What is a "Desktop Environment" in Linux?
A desktop environment (abbreviated DE) is the name for the set of programs responsible for displaying the desktop in an operating system, its icons, taskbar, start menu, or equivalents. This term is usually used in the context of Linux systems: when you see a screenshot of Linux, or of a Linux distro, what you're seeing is actually a screenshot of a desktop environment, and you could install any DE in any distro. Some desktop environments include: GNOME, KDE, Cinnamon, Mate, XFCE, and LXDE, among others. The equivalent in Windows is called shell, e.g. Open Shell. It's a bit confusing since "desktop environment" may include all sorts of graphical applications that come with the DE, e.g. GNOME, XFCE, and KDE each have their own terminal application (GNOME Terminal, XFCE4 Terminal, and Konsole). You could say KDE refers to the whole package, and that the program responsible for the taskbar, etc., which would be KDE's Plasma, is only the graphical shell of KDE, only one part of the whole DE.
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