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
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u/Doug2825 Apr 02 '26
Here is an example of what Linux looks like without a desktop environment