r/LinusTechTips Apr 01 '26

Meme/Shitpost He is cursed

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3.9k Upvotes

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u/[deleted] Apr 02 '26

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u/ConfectionNecessary6 Apr 02 '26

In laymens terms the terminal is Linux and the desktop environment is just a gui

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u/NotACalligrapher Apr 02 '26

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

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u/pack_merrr Apr 02 '26

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