This session will be broken up into a few parts because of the extent of the content. This first part is a walk through of the simple step of logging and navigating. Unfortunately, in retrospect, I recorded the last session out of order on how to install applications, it should have been part of this session. But now that you know the concept, you will know more about applications as part of the desktop once we finish with this session.
Hopefully, you have installed a distribution with a specific desktop environment by now, either on a physical or virtual machine. Each distro and desktop environment will have differences but all will have the same concepts. In an example (see my video walk through), when you first boot up any version of a desktop you are first presented with a login screen that is handled by, what is called, the display manager. Most popular desktop environments have their own display manager; KDE has KDM, Gnome has GDM, etc. The display manager essentially works with the X Server to authenticate the user to start the X Server session. I will be creating a session later to go into more detail on the X Server but for now know that the X Server is basically one of many layers of a service that is responsible for presenting a graphical environment for the user.
Of course, when you log into your desktop environment you have standard user interface for accessing applications via a menu, folders and files via a file manager. The file manager will also depend on the desktop environment that you use. For KDE, it will be Dolphin; for Gnome, it will be Nautilus, for Mate it will be Caja. Launching any one of these file managers simply allows you to navigate your home directory to manipulate your files and folders, as is a pretty custom practice for most users in any operating system.
In choosing a desktop environment, as I have mentioned in previous sessions, you will have a choice to use any desktop environment or Window Manager. On the basic level a Window Manager offers menus, windows and other portions that are part of the Graphical User Interface (GUI). However, in the Linux world, there is a distinct separation of a stacking Window Manager and a tiling Window Manager. In my video walk through I show the differences between a stacking Window Manager and tiling Window Manager. Again, on a basic level a stacking Window Manager you are given the freedom to stack windows where a tiling Window Manager you cannot, windows are locked to a tile-like grid.
Stay tuned for up coming parts in this session where I dive a little deeper in using desktop Linux in which I will discuss the command line, shell prompts, basic Linux commands and more.