Desktop environment
In computing, a desktop environment (DE) is an implementation of the desktop metaphor made of a bundle of programs running on top of a computer operating system that share a common graphical user interface (GUI), sometimes described as a graphical shell.
A GUI might also provide drag and drop functionality and other features that make the desktop metaphor more complete.
On a system that offers a desktop environment, a window manager in conjunction with applications written using a widget toolkit are generally responsible for most of what the user sees.
The window manager supports the user interactions with the environment, while the toolkit provides developers a software library for applications with a unified look and behavior.
The Alto was generally considered by Xerox to be a personal office computer; it failed in the marketplace because of poor marketing and a very high price tag.
[dubious – discuss][2] With the Lisa, Apple introduced a desktop environment on an affordable personal computer, which also failed in the market.
When compared with the X-based desktop environments available for Unix-like operating systems such as Linux and BSD, the proprietary desktop environments included with Windows and macOS have relatively fixed layouts and static features, with highly integrated "seamless" designs that aim to provide mostly consistent customer experiences across installations.
[citation needed] On tablets and smartphones, the situation is the opposite, with Unix-like operating systems dominating the market, including the iOS (BSD-derived), Android, Tizen, Sailfish and Ubuntu (all Linux-derived).
KDE, for example, provides so-called KIO slaves which give the user access to a wide range of virtual devices.
KDE encourages applications to integrate and interoperate, is highly customizable, and contains many complex features, all whilst trying to establish sensible defaults.
Most commonly used lightweight desktop environments include LXDE and Xfce; they both use GTK+, which is the same underlying toolkit GNOME uses.
Moreover, there exists FVWM-Crystal, which consists of a powerful configuration for the FVWM window manager, a theme and further adds, altogether forming a "construction kit" for building up a desktop environment.
[citation needed] Other examples include OpenBox, Fluxbox, WindowLab, Fvwm, as well as Window Maker and AfterStep, which both feature the NeXTSTEP GUI look and feel.
Its main objective is to replace the 2D paradigm with a "real-world" 3D implementation, where documents can be freely manipulated across a virtual table.
