this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2025
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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In my experience, many Gnome apps make doing complex tasks pretty easy compared to third party apps. However, it is at the cost of customization and questions like "why can't I do this???"
But in general, Gnome's simple design works for me, most things feel clean and polished. I don't need the vast majority of features offered.
In the cases where Gnome's default aren't powerful enough, often times the KDE equivalent isn't good enough for me either despite offering more features and customization.
As an example, Gnome Text Editor vs Kwrite and Kate. GTS has the basics I need like line numbers (Apple's text editor does not have this...) and that fits 80% of my needs. But what about more advanced things? Well, no markdown support but I don't think Kate has that either. What about coding? I'd rather use a dedicated IDE than Kate or GTS.
I'm especially talking about smaller utility programs, like a USB stick formatter. If Gnome even has one of their own, it'll be an empty window with a single button in the top bar that says "Format Drive." There will be no choice or indication as to the name, the format, or perhaps even which drive to format. Turns out it will always do the removable drive that was mounted first chronologically. What the pity fuck do you mean you want to format a USB drive while your external backup HDD is attached? Who could ever want to do that? Oh and it'll be carefully designed to be unusable if you use any theme but light Adwaita. If you want to do something specific, open the terminal and use dd.
KDE's USB stick formatter will include several different wiping algorithms, you can key in a custom string to fill the empty drive space with with unicode support, settings for physical disks and solid state memory, the weird features of SD cards, it'll support formats only used by Sun Solaris and OS/2, you can specify a maximum write speed, and it's got a full set of drive encryption tools built in. All of this is perfectly themeable, but the UI elements are crammed a little too dense and not quite lined up right so it has a little bit of amateurish Windows 98 jank to it.
Cinnamon's USB stick formatter will be somewhere in the middle. It lets you choose which drive to format, what name to call it, which of about 8 formats to put on it, whether to do a "full wipe", and that's about it. Made in GTK for Cinnamon's design language, it looks straightforward but competent, like it's from Windows 7. Does what almost all users need, almost all of the time, without getting in the way. The only snag I can think of is likely the Cinnamon menu's fault: They provide a USB Stick Formatter, and a USB Image Writer. And it will switch places in the order it presents so you can't memorize "for the formatter, type "USB" and hit enter, for the writer, type "USB" press down and enter." They use the same icon so you have to stop and process the written language to get the app you want.
Tried Impression(s)? It's on Flathub