14 DAY TRIAL // No matter if you're using a GNU/Linux operating system for some time now or you’ve just started discovering the wonderful and diverse world of Open Source technologies, you will eventually find out that the choices are overwhelming.
And I'm talking about everything, from a simple audio player to a more complex desktop environment or even the Linux kernel-based operating system. Everyone knows that Linux is all about choice, that everything is free, and you can choose to install whatever you think is best for you at a certain point in time.
Some will call that fragmentation, but I (and many others) would like to call it freedom of choice. In this editorial I would like to talk to you about Linux desktop environments and how choosing the right one for your needs might turn out to be a difficult task, but at the same time a lot of fun and very educational.
As mentioned above, the choice of desktop environments in Linux is overwhelming, especially if you're a newcomer and you were used to seeing the same desktop layout for some years now (Windows and Mac OS X users know exactly what I am talking about).
Almost every time I am asked by a friend to install a Linux distribution on his or her computer, just for the fun of it or because they got tired of hearing me talk about Open Source all the time, the first reaction is something like, "Oh, it looks pretty, so this is what the Linux desktop looks like. It's fun!"
At that point, I try to inform them that Linux does not have a default look. Yes, some distributions can be easily recognized by a certain desktop layout, but that can be changed in a few minutes by installing a different desktop environment or window manager.
GNOME, KDE, Cinnamon, MATE, Unity, LXDE, or Xfce?
These are just a few, and also some of the most popular desktop environment for a GNU/Linux operating system. The choice is yours, and I think that you should try them all if you want to find out which one is perfect for you. Some are resembling the look of the desktops you have used for so many years, and that might be enough.
However, the fact of the matter is that you should not stop at one desktop environment just because of how it looks, as the "looks" can always be changed. There are a lot of tutorials on the Internet that teach you how to add a dock (application launcher), how to remove existing elements, and transform everything with a few mouse clicks into something completely different, but basically with the same functionality.
And this is why I want you to try at least the important desktop environments, simply because each one offers different functionality. Some are richer and complex; other are simpler and lightweight. For example, if you install the latest version of Ubuntu, you might find out in time that Unity is not for you and that you are more productive with something like Cinnamon.
Installing a desktop environment might be easy on some distros
Now, depending on what distribution of GNU/Linux you have decided to use, installing another desktop environment than the one that comes with the respective operating system might turn out to be a difficult task, but don't be scared, because it will eventually turn out to be more fun than you think and at the same time extremely educational if you want to learn all about Linux and the freedom of choice.
The one distro that comes to mind right now for testing various desktop environment and see which one is best for you is Arch Linux, even though installing it might turn out to not be the easiest of tasks. So, my suggestion is that, if you want to test a certain desktop environment, you should get a Live CD with the OS that offers the respective desktop by default, because in many cases, it has been tweaked to offer you the best experience.
For example, if you want to see if the MATE desktop environment is for you, get Ubuntu MATE, or if you want to test Cinnamon, get the latest Linux Mint Cinnamon edition Live DVD or the brand-new Debian GNU/Linux 8.1 "Jessie" Cinnamon Live CD. Fedora is also one of the best distros to try out desktop environments like GNOME or Xfce, so the choice is always yours.