Why gnome-desktop-environment not installed

[BlackMask]

Hi all,

First of all I have to say I'm new to linux. These days I'm trying to catchup linux concepts. This is my question. As I know GNOME is the default desktop enviromnent for Ubuntu. But Synaptic Package Manager shows me that following packages as not installed(I searched for different versions also).

• gnome
• gnome-desktop-environment
• gnome-bin
• gnome-core

But it says that some of these components are essential for GNOME (eg. gnome-core). Then how Ubuntu (GNOME) is working?? Are there any other packages which helps to run GNOME without these packages? Pleas explain. Thanks in advance.

Best Regards
BlackMask

[utnubuuser]

The desktop is called Ubuntu-desktop ( I think).

[BlackMask]

ubuntu-desktop package is not a seperate desktop environment. Is it? I think it is an all-in-one package which we can use to install all required items easily. Ubuntu's default desktop environment is GNOME. So there should be a installed package for GNOME (Which I still couldn't find??).

[utnubuuser]

Yes, Gnome is in synaptic.

[snova]

But it says that some of these components are essential for GNOME (eg. gnome-core). Then how Ubuntu (GNOME) is working?? Are there any other packages which helps to run GNOME without these packages? Pleas explain. Thanks in advance.

They are metapackages. Take a look at how small they are- they don't actually contain anything. Like ubuntu-desktop, they merely depend on several other packages.

None of them are installed on my system either- yet, when I go to install one, it requires no additional dependencies but itself. So it's essentially installed already.