remote server running Ubuntu 20.04, with a recommended minimum of 2GB RAM
• Acting as a non-root sudo user , as acting as root, you run the risk of harming your system if you’re not careful.

Install GNOME Desktop Environment

GNOME (an acronym for GNU Network Object Model Environment) is a desktop environment for the X Window System.

It is designed to be simple and easy to use. It uses natural metaphors to communicate with the user and uses a desktop layout that is similar to that of other popular operating systems. It is developed by the GNOME Project, which is a community of individuals and organizations. GNOME was originally developed to run on top of the X Window System and its development environment.

It grew a large number of features and became a desktop environment. It is now developed by the GNOME Project and a large community of third-party developers. It is currently the most popular desktop environment for GNU/Linux systems.

To install a minimal GNOME, without many software packages, run:

To install the full GNOME Desktop, run:

This is what GNOME looks like:

Install XFCE Desktop Environment

XFCE (originally an acronym for XForms Common Environment, later changed to mean XFCE Environment) is a lightweight desktop environment originally developed for Linux distributions based on the older Red Hat Linux distribution, though now it has been ported to many other systems as well.

It aims to be fast and lightweight, while still being visually appealing and easy to use. It is designed to have a traditional desktop layout, similar to the one found in Windows XP and GNOME 2.

To install XFCE, which is just the desktop environment for XFCE and a few other packages, run:

To install Xubuntu Desktop, which includes all the packages in XFCE4 and additional packages provided by the Xubuntu distro, run:

This is what XFCE looks like:

Install LXQt Desktop Environment

LXQt is a lightweight desktop environment, and is the Qt port of LXDE, the Lightweight Desktop Environment, and is the default desktop environment for Lubuntu as of October 2018. It is a desktop environment with a classic desktop layout, similar to that of GNOME 2.

It is based on the Qt toolkit, and is designed to be lightweight, resource efficient and less dependent on hardware than other desktop environments.

To install LXQt, run:

When you switch to LXQt for the first time it’ll ask you to select a window manager from a list. I typically select OpenBox but you can select any.

This is what LXQt looks like:

Install LXDE Desktop Environment

LXDE (The Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment) is a fast and energy-saving desktop environment. It used to be the default desktop environment in Lubuntu, until they moved to LXQt, in October 2018, due to the slow development of LXDE. The desktop layout is similar to that of GNOME 2. It uses the Openbox Display Manager (OBDM).

Its aim is to provide users with a desktop environment that is very fast and low on system resources, while still being visually appealing and user friendly.

To install LXDE, run:

This is what LXDE looks like:

Install MATE Desktop Environment

MATE Desktop , which stands for the “MATE Desktop Environment”, is a fork of GNOME 2. It is a stable, easy to use desktop environment developed with the aim of preserving the best parts of GNOME 2. MATE Desktop is the continuation of the GNOME 2 environment with support for modern hardware and free software drivers.

It is compatible with other desktop environments and window managers, features a more traditional desktop layout and is optimized for multi-monitor setups, laptops, netbooks and small form factor computers.

To install MATE Desktop, run:

This is what MATE Desktop looks like:

Install Budgie Desktop Environment

Budgie is a desktop environment developed by the Solus Project and is based on GNOME. It is also used in the Manjaro and Ubuntu Budgie desktop editions. It is written using the GTK+3 toolkit and is compatible with the GNOME stack. The development of Budgie is independent of Solus and its first version was released on July 5, 2014

Its aim is to provide a simple, attractive, and functional desktop..

To install Budgie, run:

This is what Budgie looks like:

Install KDE Plasma Desktop Environment

The KDE Plasma is the default desktop environment for Kubuntu, created by KDE. It is a modular and powerful desktop environment, and designed to integrate many different applications within a desktop workspace. It is a very powerful and feature-rich desktop environment, and it is recommended for users that understand Linux and are interested in configuring their desktop.

To install KDE Plasma Desktop, which is a minimal installation including the Plasma desktop and a minimal set of applications:

To install KDE Standard, which is includes the Plasma desktop with a standard/recommended set of applications, run:

To install KDE Full, which is the complete package, run:

This is what KDE Plasma looks like:

Install Cinnamon Desktop Environment

Cinnamon is a desktop environment developed for the GNOME desktop environment. It is primarily designed to be a fork of the GNOME 3 stack. It is developed by the Linux Mint development team, which is responsible for the Linux Mint distribution. The desktop layout is similar to GNOME 2.

It uses its own layout manager, the Muffin Display Manager. It features a more traditional desktop layout and is optimized for multi-monitor setups, laptops, netbooks and small form factor computers.

To install Cinnamon Desktop, run:

This is what Cinnamon looks like:

Switching Between Desktop Environments

If you’ve installed multiple desktop environments and want to switch between them then you can follow this guide How to Switch Desktop Environments in Ubuntu/Debian From the Command Line.

It may work with multiple remote desktop solutions, but so far, in the above link, we cover methods how to switch between remote desktops for xRDP , Chrome Remote Desktop, and VNC.

Conclusion

Well done. Hopefully this tutorial helped you install your preferred desktop environment on Ubuntu 20.04. If you encountered any issues then please feel free to leave a comment or contact us and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.

The non-professional Linux community would be regressing to the sorry state of Microsoft Windows server admin ecosystem by rationalizing the “requirement” or preference of a GUI on a Server installation.

The UNIX and Linux (*NIX) environments have long known that not only is a Server GUI a terrible idea – given need for several graphics libraries and other non-essential tools to support the GUI desktop, but that such configuration presents an additional serious Cyber attack vector.

Until recently, most all Windows Server admins were completely ignorant about and/or incompetent with any Command Line Interface (CLI) tools, which the Nix admins have used for decades to very effectively manage even groups of Servers, which is one of the reasons that Microsoft introduced it’s clumsy Powershell tool.

There are also available excellent remote client admin or browser based “Control Panel” applications that would allow aspiring Linux admins from Windows mindset to better administer their systems. Users of Distributions like SUSE Linux Enterprise or non-commercial openSUSE havethe exceptional (built into server) YAST2 (Yet Another System Tool) ‘curses based’ tool that goes significantly beyond any admin capabilities of a desktop GUI interface.

Linux server admins should not follow the insecure retro Microsoft graphical server model for efficient and productive work.

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