UbuntuDDE: of those who want to enter, the only one that has really caught my attention

Currently, Ubuntu is available in its main version and in 7 official flavors. In all probability, this will change soon, since at least three projects are working to enter the family. The one that is closest to achieving it is Ubuntu Cinnamon, but Ubuntu Unity could also become official flavors, perhaps also Ubuntu Web, and the protagonist of this article, a UbuntuDDE whose last letters mean "Deepin Desktop Environment".

Right now, UbuntuDDE is available as a "Remix", that is, the surname that they put to all the versions that have contacted Canonical and want to be part of their family. The most up-to-date version is 20.10 Groovy Gorilla, and I, who am very happy using the KDE environment and apps, have been tempted to try the future one. Deepin version. And I have, but in a virtual machine. And what can I say? That I liked it and, at the very least, I think it's a breath of fresh air that those of you who need a change should try.

UbuntuDDE: Deepin feels very good

One of the most important points here is that UbuntuDDE is not Deepin Linux, which was born in 2009 and is based on Debian. What we discuss in this article is a Ubuntu based operating system that uses the graphical environment Deepin. And it's pretty, very pretty. And, as a user who has had and still has an old Mac, I will say very Apple, in the sense that it has a very attractive design and a dock at the bottom that at least reminds us of the apple. Or, if it does not do all of the above, the icon that the pointer shows when it is doing a task (thinking) will do it, since it is like the Siri icon.

For everything else, it has some cool features worth mentioning, like a start menu or app launcher that we can modify with just one click and go from a typical menu such as Windows or Plasma to another similar to GNOME or another in which, also in full screen, it orders the apps by type.

As for the applications it uses, we can find some from GNOME, but most of them are from the Deepin desktop itself, such as its configuration app, its "Computer", which is the file manager, or even a capture application that It will also allow us to record the screen, which I personally find very interesting. Among the GNOME apps we have GNOMEsoftware, the one for life, the one that allows us to see all kinds of applications, does not put Snap ahead and on top of that we can add support for Flatpak packages.

Not at the moment, but in the future ...

But I'm not going to lie to you or say “Hey! Let's all go to UbuntuDDE! » or something like that. I am a KDE user, and if I left Kubuntu, I would also use Manjaro in its KDE version, which includes the desktop and its applications. But I do want to make it clear that there is life beyond GNOME or Plasma, and I do not mention the rest because, for example, I am not a big fan of Xfce, LXQt and environments like Cinnamon or MATE are not my favorites either.

That a user like me, who only considers GNOME and Plasma as real options, feels something different when using UbuntuDDE, is a sign that he has something special. Today, it is still a separate project, but an operating system that unites itself good image, ease of use, GNOME applications, other more interesting Deepin, and assuming that you get Canonical behind, I think it should be an operating system to take into account. I believe that I will continue in KDE, but I do not rule out 100% the possibility of being unfaithful in the future.

If you are interested in trying it, you can download it from this link, but I recommend that you do like me: do it in GNOME Boxes. And if you want to improve the experience, you can install it, but also as a virtual machine. Unless you like what you see and you already decide to install it as native.