Stupid Linux questions, right?

Question

linux

Good night, toasters. So my questions are:
1. Is it possible to run only one xorg? If he doesn't have clients, what will I see?
2. Is it possible to run a window manager over xorg without DE?
3. By launching the graphical shell via startx, do I start both xorg and DE at the same time, or how does it work?
4. Last night I put Arch on Wiki, I understood something, but not everything. I do not want to be a monkey, advise a good book fundamental on Linux. Thanks

Answer 1

"Graphics" in Linux is divided into the following components
X server - it initializes the display, input devices. Who are his clients - program windows .
Xdm - login manager (there is Gdm, Kdm, Lightdm .....) It logs in and starts something else. For example KDE :-). But depending on the login, it can run some software even without the window manager
startx - this is a script that says what to run after the successful start of the X server. You prescribe Firefox there and .....
The difference between wm - a window manager and DE - is only in functionality.
DE is the same wm but with additional features.

Answer 2

you can, you can even without wm, a gray screen
is possible, a bunch of classic wm
you run what is written in the startup scripts and user scripts,
I don’t know, sorry