khorovodoved, 7 months ago

I would say, that from most important to least important components are:

1. kernel
2. init system (systemd, openrc, runit…)
3. C library (glibc, musl)
4. filesystem
5. coreutils
6. shell
7. bootloader
8. package manager
9. x11/Wayland (if any)
10. sound system (if any)
11. WM (if any)
12. DE (if any)