Editing Desktop environment (section)

== History and common use ==
{{Further|History of the graphical user interface}}
[[File:Timeline of Desktop Environments.png|thumb|Timeline of desktop environment]]
The first desktop environment was created by [[Xerox]] and was sold with the [[Xerox Alto]] in the 1970s. The Alto was generally considered by Xerox to be a personal office computer; it failed in the marketplace because of poor marketing and a very high price tag.{{Dubious |reason=Alto was not a product and was not sold|date=October 2017}}<ref>{{cite web |author-first=Nathan |author-last=Lineback |url=http://toastytech.com/guis/alto.html |title=The Xerox Alto |publisher=Toastytech.com |access-date=2012-02-04 |archive-date=2021-07-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210704032636/http://toastytech.com/guis/alto.html |url-status=live }}</ref> With the [[Apple Lisa|Lisa]], [[Apple Inc.|Apple]] introduced a desktop environment on an affordable [[personal computer]], which also failed in the market.

The desktop metaphor was popularized on commercial personal computers by the original [[Macintosh 128K|Macintosh]] from [[Apple Inc.|Apple]] in 1984, and was popularized further by [[Windows]] from [[Microsoft]] since the 1990s. {{As of|2014}}, the most popular desktop environments are descendants of these earlier environments, including the [[Windows shell]] used in [[Microsoft Windows]], and the [[Aqua (user interface)|Aqua environment]] used in [[macOS]]. When compared with the [[X Window System|X-based]] desktop environments available for [[Unix-like]] operating systems such as [[Linux]] and [[Berkeley Software Distribution|BSD]], the [[Proprietary software|proprietary]] desktop environments included with Windows and macOS have relatively fixed layouts and static features, with highly integrated "seamless" designs that aim to provide mostly consistent customer experiences across installations.

Microsoft Windows dominates in marketshare among personal computers with a desktop environment. Computers using Unix-like operating systems such as macOS, ChromeOS, Linux, BSD or Solaris are much less common;<ref>{{cite web |url=http://marketshare.hitslink.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=8&qpcal=1&qptimeframe=Y&qpsp=2011 |title=Operating System Market Share |publisher=Marketshare.hitslink.com |access-date=2012-02-04 |archive-date=2012-03-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120304023957/http://marketshare.hitslink.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=8&qpcal=1&qptimeframe=Y&qpsp=2011 |url-status=live }}</ref> however, {{As of|2015|lc=yes}} there is a growing market for low-cost Linux PCs using the [[X Window System]] or [[Wayland (display server protocol)|Wayland]] with a broad choice of desktop environments. Among the more popular of these are Google's [[Chromebook]]s and [[Chromebox]]es, Intel's [[Next Unit of Computing|NUC]], the [[Raspberry Pi]], etc.{{Citation needed|reason=NUCs only bundled with Windows I believe|date=March 2017}}

On tablets and smartphones, the situation is the opposite, with Unix-like operating systems dominating the market, including the [[iOS]] (BSD-derived), [[Android (operating system)|Android]], [[Tizen]], [[Sailfish OS|Sailfish]] and [[Ubuntu (operating system)|Ubuntu]] (all Linux-derived). Microsoft's [[Windows phone]], [[Windows RT]] and [[Windows&nbsp;10]] are used on a much smaller number of tablets and smartphones. However, the majority of Unix-like operating systems dominant on handheld devices do not use the X11 desktop environments used by other Unix-like operating systems, relying instead on interfaces based on other technologies.