Shulou(Shulou.com)06/01 Report--

In this issue, the editor will bring you about the trend of the Linux desktop field. The article is rich in content and analyzes and narrates it from a professional point of view. I hope you can get something after reading this article.

Today, with the rapid development of mobile Internet, the desktop application environment seems to have become a former technology, and has been gradually replaced by mobile devices. However, salience is an unknown state for Linux desktop developers. In an era when the desktop world is supposed to be out of date, Linux offers more options than ever before. Linux users are not prepared to replace workstations and laptops with tablets or phones.

OUT if you don't know! Seven major trends in Linux desktops refer to Linux, and today's popular Linux desktop is not a system platform five years ago. If you take a closer look at the current Linux desktop, you can see at least seven trends, including several trends that prevailed in the past:

1. Provide choices

Gone are the days when GNOME and KDE dominated 3/4 of the Linux desktop market. Today, there are at least seven widely used desktop environments: Cinnamon, GNOME, KDE, LXDE, MATE, Unity, and Xfce, and the interchange between them has become popular, especially for users using GNOME applications.

2. Consider design and ease of use

Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu, announced in 2008 that he would develop an interface comparable to Apple, and although he did not develop an ideal unified interface, this move made programmers focus on ease of use and design. GNOME has the most experience and expertise in design, but today no mainstream desktop environment ignores design. GNOME, Unity and KDE have even developed their own brand fonts.

3. The pace of innovation slows down

KDE 4, GNOME 3, and Unity have always been a far cry from classic desktops, and many users are not convinced by their innovative responses. As the new version solves the relevant problems, the ideas of some users are gradually changing, but after experiencing the problem of lagging innovation response, developers do not introduce too many changes at once. Today's developers are more likely to focus on simplifying code and optimizing the interface than introducing new features.

4. Return icon

Innovations for desktops include removing icons from desktops or panels, especially user-specified icons. Half of the users did not care about the decision, but the other half opposed it. This change may be enough to explain why KDE and Xfce, the two desktops that have always been at the top, have never removed icons.

5. Select Classic Desktop

In general, the classic desktop, which includes panels, menus, and a workspace for display windows, has been standard for nearly two decades. But from 2008 to 2011, Linux desktop developers wanted to use technology to expand and challenge classic desktops, but this was opposed by many users.

Today, four of the six desktop environments offer classic desktops by default, and KDE greatly expands this concept. One of the "defenders" is GNOME, but its extension allows users to quickly create classic desktops, and most users will choose this method. Unity is the only one that is really not available, and the survey shows that only nearly 10% of users choose.

Unity mobile device design (photo source cnx-software.com)

6. Abandon the mobile interface

With the widespread popularity of mobile phones and tablets, their interfaces have become the benchmark for the desktop environment. In the past, users were familiar with mobile device-style interfaces, but in fact they were bored with the ever-changing screen. Today, only Unity has a mobile device-like design, mainly because of Ubuntu's vision of using the same interface on all devices.

Other Linux desktop environments do not have this plan, and most of them stop extending to mobile devices. GNOME has not yet implemented plans to launch its mobile desktop, while KDE's design of netbooks and tablet interfaces is limited to workspace layouts. Users are reluctant to change their mobile devices by adding new desktops, which may partly explain why Linux abandons the mobile interface.

7. Customization becomes the top priority

Customization is important for Linux desktop users. The latest version of Xfce increases the number of customization options, while Linux Mint's Cinnamon and MATE add more customization features in each version, thereby increasing market share. In addition, KDE, the most popular desktop, has more choices than any other desktop.

Going back to the original, it was predicted five years ago that cloud-based applications and user interaction would be one of the major trends in 2015. Despite the popularity of Chromebook web laptops, none of the leading Linux desktops rely on cloud services, which obviously prefer to think of cloud services as a public service.

As a result, these latest trends mean moving away from the positive innovations of the previous five years and refocusing on desktop fundamentals. Some opportunities may have been lost, such as extending to the mobile interface, but most users' controversy about the past has disappeared, and a wiser development application dominates the market.

The above is the trend of the Linux desktop field shared by the editor. If you happen to have similar doubts, you might as well refer to the above analysis to understand. If you want to know more about it, you are welcome to follow the industry information channel.

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