4-decade long MS command line and Windows user learning Ubuntu. Please ELI actually 5: GNOME. I’m yet to find a Linux person who explain it simply.

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Terminal and all that other shit, I follow you. Command lines. Fine. I don’t know what the Linux terms mean, but I understand command lines etc… But GNOME… what the fuck is it? Is it a suite? an environment? Every Linux user explains things like I’ve already been a user for a few years and all of them have forgotten what being NEW actually is.

Ironically, the WORST place to find Linux environments explained simply and clearly from the bottom up: The Internet.

This is where I remind and beg: Like. I’m. FIVE.

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27 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Linux is a little different from windows in that when you start graphics mode, all it offers is the ability to display graphics, basically a blank screen with a mouse cursor (with built in network screen sharing).

So if you want windows, with buttons and and way to browse the file system, you need a window manager. You probably also want a way to copy and paste, along with a suite of applications which all work well together. This is a desktop environment

Gnome is a desktop environment, it offers all the things windows might offer. There’s another desktop environment called KDE which is my favourite.

Nowadays you can run apps from multiple desktop environments at the same time – the major ones play pretty well together.

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