#Best ubuntu desktop environment how to#
#Best ubuntu desktop environment download#

If you do this on Raspberry Pi OS with Desktop, there is an additional step. Once done, just reboot your system and enjoy!.So, the installation duration will mostly depend on your Internet connection speed.

#Best ubuntu desktop environment download#

It will download something like 850 packages, about 600 MB to download.

Open a terminal or log in on the Lite version.

#Best ubuntu desktop environment how to#

Here is how to install KDE on Raspberry Pi OS: But you can also install it on Raspberry Pi OS with Desktop, if you want to try something new on the same SD card. I did my tests by starting with a Raspberry Pi OS Lite version, to not have conflict, useless apps or whatever. Installing a new desktop environment is not complicated, and KDE can be installed almost like any other, by using apt. I suppose with the increased memory on new Raspberry Pi models, the switch to Bullseye (with the slight performance boost that came with it) and probably the work of the KDE team, performances will be less and less an issue on Raspberry Pi. But overall, it seems decent, it’s worth a try at least. I didn’t use much of the applications, so I don’t have an 4-hour experience to tell you if something like Chromium is really slower than on PiXeL, for example. The navigation is fluid in the menus and settings. Yeah, obviously it’s not the most lightweight option you can find, but on my Raspberry Pi with 4 GB it wasn’t as bad as expected. In my mind, KDE has always had a bad reputation in terms of performances. Maybe it’s not yet available with the Raspberry Pi OS repositories.įor most environments, the easiest way to manage your applications will be to use apt in a terminal, or install something like Synaptic to do this in the graphic interface: I don’t know what happened, the package list was never updated.

KDE has another tool to manage the applications, but it didn’t work for me. In this “System Settings” app, you can also switch to another theme or style easily. Don’t know how to change the keyboard layout? Type “lay” and it will show you were to go. Everything at the same place, a search engine that works really well, and that’s it. It’s way easier for a beginner to find a configuration option in something like this. That’s what I was talking about previously. Basic design, apps sorted by category, nothing fancy or complicated: So, the interface needs to be simple to use, with easy access to the basic settings and that’s all. Their goal is to help young students to learn how to code. They are not looking to create the best desktop experience or the most beautiful system. It always comes down to the goal of the Raspberry Pi Foundation. PiXeL doesn’t have a fancy interface at all, and that’s not the goal. How to say it well? Minimalist? Yes, maybe. So, I will keep this part short, but it’s important to start from there to explain the limits of it, and why I’m looking for another desktop environment in the first place. You already know everything about it, even with the new Raspberry Pi OS version there are not many changes in the interface overall. I’m starting with PiXeL which is the reference, and then the other ones are basically my favorites in order. Keep reading if you are looking for your next desktop environment, it’ll save you time as I tested them all, provide screenshots, and list the pros and cons of each one.

But the goal is to give you a general idea of what you can expect by default. I know that you can always improve the interface look, or install apps to make your life easier with settings etc. So, my opinion is based on the default settings. I didn’t change anything to the appearance or default apps that come when you install the meta-package. I installed the most popular ones on my Raspberry Pi, and will share my impressions with you in this article.įor each operating system, I started with Raspberry Pi OS Lite and installed the desktop environment with apt and the default repository. It comes with the PiXeL desktop environment, which is a modified version of LXDE. Raspberry Pi OS is the default operating system we use in almost every project.