How do I check whether I am using KDE or Gnome?

Question

or maybe something else?

I am using Redhat OS.

Answer 1

Have a look at your installed applications. If a lot of them start with K - you're on KDE. If a lot of them start with G, you're on Gnome. Seriously. (Not very accurate if you have both installed though).

If you go to the About page of your computers settings panel, that should give you some clues.

Alternatively, look around on Google Images for screenshots of Gnome or KDE. It should be obvious once you have seen the basic look of the desktop environment.

Answer 2

Open a terminal and type:

echo $DESKTOP_SESSION

Answer 3

I'll show you a short selection and description of the most common desktop environments.

Unity

Unity is developed by Canonical. It has a bar at the top which contains the clock at the right and a button on the left which will bring up a search/menu window. There's a launcher on the left of the screen.

The default theme colors are purple/orange/brown.

The logo is the same as the Ubuntu logo.

Gnome 3

Gnome 3 is the third iteration in the Gnome desktop environment. It features a bar at the top with a clock and a menu button on the left which will bring up a fullscreen window containing most applications.

The default theme is rather dark with much black in the general elements, but the windows are light gray.

The logo is a foot. with four toes.

MATE (a fork of Gnome 2)

MATE is a fork of Gnome 2. It features two bars, one on the top of the screen, one at the bottom. The top one contains the main menu (dropdown with three items, Applications, Places and System), some starters and the clock on the far right. The lower bar holds the window list and the desktop switcher. Unlike the first three it has icons (Computer, Home, Trash and also removable media) on the desktop in the default configuration. An about dialog might be found in the System menu.

The default theme is a light theme with either green or blue accents.

The logo are two circles with an arrow intersecting them.

XFCE

XFCE has always been seen as the small brother of Gnome 2, but it shouldn't be called that. It is very similar to MATE/Gnome 2 and might easily be confused with the two. The default configuration is similar to MATE/Gnome 2 except that the menu in the upper bar is only an icon, but is similarly structured.

The logo is a mouse.

KDE

KDE is one of the oldest desktop environments. It features a bar at the bottom of the screen which contains the main menu (as icon), the window list and a clock. The main menu is a big dropup menu sorted in categories.

The default theme is very light and looks like polished glass.

The logo is a "K", sometimes a dragon.

Cinnamon

Cinnamon is heavily based on Gnome 3. It features a lower bar similar to KDE, as it contains the menu button, the window list and the clock. The main menu is also a dropup with categories.

The default theme is very greenish.

Others

Luckily, there are a lot more desktop environments out there, but this should give you a quick overview over the most commonly used ones.

Answer 4

I check the XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP environment variable, e. g. echo $XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP

Not sure if it's a 100% working solution on every imaginable Linux distro, but proved to be good enough so far.

Answer 5

Quick way #1: if you have a "System" menu entry on the top line, and there's an item in the menu that says "About Gnome", you're probably running Gnome.

Quick way #2:

ps -ef | grep gnome

Answer 6

I've tested the best tools I've found with

1. GNOME under Linux Mint installed;
2. GNOME under Linux Mint Live USB;
3. MATE under Linux Mint;
4. LXDE under Lubuntu;
5. JWM under Puppy Linux (JWM is not a desktop environment but a stacking window manager).

My results:

1. (so-so)
   env | grep DESKTOP_SESSION=

   1. DESKTOP_SESSION=gnome
   2. DESKTOP_SESSION=gnome
   3. DESKTOP_SESSION=default.desktop
   4. DESKTOP_SESSION=Lubuntu
   5. (nothing)

2. (so-so)
   echo $GDMSESSION

   1. gnome
   2. gnome
   3. (nothing)
   4. Lubuntu
   5. (nothing)

3. (well, but not perfect)
   pgrep -l "gnome|kde|mate|cinnamon|lxde|xfce|jwm"
ps -A | egrep -i "gnome|kde|mate|cinnamon|lxde|xfce|jwm"

   1. (OK)
   2. (OK)
   3. (OK)
   4. (WRONG)
   5. (nothing) & (OK)

4. (very well, but not perfect)
   HardInfo

   1. (nothing);
   2. GNOME 2.32.0
   3. MATE
   4. LXDE (Lubuntu)
   5. Unknown (Window Manager: JWM)

CONCLUSION: A combination of HardInfo and the command

ps -A | egrep -i "gnome|kde|mate|cinnamon|lxde|xfce|jwm"

probably will give the desired answer.

Answer 7

This command seems to be useful:

ls /usr/bin/*session*

• in GNOME returns /usr/bin/gnome-session (and more)
• in MATE returns /usr/bin/mate-session (and more)
• in LXDE returns /usr/bin/lxsession (and more)
• in XFCE returns /usr/bin/xfce4-session (and more)
• in JWM returns /usr/bin/icewm-session (should be jwm-session, not?!)

Answer 8

This is a good command to determine your GUI:

pgrep -l "gnome|kde|mate|cinnamon|lx|xfce|jwm"

Answer 9

1. Open shell terminal/console
2. Type below statement and push enter

printenv XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP

3. Environment variable XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP tells, which desktop you have

Answer 10

A new user may not recognize the differences betwen KDE and Gnome in the screen captures above. Look at the position of the default panels (top with Gnome and bottom with KDE) not the color of the desktop or the apps that are open.

Answer 11

In a terminal or console, you can run:

pgrep -l "gnome|kde|mate|cinnamon"

or

ps -A | egrep -i "gnome|kde|mate|cinnamon"

The item that appears in more lines should be the answer.

Answer 12

You can run HardInfo. It's ready by default at least in Linux Mint; or you could install it (from Synaptic, ...).

You can run it:

1. from the main menu > Search box > hardinfo, or
2. from the main menu > All applications > System Tools or Administration > System Information, or
3. from the main menu > All applications > All > System Information, or
4. from a terminal or console > hardinfo > Enter, or
5. from the Run Application dialog (Alt+F2) > hardinfo > Enter.

Once HardInfo opens you just need to need to click on the "Operating System" item and look to the "Desktop Environment" line.

Nowadays, apart from GNOME and KDE, you could find MATE, Cinnamon, ...

Answer 13

I've been testing also with KDE and my conclusion is:

a) Graphical way, with HardInfo: the answer is normally in "Operating System" > "Desktop Environment", but if not you can look to "Environment variables". HardInfo is ready with all the tested distros, except the one with KDE, but it can be easily and quickly installed (only 2 packages in Linux Mint 13).

b) Command line, with this command:

ps -A | egrep -i "gnome|kde|mate|cinnamon|lx|xfce|jwm"

The item that appears in more lines should be the answer (if there is a draw the item with "session" should be the solution).

Answer 14

To know the version of the installed DE we can open Synaptic and put its name in the "Quick filter" box. Below "Installed Version" we have the answer. Next to it, below "Latest Version", we can see the highest to what we can update it to (at least if we have just clicked on "Reload" and considering only stable software -by default the access to the developing versions is usually disabled-). If instead of Synaptic the considered distro uses PackageKit or other a similar solution shoul be avaiable.

Answer 15

Just open up the System Help guide (usually under the "System" menu) and see what the title is!

Answer 16

Install inxi and run inxi -Sxxx (or inxi -Sxx if your version of inxi isn't the latest):

$ inxi --version | head -1 && inxi -Sxxx                                                                                       
inxi 3.0.32-00 (2019-02-07)
System:    Host: kububb Kernel: 4.15.0-65-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 7.4.0 Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.12.9 
           tk: Qt 5.9.5 wm: kwin_x11 dm: SDDM Distro: Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS (Bionic Beaver) 
$ 

While installing inxi for just this purpose may seem overkill, inxi can be used to provide a lot more system information with inxi -Fxxxz (where -z masks stuff like your MAC address).

The homepage for inxi is here.

---

There's also neofetch which is a fork of screenfetch:

$ neofetch --stdout
dkb@kububb 
------------ 
OS: Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS x86_64 
Host: Inspiron 15-3567 
Kernel: 4.15.0-65-generic 
Uptime: 8 hours, 58 mins 
Packages: 2389 
Shell: bash 4.4.20 
Resolution: 1366x768 
DE: KDE 
WM: KWin 
WM Theme: Breeze 
Theme: Breeze Dark [KDE], Breeze-Dark [GTK2], MyBreeze-Dark [GTK3] 
Icons: Breeze [KDE], Breeze [GTK2/3] 
Terminal: konsole 
Terminal Font: Hack 11 
CPU: Intel i3-6006U (2) @ 2.000GHz 
GPU: Intel HD Graphics 520 
Memory: 1665MiB / 7846MiB 
$   

The homepage for neofetch is here.

Answer 17

The sysinfo package will show you which Gnome / other you're using:

sudo apt-get install sysinfo
sysinfo

Answer 18

I have this function in my ~/.bash_aliases --

# open terminal function
open-terminal()
{
    # if gnome is running
    if [ $(pgrep -c gnome-panel) -gt 0 ]; then
            echo "running gnome"
            gnome-terminal
    # if xfce is running    
    elif [ $(pgrep -c xfce4-panel) -gt 0 ]; then
            echo "running xfce"
            xfce4-terminal
    fi
}
alias trm='open-terminal'