display_stack.md

Display Stack

Desktop Environment

Implements the desktop metaphor and bundles together a variety of components, provides its own custom window manager.

• KDE Plasma (default in Kubuntu)
• GNOME (default in Ubuntu, Fedora)
• MATE
• Xfce
• Cinnamon (used by Mint)
• Pantheon (used by ElementaryOS)

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Display Manager

Manages the login screen.

• Console
  • CDM
  • Ly
  • tbsm
• Graphical
  • GDM (GNOME Display Manager) (default in GNOME)
  • LightDM
  • SDDM (used by Plasma)
  • XDM (X Display Manager)

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Window Manager

Controls the placement of windows within the desktop environment, typically an X server client.

• Tiling: windows can't overlap
  • i3
  • Bspwm
• Stacking: windows can overlap
  • lwm
  • Wind
  • Openbox
• Dynamic: windows can both stack and tile
  • xmonad
  • awesome
  • dwm

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Display server / Window System

System-level interface between desktop GUI and hardware.

• X / X11 Window System implementations
  • X.Org Server / Xorg (most common display server)
  • XQuartz
    
    
• Wayland Display Server implementations (called compositors)
  • Weston (reference implementation of Wayland)
  • Mutter (also a Window Manager)
  • Enlightenment (also a Window Manager)
    
    
• Mir implementations
  • libmir-server / libmir-client