Common Desktop Environment
Ranked 9 of 24 desktop environments by recommenders
Recommended for its classic Unix look, feel and lightweight footprint, and for being open source and maintained. Critics find the look dated and the ttdb default settings a security hole.
Recommended for its classic Unix look, feel and lightweight footprint, and for being open source and maintained. Critics find the look dated and the ttdb default settings a security hole.
26 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 16
- criticize it
- 10
- approval share
- 62%
Recommended in 8 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 16 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.6 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 8 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Fondness for the classic Unix look
“Something about the look and feel of that DE i always thought was cool!”
Comment from 20 May 2026 in “OpenBSD 7.9 Released” “I really liked CDE the first time I used it, about 25 years ago”
Comment from 23 Sep 2026 in “Are we going to use the same Desktop UX forever? [video]” “The old Unix GUIs like CDE hold a special place in my heart.”
Comment from 9 Dec 2025 in “The Anatomy of a macOS App” - Comment from 15 Jul 2026 in “Jurassic Park computers in excruciating detail”
- Comment from 13 May 2026 in “Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes”
- Comment from 29 Sep 2026 in “macOS Golden Gate Is a Buggy Mess”
- Comment from 12 May 2026 in “Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes”
Established Motif-based Unix GUI standard
“The tools for CDE on Unices were arguably even better but CDE never really got any momentum.”
Comment from 3 May 2026 in “Why TUIs Are Back” “Motif and CDE were already established as the Unix GUI API”
Comment from 14 Jun 2026 in “Windows 1.0 and the WinAPI, 40 Years Later”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Dated look and colour scheme
“I thought CDE was shocking, I was immediately repelled by it when I started using it”
Comment from 21 Sep 2026 in “What Sun got wrong” “The colour scheme, how it worked, the peformance. All horrible.”
Comment from 12 May 2026 in “Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes”
Other desktop environments people recommend
The four most recommended other desktop environments, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KDE Plasma | 650 | 264 | 71% | 13 | 2 yrs79 owners | Approved |
| GNOME | 340 | 464 | 42% | 12 | 5 yrs29 owners | — |
| Xfce | 183 | 48 | 79% | 12 | 10 yrs29 owners | Approved |
| COSMIC desktop | 75 | 28 | 73% | 12 | 1 yr3 owners | Approved |
| Common Desktop EnvironmentThis page | 16 | 10 | 62% | 8 | — | — |
What people said
23 of the 28 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Unix had it figured out back in CDE days.”
“I really liked CDE the first time I used it, about 25 years ago”
“CDE seems like somebody thought that the problem with Motif was that”
“I thought CDE was shocking, I was immediately repelled by it when I started using it”
“My first exposure to Solaris was in 2003 when Linux had Gnome 2.6 and Solaris had CDE.”
“CDE was a child of its time - who sets up printers?”
“the CDE style at https://nielssp.github.io/classic-stylesheets/ comes pretty close”
“Windows 95/98 & CDE are my thing, and I really miss it.”
“Motif and CDE were already established as the Unix GUI API”
“RSI is dangerous. That is why we designed CDE”
“Something about the look and feel of that DE i always thought was cool!”
“CDE, NeWS and NeXTSTEP are my favourite UNIX GUIs”
“The colour scheme, how it worked, the peformance. All horrible.”
“it makes me want to run CDE today”
“The tools for CDE on Unices were arguably even better but CDE never really got any momentum.”
“It needs 16MB RAM (yes MB!) and together with a lighweight firefox clone you get everything you need.”
“but that’s a very low bar”
“compiled up CDE on top of this to boot”
“lots of fun. It even has some support for antialiased fonts these days.”
“the default settings on the background process ttdb can be a security hole”
“open source and actively maintained these days”
“The old Unix GUIs like CDE hold a special place in my heart.”
“IBM kinda screwed it up when they created CDE out of it”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.