GNOME
GNOME is a free and open-source desktop environment that's available for GNU/Linux as well as most of the various BSD derivatives. The desktop environment works with both X11 and Wayland display managers, which makes it accessible to an overwhelming majority of commercial and private users.
- Comes with a complete document viewer for PDF, PostScript, DjVu, TIFF, XPS and DVI files
- Offers an Accessibility Toolkit (ATK) API for enhancing software user experience for those who need to use speech synthesis and recognition programs
- Integrated image viewer makes it easy for users to look through photographs
- Comes with a collection of 15 different puzzle games, which feature the same standard interface that the rest of the desktop environment has
- Built with completely open-source components
- Compatible with all modern Linux distributions
- Available in 40 different languages
- Distributes code through a git repository, so users can configure almost all settings themselves
- Has become increasingly bloated because of a switch to a heavier graphics library
- Abandoned the traditional desktop metaphor
- Forked into several different desktop interfaces, which now compete with one another
- Some users have been concerned over privacy issues related to the bug reporter
All versions of GNOME used a traditional desktop interface for many years, but this was replaced with GNOME Shell in the third complete revision of the software. By dumping the desktop metaphor, the environment instead went with a design based around virtual workspaces in various separate areas. Mutter replaced Metacity as the window manager and this meant that standard window decorations no longer applied. Most of the GNOME Core Applications went through a massive redesign to provide a more modern appearance that works equally well on desktops, laptops, tablets and mobile phones. Nevertheless, many users complained that these changes brought a series of performance issues along with them. The GTK+ 3 technology that powers GNOME is bloated compared to some previous graphics libraries. Others found the new metaphor to be difficult to use compared to previous versions. To help these users, the Linux Mint team developed the Mint GNOME Shell Extensions library, which runs on top of GNOME 3. While this restores the metaphor that many users prefer, it still runs slower than GNOME 2 or Xfce4. Other users have praised the changes, which have encouraged some package managers to slipstream the software. GNOME is the default desktop manager on Solaris Unix. Those who use the enterprise edition of SUSE or Red Hat Linux probably have it installed by default as well. Perhaps the biggest news in the world of GNOME comes from the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution. Ubuntu used unique desktop implementations distributed under the Unity name, but announced in 2017 that they were transitioning to GNOME. While GNOME might be bloated to some users, Unity carries more weight with it. Some users might actually experience better performance by installing the latest version of GNOME as a result. While it may be difficult to do, some users actually keep the GNOME 3 desktop environment while changing out the window manager with something more to their liking. Some users have gone so far as to run GNOME in conjunction with very minimalistic window managers like TWM and wm2.
Alternatives to GNOME
Xfce
KDE
MATE
