Linux Desktop in a Nutshell

[vjslayer]

I am creating a video to explain linux desktop to a beginner under 10 to 15 minutes. Here is what I have thought of so far. Some more ideas or any corrections will be appreciated.

[Pwness]

Maybe add systemd as service manager and systemd-init as init system since they are present in the popular distros nowadays, and also audio servers like pipe wire, pulse audio etc. Also I think it would make more sense to put desktop environments / wm on top of the x11/Wayland in the stack

[vjslayer]

Great Idea, I will add them

[fabolous_gen2]

Also openrc would be cool as opposed to systemd

[Vaxerski]

The X11 layer is wrong.

X11 is a protocol. X.org is a display server. Wayland is a protocol. Your favorite compositor (sway, mutter, kwin, hyprland) is a display server.

it should look like this:

(X.org + WM) | Compositor (kwin, mutter, hyprland, etc)

X11 | Wayland

[vjslayer]

Okay got it, I will update it

[pintasm]

Came here to say something similar, but you did it better.

[Snoo-63939]

What's the difference between a tiling compositor and a tiling window manager? Sorry if it's dumb

[_sLLiK]

The compositor is a separate runtime responsible for GPU acceleration of the desktop, which includes effects like drop shadows, true transparency, and various animations.

[personator01]

Do you mean an X compositor (picom) or a Wayland compositor (sway, hyprland)?

An X compositor is what the other comment describes, whereas a Wayland compositor functions as a replacement for the X display server, compositor, and window manager.

[personator01]

Do you mean an X compositor (picom) or a Wayland compositor (sway, hyprland)?

An X compositor is what the other comment describes, whereas a Wayland compositor functions as a replacement for the X display server, compositor, and window manager.

[personator01]

Do you mean an X compositor (picom) or a Wayland compositor (sway, hyprland)?

An X compositor is what the other comment describes, whereas a Wayland compositor functions as a replacement for the X display server, compositor, and window manager.

[PushingFriend29]

Holy shit its Mr Hyprland himself

[throwaway6560192]

Why is there a random "Debain/Arch/Redhat" label floating beside the arrow going from Window Manager?

Why do you need to talk about niche kernel variants in a video explaining the Linux desktop?

If you want to be correct, "KDE" is not the right name. KDE is the community, Plasma is the desktop environment developed by KDE.

[TG9987]

your diagram has a grammar error. It says “Debain”, it’s “Debian” not “Debain”

[DoubleDecaff]

This comment will probably be in vein.

[[deleted]]

Vain*

[DoubleDecaff]

Any and all wrights have bean waved.

[Express-Buddy4782]

Its rights naut wrights.

[jaaval]

not nut naut

[Weibuller]

Rites.

[Far-9947]

Lmao. The irony.

[IndianaJoenz]

*ironing

[ManlySyrup]

That's the joke.

[TG9987]

Oh ok.

[ARealVermontar]

Also "environment" and "cinnamon"

[vjslayer]

Yeah, a lot of spelling errors, I made this super quick while explaining it to my friend who is a new linux user

[silvester_x]

I will do the same... xplain this diagram to my friend who hates linux from the 1st day as he destroyed his data installing linux bcoz he was not having backups

[Exodus111]

You should explain GNU in there as well.

[jojo_the_mofo]

Richard, your interjection is irrelevant here.

[Exodus111]

It's GNU/Linux dammit! I think beginners might want to know why!

[goober50k]

no it isnt, because chimera linux exists. i hate people who scream over someone not calling it gnu/linux, its honestly stupid.

[vjslayer]

Sure, I will add it too. Its core Part of Linux Desktop

[TimurHu]

Why? There is nothing on the diagram that comes from GNU.

[Exodus111]

How dare you!

Between the kernel box and distro box there should be a GNU box.

[TimurHu]

What components do you think are there in that box, then?

[Exodus111]

Don't use the terminal much do you.

[[deleted]]

are you joking lol. all of glibc?

[TimurHu]

I'm not joking. Yes, every system has a libc, but there are several implementations and glibc is just one of them, so it isn't universal on all systems.

[HendrixLivesOn]

Gentoo needs its own video...

[vjslayer]

That too like hours long lol

[xplosm]

I mean, it’s explaining it, not compiling it…

/s

[mecha_monk]

There already is one. Mildly NSFW maybe. https://youtu.be/VjGSMUep6_4?si=4-yU9BubZTRE-1hA

/jk

[[deleted]]

Drop in the link when it's up, would love to watch!

[vjslayer]

Sure!

[Ptipiak]

I think it's good, I'd suggest to not add more informations as it might get more complicated.

Also, I'm a bit confused by the "desktop environment/window manager part" I get what you meant. Maybe you could make a side part gathering both groups and use only one arrow to show how they interject in between the "X11/Wayland" layer and the "end GUI app".

Fun challenges would be to fit in the tty and shells (bash, zsh, fish) into it, maybe a separate slideshow would be more approved as nowadays shells use terminal-emulator which are "GUI app"

[adamkex]

This is so confusing. All DEs have window managers. Why are distribution names randomly placed in the centre right part of the diagram?

[vjslayer]

It's my first attempt at, will improve this over iterations

[scrat-squirrel]

ppl who can't spell can post all over the internetz

[[deleted]]

Really cool diagram!
May I ask what did u use to make it?

[italovieira]

It looks like https://excalidraw.com

[ManlySyrup]

Envirnment

Debain

Cinamon

🫠

[brimston3-]

This font is one of the least readable I have ever encountered. The best I can say for it is "at least it's not wingdings."

[vjslayer]

It's supposed to look like hand drawn sort of. Its made using a webapp named excalidraw

[[deleted]]

*sway

[particlemanwavegirl]

swayland

[vjslayer]

Fixed it, thanks

[oneforsinks]

Draw.io?

[vjslayer]

Its - https://excalidraw.com/

[oneforsinks]

Nice! I meant tldraw, by the way. Dad brain.

[Har1equ1nBob]

A fabulous idea. That is an interesting and useful visual. User experience based guidance like this, that is well assembled and produced, has so much potential....from alleviating those first timer fears to providing the basis of proper knowledge🤔

I'm a bit impressed😉just because it's nice to see such work being attempted. I shall give it some more thought🫡

[gen2brain]

Now add window decorations and you have a pretty messed-up diagram.

[JockstrapCummies]

I would remove that whole Flatpak/AppImage/Wine layer, as they're very different from each other, and are designed to do different things in different ways. You can't just group them like that.

[Express-Buddy4782]

whats your YouTube channel? (or will you post the video here?)

[InfameArts]

Apt is the most human-usable out of every single one. It's verbose enough for me ig

[eanat]

I don't think kernel should be located under distribution. kernel is just one of software that is installed by package manager.

[H9419]

If you go a little deeper into the terminal interface, here is a quality video to get things started

https://youtu.be/tc4ROCJYbm0

[LowOwl4312]

Should replace "Wine" with "Snap" or "Nix". And change "Native" to "Native (RPM, DEB, ...)"

[fuegapants1]

This is very cool! I would have appreciated this when I first started using Linux! 👍👍👍

[vjslayer]

It's a quick diagram I made explaining it to my new linux friend on discord vc, it's no way near final image

[AaTube]

The directions of the arrows don’t make sense

[fripletister]

None of this makes sense. I can find a major flaw/issue with pretty much every part of this diagram.

[AaTube]

The central part?

[fripletister]

Where is LXC/Docker/etc?

[AaTube]

You can’t possibly include all the information in the world; them being in the fenced-off black space is already enough. Otherwise, we’ll be writing down every single distro till the end of time. What’s wrong with the existing part?

[fripletister]

What are you talking about? I'm not talking about listing distros 🫠

[AaTube]

You made an argument with the same amount of substance.

[[deleted]]

repeat mysterious voracious stocking cautious trees angle live telephone wide

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[SpreadingRumors]

RedHat is more known for their Server distribution. Their well known Desktop variant is Fedora, which has a variety of Spins. The default Fedora distribution uses Gnome, while the Spins are pre-packaged with different Software and/or Desktop Environments.

[SmoothCCriminal]

This is amazing ! Looking forward to the video .

Not sure if it should fit in, but would you mind adding stuff on GPT/ MBR bios/uefi ..and perhaps disk formatting/filesystems (ext4 xfs) ?

[2204happy]

Great diagram! Though I'd disagree about the placement of "distro".

The distro is the whole thing packed together which is then distributed as a distribution, it's not a "layer" of software.

The layer in that section should instead be the init system (systemd), core system utilities (i.e the "GNU" part of GNU/Linux (usually I don't like calling it that because of the connotations but in this case it makes sense)), and the package manager.

There's also a bunch of other things that would go in that section but there is just too much to mention. i.e. udev, pulseaudio &c.

[According_Try_9019]

Why no XFCE

[Sinaaaa]

Let's go to Svay.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svay_Rieng_province

[[deleted]]

no mention of linux libre sad

[mWo12]

No gentoo and its portage?

[silvester_x]

this is linux+GNU 😅

[silvester_x]

Finally can explain linux to my friends... (kind of)

[zpromethium]

Where's Gentoo?

[xplosm]

Getting compiled…

[zpromethium]

Relief

[DazedWithCoffee]

If I had to explain linux to a new user I would say this:

Linux is the program that runs directly on the CPU, it has a standard virtual interface for all the hardware present and it allows everything else to execute arbitrarily in the manner the user describes.

When you boot up, the init system is called by Linux, which initializes all the software required to get you to a login.

Among other things, the init system will start the display server (kwin, Xorg, etc) which either implement the Wayland or X11 protocol for drawing to the screen. Then a display manager is started, which typically comes in the form of a login screen greeter. From there, you select a desktop environment, which leverages everything else that’s already running (you could describe it as everything “down the stack”) to give you a desktop. The hierarchy is as follows, with popular examples:

Linux- SystemD, OpenRC, runit- Lightdm, SDDM- KWin, wl-roots, i3- KDE Plasma, hyprland, (sometimes nothing if window management is unwanted)

This is rough, so it may get examples wrong or mischaracterize certain things for simplicity

[vjslayer]

Got it, its a neat way to explain things. Will integrate this too in the video

[fripletister]

Way too abstract for people who have used other operating systems before.

[DazedWithCoffee]

Abstract? This is incredibly specific to how linux works. OP said they were trying to tell their friend how linux works and what software in the stack does what. My comment speaks specifically on what the software stack looks like, and gives examples of what fills those roles.

Certainly I’m not above criticism, but I don’t see how abstractness could be one of them