On Thu, 2018-06-28 at 16:34 +0000, Beartooth wrote: > This has to be a Very Dumb Question, but what is the difference > between a "display manager" and a "desktop manager"? (Somewhat hand-wavy explanation follows): The usual terms are 'display manager' and 'desktop environment'. Recall that X11 was designed originally to support multiple graphical terminals running off a central server, and all the bells and whistles to support that are still there, even though most people are just running it on a single-user workstation. The DM manages one or more physical displays and allows you to log in. Examples of DMs are GDM, KDM, SDDM, etc. The DE is what handles your session you use after you log in. Examples are Gnome, Plasma, Mate etc. This being Linux, you can do without either or both. If you log into a text console with no window server running, you're not using a DM, but will have to fire up the window system by hand, e.g. using startx. And once you log in you might just use a simple window manager without all the paraphernalia of a full DE. The thing about DEs is that they not only present a (hopefully) consistent interface with inter-related widgets and design elements, but also provide libraries for intercommunication between apps that use the DE. Again, this being Linux, you can run more than one set of libraries at the same time, so even if your user-facing interface is Plasma (say), you can still use Gnome apps and vice versa. This drives non-*ix people mad :-) poc _______________________________________________ users mailing list -- users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe send an email to users-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Fedora Code of Conduct: https://getfedora.org/code-of-conduct.html List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/message/X4X362DA4EPKNFG4SBMWVPHHJOHDIPNU/
