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Asked: 2026-05-13T11:20:57+00:00

How can I get to know what my desktop environment is using Python? I

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How can I get to know what my desktop environment is using Python? I like the result to be gnome or KDE or else.

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  1. Editorial Team

    Tested in Ubuntu 9.10:

    >>> import os
>>> os.environ.get('DESKTOP_SESSION')
'gnome'

    Edit 2: As comments say, this is beginning to be even less reliable with newer GNOME versions. I’m now also running Ubuntu 18.04, and it returns ‘ubuntu’ instead of the prior ‘gnome’.

    Edit 1: As mentioned in comments below, this approach will not work for more some OSes. The other two answers provide workarounds.

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