Linux interface questions...

[FOBSIDE]

i was trying to have a friend explain to me all these things and he basically confused the hell outta me.

X...what is it exactly? window managers...what is their function? desktop environments...what do they do?

i was reading that kde and gnome are desktop environments and enlightenment is a windows manager and thats about all i got figured out. whats the hierarchy of control of these things? does a window manager run on top of a desktop environment or vice versa? im very confused. any insight would be greatly appreciated.

 

[BOFH]

X is the framework that provides the graphicial interfaces. Gnome/KDE/WindowMaker all work within that framework to provide the gui

 

[thornc]

Ok, let's make even simpler

Hardware -> lower level
|
v
Xfree86
v
Window Manager / Desktop Enviroment
|
v
Applications -> Higer Level!

Basically the X ( xfree86 ) connects to the hardware on your computer ( keyboard, video card, etc), on top of it goes a window manager. Up until Gnome/Kde come up there was no integrated
desktop enviroment for linux/X, but nether the less Gnome/Kde can be considered window managers..

 

[FOBSIDE]

thornc:

you put windows managers/desktop environment on the same level. i know kde and gnome are desktop environments. enlightenment is a windows manager. right now i know on my linux box i have gnome and enlightenment. does that mean i can run kde and enlightenment if i wish?

 

[timco]

Yes, you can pick and choose. You can use any window manager; the KDE one is not tied to KDE; you can take it out and use Enlightenment instead. KDE chose to write their own window manager, instead of using one like Enlightenment, WindowMaker or Afterstep. The advantage of using the KDE one (named kwin) is that it integrates with the rest of the software fully (in theory). Gnome hasn't got its "own" window manager, which is why you have to find another one to use with it, such as Enlightenment, which is what you're doing. Alternatively, you could use the KDE one with Gnome...

 

[Louie1961]

All good input. Just as another easy way to explain this, think of linux as being somewhat comparable to the old dos/windows 3.1 situation (not technically, but it makes a good analogy for windows users). Dos would be analgous to the linux kernel. You could update the version of dos you were running same as you can update the linux kernel in a linux box. Desktop environments are like windows 3.1, in that they run on top of the kernel, and provide the windowing environment. In the windows situation, you had no choice, you used win 3.1 or nothing. In the linux situation, you can choose between several desktops (KDE, Gnome, windowmaker, etc.), additionally, on top of the desktop you can choose (in linux that is) how window frames will behave. this is dome by the window manager (i.e., enlightenment, sawfish, ice, etc.) In the case of Gnome (my preference), each window manager makes gnome windows look and behave differently, but I still retain the same basic gnome menus, task bar, etc.

By the way, in lots of applications, you can run them from either desktop. In my case I have helix gnome (a tweaked up version of gnome) and KDE 2.0.2. I can run all of the gnome applications from KDE and most of the KDE applications from gnome

 

[BOFH]

Louie1961 - While you are mostly correct, I do remember alternate shells for WFW3.11 such as Norton Desktop and a couple others. Not as wide spread or popular as they could have been though. More of a PITA in terms of switching too than it is under X