PowerPC Linux Desktop Enviroments

What is a desktop enviroment?

A Desktop Enviroment is a collection of software, that shares common interface standards (such as widget set, design, and human interface) that works together to provide a comprehensive graphical desktop for you. Desktop Enviroments are similar in purpose to Mac OS's Finder, Desktop Accessories and Toolkit. In Linux and Unix this extracted from the lowlevel system, so you can easily replace it with your own choice.

Desktop Enviroments typically are made up of the following componets:

• Widget Set - An libarary that provides common look and feel to all Applications Using It. Similar in purpose to the graphics routines in the Mac OS ROM's Toolkit.
• Window Manager - Provides window border decorations and control over windows. They are not tied to any specfic Desktop Enviroment, however each desktop has perferred window managers, that should be used for best results. Similar in purpose to the WDEF resources in Mac OS. More on Window Managers can be found here.
• Core Applications - Provides the actual desktop, such as the panel (a dock for quickly starting apps from, placing indicators on, etc.), desktop background, file manager, terminal application, and often a webbrowser). Similar in purpose to the Finder in Mac OS and other core parts of Mac OS.
• Third Party/Additional Apps - Small, extra apps that provide handy tasks, entertianment, or demostrate the capcities of the desktop. Similar in purpose to Mac OS desktop accessories in the Apple Menu, and the stuff in the Apple Extras Folder.

This page gives you a brief description of the popular Desktop Enviroments currently avaliable for the PowerPC, a brief explanation of the distro, reviews to find out what people are saying about it, and where to get it for your distro. The explanations of the distros are quotes from the distro's documentation, in effort to provide an accurate source of information for all PowerPC Linux desktop enviroments.

To the user KDE brings among other things:

A beautiful contemporary desktop, a desktop exhibiting complete network transparency, an integrated help system allowing for convenient, consistent access to help on the use of the KDE desktop and its applications, consistent look and feel of all KDE applications, standardized menu and toolbars, keybindings, color-schemes, etc.

KDE is available in more than 40 languages, with dialog driven desktop configuration, and a great number of useful KDE applications.

You can see screenshots of KDE .

The GNOME project has built a complete free and easy-to-use desktop environment for the user, as well as a powerful application framework for the software developer. GNOME is part of the GNU project, and is free software (some times referred to as open source software.) GNOME is included in pretty much every BSD and GNU/Linux distribution and works on many other Unix systems.

You can see screenshots of GNOME .

Ximian is a company the packages GNOME, and offers several free services, including an graphical installer and updater tool.

Credits: Design and Introduction by Andrew B. Arthur, Information is from vendor's own website and other sources.