desktop environment
also: DE, graphical shell, GUI shell
A desktop environment is a graphical user interface (GUI) layer that provides a complete visual and interactive experience for Linux, including a window manager, file manager, panels, menus, and themed widgets.
A desktop environment bundles together all the graphical components needed to work on a Linux system with windows, icons, and a mouse. It sits on top of the X Window System (X11) or Wayland display server and includes a window manager to control how windows appear and behave, a file manager for browsing directories, taskbars or panels for application launching, and a consistent visual theme.
Popular examples include GNOME (focused on simplicity), KDE Plasma (feature-rich and highly customizable), XFCE (lightweight), and Cinnamon (traditional desktop metaphor). Each provides different philosophies about how users should interact with their system.
For instance, on a system running GNOME, you get the Activities overview, a dock-like taskbar, integrated application menus, and tightly integrated system settings—whereas KDE Plasma offers a more traditional Windows-like experience with greater customization options out of the box.