[techtalk] GUI's

[Samantha Jo Moore]

Cara,

> Anyways, I installed redhat 6.0 with the default settings, I guess. then I
> struggled a lot and managed to get X-windows set up and working. The whole
> concept of Gnome and KDE really perplexes me, though.
> 
> Do they layer on top of the X-windows environment? What is their use?
> Is there someplace someone could direct me to learn more about this?

The GUI environment in Lunux/unix is somewhat different than the Microsoft
windows environment.  In the X-windows environment, the display is controlled
by a program known as the "X server".  This server takes control of the display
and creates windowws, displays graphics and text as indicated by other programs
called clients.  This client-server relationship comes from the fact that the
X-server provides display services to the client programs who ask it to display
stuff.

However, this server does not provide desktop management facilities.  This is 
done by another program known as a "window manager".  This window manager 
allows a user to move, resize, and re-decorate the borders of the each window 
on the display.

Window managers come in a wide variety of colors and flavors.  You have the 
basic "Motif" developed by OSF.  There is also a "lesstif" which is basically 
the same as Motif but with a few additional bells and whistles.  Then you have 
the "fvwm", "twm", "afterstep" (derived from NeXT), "Gnome", "KDE", and a 
myriad of others.  A window manager turns out to work just like any other client
program, the only difference is that it's purpose is speficic to managing
windows.  That is why you can change window managers on the fly.  Kill one
and start another and you have a completely different look and feel on the 
display.

To learn more about X11 programing you can check out the O'Reilly XLib and 
XToolkit progamer and reference manuals.  Most other books that teach this
concept also include a specific window manager toolkit like the OSF Motif.
This toolkit is nothing more than a library with a predefine set of widgets
(window object) that are easier to use than if you go directly to th XLib.

Hope this clarifies some of the issues.

Samantha Jo Moore
CTO - The Tahoe Group, Inc.
http://www.thetahoegroup.com
sjmoore at thetahoegroup.com

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