Yes I have been using Debian for years, and I have also used it with Gnome Windows Manager before. However, for the sake of the internet and the many who have not, I will go over a few things with you about it. Disclaimer for anyone who finds this post and does not know already, Debian Linux is my favorite “Distro” by far. I can tell you though, I do not like Gnome for many reasons. We will go over those reasons, and a few things that are nice and possibly desirable for you. Lets get into it…
A few things you will see first
As soon as you push the power button you will be greeted with a wonderful boot loader named GRUB. Many years ago when i first got into Linux I had the privilege of using LILO on a floppy disk to boot my machine. Those were the days, and maybe soon we will do an older install of a distro so I can share the fun. Now we have GRUB, a much better and way more friendly boot loader.
This screen shows up next, “Initial Setup”, part of Gnome’s bloat if you ask me. We have already answered a few of these questions on the install, but okay Gnome we will answer them again. Maybe I am spoiled by using my favorite window manager LXDE for the longest time, It never asks me so much. Some may feel different and say all the questions give the windows manager more customization, I just feel It’s a bit much.
Finally we have the desktop, but where is everything at? Yes it seems minimalist at the start, however I think they are just hiding the mass of everything and all of the BLOAT. I like the background, and the top down approach for the menu bar is interesting too. Not sure how I feel about the time and date being in the center though. Let’s find some of the pre-installed software, I know it’s around here somewhere..
Activities? What exactly are they, and does that mean I need to exercise?
Okay, now I think we are getting somewhere, at least it seems like it. So here we have a few Icons to click on and a desktop or two. There is a search bar at the top, so maybe we need to know everything already installed. Well we don’t know whats installed, but we do recognize that Firefox icon. Lets click on that first and see whats on the internet.
Here Is the default browser for Gnome it looks, Firefox ESR (Extended Service Release), but another setup screen? How many questions is this one going to ask, just a few thankfully. I really don’t like to be forced to “setup” everything, but it lets us skip most of it so that is good. Now we can finally watch some videos on the YouTube.
Success, YouTube loads and I can search for videos on my favorite topic “computer data”. All jokes aside It works just like any other modern browser on any other modern machine. I have used Firefox for many years, however I prefer Google Chrome. Some may disagree but It is my favorite browser and by far the best out there. Where are all the rest of these so-called activities?
Finally I found all the bloat, I mean necessary software needed to use Linux.
Again with some jokes, I can’t help myself. It probably has to do with the fact that Gnome is my least favorite windows manager. Here it is though, all the pre-installed software and some things that are actually useful. A big question I have though is, why is the “everything” Icon a bunch of dots and off the whole way to the right? Seems a bit non-intuitive as one of my good colleagues would say. Maybe we should try something fun next.
Chess! I have to say I am quite rusty, and have not actually played for many years. Why not give it a shot against the computer, I don’t think I will win though. In my opinion It is nice to have a few games installed, not that I play much, but I still need a round or two of solitaire on Windows 3.11 every once and a while. I did really like Spider solitaire on XP too, however we are not talking about the “devils OS”. Lets move on to some more useful things.
Here is a nice feature for some who are getting started with Debian, or some of us who get lazy sometimes. The Software and Updates configuration in GUI form, Is convenient for quickly adding package repositories. Most of the software in Debian is installed, through a “package manager” command called apt or apt-get which is my favorite. There are GUI versions and I know it lives in Gnome, however that is for another day. What else Is useful around here?
A file browser is always a good thing to have, most of us who use a computer like to know there our “data” is. I wonder if you actually have used a computer If you have never saved a text file, picture, video, or even some music. Anyway, that brings up the next question?
Can we “Work” on this computer, does it have Word, PowerPoint or Excel?
It’s not quite the Bill gates Suite of office tools, but it does come with a very usable and FREE set. The Community version of LibreOffice a “fork” of OpenOffice if you have ever heard of it. In my opinion it is better than that 365 stuff, for one its free, and two it does everything I need when it comes to office tools. Either way lets see what we can do with it.
Here is the welcome screen, It looks like from here we can start by dropping a file in the main window or create something new by choosing a selection on the left. Write a document, start a spreadsheet, make a presentation, draw something, or do some advanced math, sounds pretty good to me. Basically anything you would need to do in an office setting can be done here. Cool, but I like data so…
“LibreOffice Calc” would be my favorite out of the bunch, what can i say beyond I like me some data. Spreadsheets can be very useful for many things, they can also be a problem if they are used incorrectly. In this case we are just taking a look, and it looks like a standard application to make a spreadsheet. With all the bells and whistles needed to do that and more. Okay enough with the bloat, can we find some useful features?
What are these little icons at the top right of the desktop?
Well It looks like another menu that we didn’t know about, but what does it do. Volume control, Battery power, Power mode, Network connection, and a few other things were hiding here. We can also power down the system or logout here as well.
Here is the “Dark Mode” I’m not sure what it does beyond change the background image. Maybe there is more to it, but for now we will just go back to “Regular Mode” if that is what it is called. To be honest I already thought it was in dark mode, how dare I make an assumption.
Now this is a very useful utility, I use things like this all the time. I am glad most operating systems these days have a nice tool to take screenshots, instead of just the “Print Screen” key on the keyboard. The times sure have changed since I was on that Packard Bell 386 running DOS 5.0 many moons ago.
I wonder how much resources are being used, is there a “Task Manager”?
As I get distracted for a minute by the “Activities” button again, let us take a look at the System Monitor. So, first glance at the Resources tab, the graphs look very nice. Even resized they still look nice, maybe because I like charts and such, because data is my friend. However, here is where you can monitor CPU usage, Memory usage (RAM and Swap), and Network usage.
Next thing in the System Monitor we will look at is the File Systems tab, how much data did you say? Here is where you can see all of the file systems that are attached to the system and mounted of course. The devices, where they are mounted, the type, their size, available space, and used space are all displayed here. This tab looks fairly empty here, but not on some of my bare metal machines.
There they are, those pesky background processes and services we never know about. Here you can find them all, and how many resources they are using. The processes shown in this tab also include what user they are running under, and their priority level. It may look like a lot of “things” running, but take a look at your windows machine, there are many more lingering around.
I am no salesman, but I can give a demonstration.
One really nice thing about almost all the windows managers I have used for Linux is the multiple desktop feature. It’s almost like having as many monitors only you can’t see them all at once. Here I start the demonstration on how they work. I know there are “hotkeys” to switch desktops, but I don’t use this feature enough to remember them. A very nice way to organize the many things you can do at the same time, multitasking I believe they call it.
Continuing to show how you can have many desktops with different things happening on them. When you start to use the next one, it adds another for you to use if you like. Is there a limit, I honestly don’t know, but I am sure there is. Can anyone actually use the maximum allowed desktops, I have my doubts.
Here is something useful I do like about Gnome, a Users Settings GUI. very nice if you are administering a machine with multiple users and groups. It can be a pain sometimes to do all the users and groups stuff in the terminal. This lets us see them all in one view, seems fairly simple to use as well.
The default terminal is here, not sure why it is white with black text, I am used to the opposite. Not a big deal though as there are a few terminal apps installed by default, and one of those my favorite with LXDE. The color scheme does kinda hurt my eyes a bit, I wonder what “Dark Mode” does.
Well like before, all I can see it doing is changing the background image. It sure does not have an effect on this terminal application. Maybe if I poke around some more later I can figure out what it actually does, but for now we will just assume it does more.
Final thoughts on the first look
Before the machine Powers off I would like to say a few things, Debian Linux is still my favorite “Distro” even with a windows manager like Gnome that I don’t like installed. That however is one of the best things about Linux though, you can customize it to your liking. Some may like Gnome it’s really not as bad as I talk but, It’s just not for me. After awhile using Linux you will too find your favorite, maybe it’s Gnome, maybe it’s KDE or LXDE like me. Whatever you choose, I just suggest you get out there and try…
