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

There is a lot of stuff that needs to be run on top of the OS kernel to make what you would recognise as a desktop operating system, and there are multiple ways of achieving the same things. In Windows all the choices are made for you, e.g. you have dwm.exe which handles windowing, explorer.exe for file browsing, various programs that let you configure settings etc. This is your ‘desktop environment’ (DE).

On Linux, there are a lot more options, and GNOME is one of these options. It’s basically a small software suite that provides a uniform experience for common system operations.

Ubuntu has decided to run the GNOME desktop environment as part of its distro, other distros use other DEs like KDE.

Feel free to ask more questions in the replies and I will answer as best I can.

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