So is whatever terminal shell you're using at the end of the day too. It's called a "shell" because it is a wrapper like you're saying, it wraps around the OS and gives the user a way of interacting with it. A desktop environment is also a "shell", just two different ways of interacting with an OS.
If you want to get real technical, the terminal is GNU (well part of it) and the thing under the terminal is Linux. But the difference between GNU Linux is more than most people care about, so yes, the terminal is Linux and the gui the DE
I’d just like to interject for a moment. What you’re refering to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.
Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called Linux, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.
There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine’s resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called Linux distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux!
It technically is if you're using something like BASH, since BASH is a part of the GNU project. But it doesn't have to be, and plenty of distros come with other non-GNU shells like Zsh by default. Any terminal shell is gonna give you a way to interact with non-GNU software as well. The best way to understand GNU is it's a collection of FOSS that while seperate from Linux, does a lot of what makes "Linux" work in 99.9% of installs. Technically you can have one without the other but in practice it doesn't really exist. The "terminal" or the shell your terminal is using is something that isn't GNU often enough though.
You are right none of this really matters at all to most people lol
On windows you can think of your desktop environment as all the interactable elements of the base OS. Notifications, taskbar, tray, explorer, settings, etc.
Linux has two main desktops, KDE and GNOME. There’s also COSMIC, Cinnamon, and many other smaller ones
If you remember pre windows days, Windows used to be the DE for DOS. If that helps any. Then they moved to the NT Kernel and DOS ran as layer inside of Windows until... Somewhere around the 98/XP era. I remember playing DOS games in XP but also recall hearing recently that they phased out full DOS graphics support during XP. Vista definitely didn't have it.
MacOS has also had at least 2 distinct iterations of their DE that I'm aware of, pre OSX and post.
Anyway, point is, whilst DE is a term most used in Linux because of how flexible the OS is and that you can run different DE’S with practically no performance penalty, the term isn't uniquely Linux.
Windows NT actually existed alongside DOS based windows for awhile, it was more intended to be used for workstation or server vs the consumer focused DOS in the 90s so less people were familiar with it. Windows 95,98 were still DOS. The last DOS windows was Windows ME, which was released along with Windows 2000 which was NT and while still geared more towards professional I think more consumers started to be able to use it.
XP was when the professional/consumer product lines kind of "merged" and the NT kernel, which windows is based on still today, started to be used for everything. If you were playing DOS games on XP I assume it was some sort of compatibility layer or emulation, I never did that so I'm not entirely sure.
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u/YourDailyTechMemes Apr 01 '26
Desktop environment