Noob question: what are cinnamon and xfce

Randomface74 · 1 Jun 2019 at 19:26

I'm a total Linux noob.
I know there are different distros - ubuntu, mint, etc.
But on a lot of distro download pages you're confronted with a further choice - do you want Cinnamon, XFCE, KDE, Gnome, etc.
I have no idea what those options are and what the consequences of this choice is, and the websites don't even explain it. So this thread is as much for them as for me.
What is this choice all about? Why is there even a choice at all? If I'm choosing Manjaro, shouldn't I just get Manjaro, end of story?
Example: https://manjaro.org/download/

Dalandius · 1 Jun 2019 at 19:45

Cinnamon, XFCE, KDE, Gnome are GUIs (graphical user interface) which runs on top of your Linux distro. Linux is a CLI (command line interface). Most if not all distros with include a GUI, some distros you have the option of different GUI.

Which option is the best I do not know.

Randomface74 · 1 Jun 2019 at 19:52

Can you change GUI at any time, or do you make your choice when you install and you're stuck with it?

Hades · 1 Jun 2019 at 20:31

It is possible to change GUI but it will take some googling for the right set of commands to add the respositories and install it.

It's prefereable for a newcomer to pick a distro with the GUi (Desktop Environment) that you want to start with.

Personally I love cinnamon and it's very similar to Windows.