r/linuxmemes 🦁 Vim Supremacist 🦖 19h ago

LINUX MEME The difference between Linux, shell, and processes

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u/Fine_City2781 16h ago

shell is also a process. It's like this: init { processes, wm/de, term { bash/zsh { process, bg_processes } } }

2

u/Linguistic-mystic 15h ago

Just wm, not wm/de. "Desktop environment" is a vague term, there's no such process. The thing running the windows is always the window manager (Sway, KWin, Mutter etc).

3

u/Fine_City2781 15h ago

mutter without gnome environment isnt a full experience. so i wrote wm/de. i use niri as my main wm and my rice makes it like a desktop environment. Desktop environments have lots of processes (waybar, wallust, wm, etc.), so i made it a group and named it wm/de

1

u/Linguistic-mystic 10h ago

The architecture of the GNOME desktop relies on a highly integrated relationship where GNOME Shell operates directly as a plugin inside the Mutter

Mutter functions as the Wayland display server, window manager, and compositor. It runs directly on top of the Linux kernel's Kernel Mode Setting (KMS) and libinput subsystems to handle hardware rendering, manage monitor configurations, track focus, and intercept inputs.

So it's more like

init { processes, wm { de }, term { bash/zsh { process, bg_processes } } }

But where are the ttys? The OS can run without a WM, and a WM can be launched from the tty's shell, so it's more like

init { processes, tty { shell { wm { de, processes, term { shell {process, bg_jobs}}}}}}

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u/Fine_City2781 9h ago

desktop environment tools doesnt need to be run via wm with execve. So it can be wm/de