I realize this is impressionistic but for the sake of the conceit:
“Mac” flavored (PopOS, ZorinOS?)
“Windows” flavored (Mint?)
“Linux” flavored (Fedora?)
Edit: was not aware 1) Distro & 2) Desktop Environment are seperate/distinct. Good to learn
I realize this is impressionistic but for the sake of the conceit:
“Mac” flavored (PopOS, ZorinOS?)
“Windows” flavored (Mint?)
“Linux” flavored (Fedora?)
Edit: was not aware 1) Distro & 2) Desktop Environment are seperate/distinct. Good to learn
So Gnome is the distro?
what do you mean by ~ Mac ~ Windows (both? They’re both the desktop environment?)
No Gnome is a desktop environment which is similar to the Mac desktop environment. Ditto KDE and windows.
This distinction is confusing for new Linux users because windows and Mac each only provide one desktop environment so users conflate the desktop and OS. Imagine if you could change your computer from having a windows desktop to a Mac desktop while having all your files and applications stay exactly the same and still work. This is how Linux works. Whether you use Gnome (a Mac like interface) or KDE (a windows like interface) or one of the tiling/scrolling compositors of Linux power users it’s just the UI layer of the OS, it’s a totally independent question from what distro/software you’re running and you can freely mix and match
Like a super theme. Makes the entire interface entirely different, even comes with different default apps, like the default calculator is different too.
If you’ve ever used Android phones, you might’ve seen launcher apps on the play store. Something like that.
I feel like I never grasped or encountered the concept of a launcher, I know Apple things dont really have the same concept AFAIK
What is the interplay between the ~Mac ~ Windows
Well yeah. Just imagine linux being just the command line, then you gotta build a whole graphics layer on top of it. Windows and Mac built them as one combined unit. Linux being Linux, obviously different people have made their own versions for people to download for free.
So everything visually above is mostly down to the choice of DE, while the technical command line stuff underneath like the drivers and stuff are the distro.
People usually just refer to each DE by their main stylistic inspiration. E.g. KDE is more windows inspired with the start button at the bottom, while GNOME is more mac-ish looking. Neither are copies of course, and there are tons of DEs that are uniquely designed by random people with crazy ideas.
Commercial OS tend to unify everything in a single name, Windows is the OS and - for example - the DE may be considered “metrostyle”. The distribution is Linux + selected packages (also DEs)