configuration tools.
You need to ensure that you have the relevant desktop environment installed
on your system; the easiest way to do this is by installing the relevant *-
desktop package. You can do this by installing the package kubuntu-
desktop, for example (in the case of a KDE desktop); just search for
“desktop” and look for Xubuntu or Kubuntu, and so on. After the download
and installation is complete (you might want to grab a coffee while you wait
because these packages include a ton of dependencies and take some time to
download, install, and configure), you are all set to change environments.
Next, you need to log out of Ubuntu. When you return to the login page,
select your name as usual and then select the session named for the desktop
you want to use. Chapter 7, “Other Ubuntu Interfaces,” provides a brief
introduction to some of the desktop environments other than GNOME that are
available from the Ubuntu repositories.
Using GNOME: A Primer
The default desktop in Ubuntu is GNOME 3. It is used not only by Ubuntu
but also by several other Linux distributions, such as Debian, Fedora, Red Hat
Enterprise Linux, and Oracle Linux.
The official GUI for GNOME 3 is called GNOME Shell. For this chapter, the
only thing that has been changed from the default Ubuntu 18.04 installation is
the background; the background used here is plain and simple to make the
screen captures clear.
Upon logging in, the desktop is displayed (see Figure 3.1).