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.
In: 81
GNOME is Ubuntu’s graphical user interface for Linux. It presents a graphical interface to the user so the user doesn’t have to use the command line for everything.
Just like Windows has a graphical user interface so the user doesn’t have to use Powershell and the command line for everything.
It’s as simple as that.
Linux as an operating system is fully functional from the terminal. As in, you could boot up your PC and be greeted by nothing more than a command line, from which you would use commands to navigate folders, list files, install/remove programs, execute them, etc. You said you understood what a command line is.
At its core, that is the OS more or less. You log into your user account and start using your computer. However, some of us prefer to have a grapical user environment for this. In Windows, the graphical user environment is more unitary and starts with your operating system by default. Not so on Linux. Here you have a choice of multiple kinds of graphical user interfaces.
Some of them are simpler. We have that’s called a Window Managers(or wm) that simply manage how your graphical windows are displayed. That’s all it is, you open a program with a graphical user interface and the WM just helps you position it on screen.
Others are more complex, like Desktop Environments(DE). GNOME is one such DE. Desktop Environments do the job of several pieces of software, all in one. It does the job of display manager(which handles the graphical session), window manager, graphical compositor(that handles frame composition and animations), all of this at once to bring what you know as a desktop to life(Basically the space where you have your background wallpaper, open windows and can move them around, your taskbar, your status bar, application drawer, etc).
In addition to all this, Desktop Environments also contain a suite of other applications and utilities to create this desktop experience. A network manager for example, a utility to display and change desktop settings, a taskbar, a notification center, a utility to change volume, enable bluetooth connectivity, basic text editing apps and terminal emulators, image viewers, video players, etc.
GNOME is basically a combination of many pieces of software that enables the graphical usage of a Linux operating system. There are many such Desktop Environments, such as KDE Plasma, Cinnamon, MATE and others. And they all do the things I enumerated, albeit in slightly different ways, with different apps.
Windows or MacOS is a sealed package delivery. You get the base operating system, the user interface, a bunch of background apps you never think about (like turning hostnames into network addresses) and a simple set of apps all together in one set.
Linux is more of a DIY setup. You put together a base operating system (the “kernel” and a bit more), a set of background apps, a graphical user interface if you want one, and any apps you want in a much more custom setup, and hope that all of your choices are compatible with each other.
A Linux distribution, or “distro”, is a whole bunch of the above tested and packaged up together. For most people a good distro plus maybe one or two more apps is all they will need.
GNOME is a graphical user interface and a few end user apps in one tidy bundle, that you can drop on top of most flavors of Linux to get a fairly standardized desktop environment.
The command line is one kind of [shell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_(computing)), a method for the user to interact with the computer. A GUI is another type of shell.
The desktop environment is the set of basic programs and frameworks that run on top of the basic operating system (file system, process management, scheduler, etc) that let you the user actually do stuff graphically. Alternatives to GNOME include KDE, Lumina, and LXDE.
Distro is slang for “[distribution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_distribution)”, such as Fedora and Ubuntu.
If cars make sense to you, Linux the kernel can be thought of as the engine, the GNU utilities and package manager the transmission and chassis, and the desktop environment as the interior. Command line could be like directly manipulating the throttle plate and fuel flow, or individual circuits. Having a GUI is having standard pedals and a console of buttons.
Gnome/kde isn’t a desktop environment.
There is the basic cli linux. On top of it is a window manager and on top of that tools like a file manager or word processor.
Gnome and KDE (and probably some other things) sit between the basic and the window manager and provide services. Desktop taskbars, common places to save info lots of apps might want, one of many ways of coordinating things like what your alarms do if you’re watching a movie or talking over voice chat.
And it’s hard to explain because it’s somewhat nebulous. It’s an attempt.to fill all the gaps between the basic and the window managers and provide some extra tools and shared libraries for building tools.
And all the pieces together, with or without the gnome/kde are a desktop environment.
You seem to resonate with others making the analogy that “Linux is DOS, GNOME is Windows 95”. I’ll hone in on that.
Since you say you understand terminals, I believe you understand that the terminal is ultimately what any modern computer is actually doing in the background. The graphical part that shows up on your monitor, allowing you to click on buttons with a cursor and see individual boxed-up applications on top of one another, that’s all just very fancy smoke and mirrors. Really, to some extent, everything you do in the fancy version is being translated on-the-fly to the low level version for you.
That translating from buttons and clicks in a GUI to low-level system calls is just a running computer program just like any other. And someone had to write that computer program. In the Linux ecosystem, the term for this kind of program is “desktop environment”, or often “DE” for short.
The concept of a DE being a separate piece of software from the operating system is, understandably, alien to someone who comes from a Windows or Macintosh background, as those two very popular systems never drew attention to the existence of theirs. They *have* them, in a sense, but they’re permanently baked-in as part of the operating system. You don’t get to pick and choose which one you want from several options. But in the Linux ecosystem, there actually are several options to pick from, and you can pick and choose which one you want to use. The underlying system will stay the same, but you can entirely change how the system expresses itself to you graphically by installing (or creating, if you are so inclined) any desktop environment you like. You can even install multiple of them simultaneously and pop in and out of each one on a whim, if you want.
The closest thing I can think to this ever happening on Windows is Microsoft Bob. Yeah, remember that? You could call that software a different “DE” of Windows, in a way. It abstracted using the underlying system into a graphical one in its own unique way, targeted to a very specific kind of user.
GNOME is one of several of the major Linux desktop DEs on offer by large, trusted development groups. In specific, GNOME was a product of the GNU Project, some of the biggest champions of free (as in liberty, not always as in beer) and open source software. The GNU Project has a habit of making deliberately obtuse names for things, particularly ones that start with “GN” where the “G” is decidedly *not* silent (yes, you are actually supposed to pronounce these as “guh-NEW” and “guh-NOME”). It originally stood for “_**G**NU **N**etwork **O**bject **M**odel **E**nvironment_”. Though, due to some somewhat recent office politics, the GNU Project and GNOME are no longer associated with each other.
GNOME is the default pack-in DE when you install many of the popular Linux-based operating systems with default configurations. Some of the other big DEs out there that provide a vaguely Windows-like experience are KDE, Cinnamon, and MATE (mah-tay, like the herbal tea). There are many more, but the bulk of them are probably best left unmentioned until you get a stronger grasp of these ones.
Oh, and just because you seemed to have some trouble with it in other comments, I’ll also just put here: “Distro” is short for “distrobution” (distribution). Some comments have likened it to a “branding” of Linux, which, I guess is kind of accurate.
Like, if you wanted to buy a car, where do you get it from? Ford? Hyundai? BMW? These are all brands that make cars, and all of their cars will get you from point A to B just the same, but they all come with their own little idiosyncrasies due to how each manufacturer decided to solve the same problems in its own way (or perhaps, not solve them at all). Linux distros are somewhat like that. Large groups of developers come together and build up a complete operating system around the Linux kernel (which is basically just the naked engine) the way they think it should be made, using the parts they think were the best choice. And you’re able to download and install what they came up with.
And like a car you’ve just bought, you’re free to at any time pop open the hood and tinker with the thing. Cutting out crap you don’t like, swapping out parts you think are superior, adding things you think you want, etc. Linux expressly encourages this. Windows and Mac, in increasing order of severity, generally don’t want you doing this. They are akin to the Teslas of cars. You take what they give you, entirely what they give you, and if you dare try to customize it, you’ll have to drag yourself through razor wire to do it. Entirely fine and reasonable for the majority of people who do not care to do such customization and just want a complete and finished car that works, but insufferable to people who want to feel like they really own and control their vehicle.
Ill just call these layers, and try to make it easy.
Layer 1 : kernel which is what linux is
Layer 2 : command line
Layer 3 : Graphical interface
Different people put together different distributions. The packages that make those may differ a bit. GNOME is a graphical interface. Think of it as what you see when windows loads. In linux there are different graphical interfaces depending what you like, some are for small foot print, some are for heavy customization. For example XFCE is a light weight desktop environment. KDE is what I like, and its quite big but very customizable.
Each one of those layers can be done differently and there are other “layers” there. Many options all the way to pick from to make something perfect for you.
A good learning project that is easier is MUCH easier Gentoo. It is kinda like LFS but easier and more automated. They have a few different methods to build your OS too depending on how much time you have to invest.
If you have a spare laptop or computer to play with try working through that. If you are really brave and have a lot of time to kill and read and learn you can try LFS. Linux From Scratch. It was hell but I learned a lot.
My personal OS of choice is Gentoo on my geeking out computer or ubuntu on a computer I want to just get up and running easy and quick. Mind you my main computer is Windows because I game and run software that doesn’t just work in linux for work.
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.
A bunch of graphical software components glued together + some apps per made.
GNU/linux systems are usually made up of multiple pieces. The pieces that make graphics are kind of a rabbit hole. Desktop Environments (such as GNOME) just provide you with everything you need.
It calls the graphical libraries that make your GUI, like GDI32.dll, User32.dll in Windows. It creates the graphical subsystem. You have a shell .dll that runs your windows desktop and keeps track of all the links on it to your drives, programs and system files for you to click on. Gnome creates the same environment in Ubuntu, gives you all your windows and folders and nifty things you click on instead of typing in a box.
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