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The only Desktop Environment I ever used was Xfce, now for sheer curiosity, I installed Kali Linux. I clicked here and there on the Desktop in a vain hope to get info about the Environment itself. Is there a standard procedure to check the name of the Desktop Environment from the command-line, maybe something like:

ps -e | grep xxx

but then, I do not know what I could try to grep.

I just mentioned Kali Linux as an example, I would like to know how to do it in general.

Robert Houghton
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sharkant
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1 Answers1

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To check the name of the Desktop Environment from the command line, you can use the following command:

echo $XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP

or

ls /usr/share/xsessions/

Or based on the question:

ps -e | grep -E -i "xfce|kde|gnome"

Sample output (kde):

 kdevtmpfs
 start_kdeinit
 kdeinit4
 kded4
 polkit-kde-auth
GAD3R
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