4 terms
A compositor combines the separately rendered contents of every window into the final desktop image, adding effects, tear-free output and scaling.
A desktop environment is the integrated set of software that gives an operating system its graphical interface, including panels, windows, settings and apps.
A display server is the software layer that owns the screen and input devices and lets graphical applications draw windows and receive events.
A window manager is the desktop software that places, sizes, stacks, decorates and focuses application windows on a graphical screen.