EDIT: As it turns out this is just how gnome is supposed to look and to get a permanently visible dock showing running apps and favorites I must install an extension like dash-to-dock
Thanks everyone to help me understand I was the problem here ๐
After using Ubuntu for years I thought it would be a good idea to try out plain old Debian for the first time.
So I downloaded the live-Image setup a VirtualBox and started installing it... installation ran trough without any problems. But I don't see any panel/taskbar anywhere.
I tried to google this and best guess was that gonme-panel was not installed (how?) after installation I tried to run it by the terminal but it only trows an error "(gnome-panel:3427): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: 20:24:58.712: invalid cast from 'GdkWaylandDisplay' to 'GdkX11Display'". So before I start digging into this I just wanted to confirm that I am on the right track and not just mixing stuff up. So does anyone have an idea what went wrong here?
As the other user also pointed out, it's not Debian but rather the Gnomeproject that is by default pushing this workflow and look-and-feel style. If you try Fedora or Archlinux for instance, you will also find the same Gnome desktop (with a different wallpaper). That said,
dash-to-dockis one of the most famous and installed extensions, so this means that many users prefer that workflow, but many also apparently just use gnome without a dock. When I was using Gnome, just for reference, I had dash-to-dock, but most of the times when I needed to launch an application I would just use the shortcut to open the search menu (which coming from KDE I remapped to alt + space)I also use dash-to-dock, but, generally, I just hit the super key and type what I want to run. So not too far off from the native workflow. I mostly like the dock as a way to, at a glance, keep tabs on what I have open, and what needs my attention. Opening a separate context menu for that functionally seems unwieldy at best.