On Monday 20 November 2006 12:36, John Meyer wrote:
I'm having a problem describing either KDE or GNOME to my friends. I know they're not like Windows in terms of being the Operating System, so what is the technical term for both of these (window managers?) and what is the best analogy to use when describing them?
Unlike free software operating systems, proprietary operating systems tend to maintain a one-to-one relationship between the kernel (the OS' engine) and the bits the user sees and interacts with (the graphical user interface (GUI) - the windows, cursor, buttons, etc). The kernel is the back-office (in an insurance firm) or the kitchen (in a restaurant) or the shop-floor (in factory) - the people in the backroom, away from the public eye. The GUI is the salesforce or waitering staff or installers - the people the public see and deal with directly. In proprietary systems, there is usually no way to change the customer-facing people - Microsoft or Apple have decided that they want all those people to be age 30, male, with brown hair, and wearing suits. This is for reasons of brand awareness, GUI consistency, etc. "If you use our kernel, you also have to take the GUI we give you", and there is no real alternative to that. (There have been a couple of "independent" GUIs for Windows, but they're not widely used, so they don't really affect the argument.) With free systems, there is no one-to-one link imposed on you. You can choose to deal with the kernel through a number of GUIs, depending on your own personal preference. Given the work involved in creating a GUI, the number of alternatives is not infinite, but it is considerable: KDE, GNOME, GNUstep, XFCE, IceWM, e17, etc. So you can decide that you want all your customer-facing staff to be age forty, female, matronly-looking, blue-rinsed, or age 50, male, solemn, grey-haired, or teenagers, sloppily-dressed, tending to drop things and fall asleep at inopportune moments, etc, etc. You can even mix-and-match within certain limits. So basically what it comes down to is that you, the user, have more choice. You can decide how you want your interface to look, and choose the "window-manager" that comes closest to that. And you can change it to something else whenever you feel like it. The above may or may not be helpful as an analogy, but it is rather amusing to speculate on what the different window managers would look like if they were people .... -- Pob hwyl / Best wishes Kevin Donnelly www.kyfieithu.co.uk - KDE yn Gymraeg www.eurfa.org.uk - Geiriadur rhydd i'r Gymraeg www.rhedadur.org.uk - Rhedeg berfau Cymraeg www.cymrux.org.uk - Linux Cymraeg ar un CD -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org