johngreenwood

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Linux is not supposed to be graphical. It is my understanding that Linux is just the kernel, and everything else is the distro, DEs, and WMs.

Emerson

As it has been already pointed out Linux is not graphical so it cannot be "more graphical".
You may find this reading will clear some things for you: http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm
In particular "Problem #4: Designed for the designer"

marietechie

(1) An ugly GUI is distracting. I figure if you are going to make a GUI, at least make it look nice.

(3) To use teaching as an example, you don't have only one kind of learner. And so, your teaching would include different strategies to help the majority of learners in the class.

Now, apply this thought to an interface:

Some folks work more efficiently using a visual interface (GUI) whereas others work more efficiently on the command line. Some types of jobs even require a GUI -- web design, for example.

For Linux distros to take both kinds of users into account is a very wise decision. And so, continued excellence in both areas is a must.

pixellany

The GUI in Linux is every bit as good as any I have used.
This thread has now reached maturity---you might almost say it has become ripe...

LinuxLlama422

definitely.

syahid

ubuntu has been doing a great job actually. i wonder if linux had only one interface like wind***. Newbies will not get confused, i mean.

marietechie

LOL! I'd still get confused. Whenever I encounter a new program that has a lot of new stuff I've never seen before, it takes me time to learn it. I'm sure I'm not alone.

But, yeah, you're right. If there is one desktop environment, it is easier to learn because you wouldn't have to look for someone else with your particular arrangement, as it would be assumed one desktop for Linux, one for Windows, one for Mac. But, hey, Linux had to be different.

johngreenwood

I don't think one GUI would be a very good idea at all. That would mean no freedom of choice. I like to use KDE and command line, others prefer Gnome, IceWM etc. How would we choose which one to use, and whichever one was chosen would leave many people disappointed.

res0r9lm

I don't dislike any of the WM's but graphically in linux or even bsd you can have your desktop setup in a way that makes vista look old school and with less ram

LinuxLlama422

Yea, one GUI isn't a very good idea.
Linux shouldn't be a "one size fits all" OS
It is like a fitted cap and you have to find one that fits you, and you like.

...and if you find a Linux OS that is close to what you want but not exactly perfect, you can always say "hey, im gonna change these things"

FREEDOM!

masterofNanako

Dear W=doze apologist,
Linux is a *NIX clone, most of the community now coming to the Linux Kernel (and the packaging that is available for it in various distributions) are not familiar with *NIX unless they come from a corporate/military/scientific environment. Thus there seems to be a 'bottle fed' mentality in the community of computer users in general. Most folks wanting to use a computer want to 'be on the net' or 'browse this or that'... Linux is pre-net and comes from the work-a-day world of commerce and research. The Linux kernel invites YOU to innovate, find a 'legacy programmer' and ask any one of them about the 'pre-net' days and innovation!
There are a TON of ready made skins and interfaces out there for graphical user interfacing. If all a person is worried about is how the interface looks, well that is their unlearned expectation of the computing experience.
I would still maintain, that: 1) Linux is Build It Yourself.
why? because as has been stated by others Linux is the Kernel of the system. The software packaging is the distribution. 2) M$ really does provide nothing but continued frustration and problems for ANYONE trying to get a decent days work done. Doing that on a computer without worry of someone breaking their system (and in the most extreme cases their computer) because of faulty coding and an OS that is just cut and pasted from faulty code over and over again, is more times than not impossible! 3) If when I have to use M$ for some very specific software because it isn't portable, (And NO dual boot is not an option if you want to keep a running system up and running.) I keep the OS's on different disks entirely.
As for those that develop Linux, the community has provided (for years!) a serious and usable alternative to computer users and most of it by co-operative 'pro bono' effort.
And no it is not to look 'cool' that I personally criticize M$, it is because the M$ ideal is one of crushing competition and individuality and becoming a dominating option... the company wants to be the ONLY option.
I would remind you of the addage that 'when a species becomes over specialized, it is soon to become extinct!'. When one system is the rule and the system breaks... where do you go for options then?
Geeks are geeks, sorry to say that means (now-a-days) anybody that has had more than basic math, can read and attempts to speak and write with proper grammar, and tries to continually learn and better themselves (and does the same for the community around them!). The person who can think without someone else giving them their thoughts! And that is why I like Linux as an OS... there is room to improve and if you don't like your GUI... CHANGE IT.
Respectfully yours,
'MasterofNanako'
Linux enthusiast from way back...

jiml8

Absolutely! And, further, if you go to a car mechanic to have your car fixed, you are an absolute wimp and have no business driving! You should not only fix your own car, you should BUILD your own car! And if you can't do that, you shouldn't be driving - you should take a cab or take the bus!

Not only that, what's all this noise with buying pre-built houses???? You shouldn't EVER buy a house! If you want one, you should build it! You should cut down the trees with the saw you yourself made from the ore that you yourself mined and refined into steel, then you should cut the trees up into the kind of shaped wood you need, then you should build the house!

Specialization of tasks is for woosies! Preconfiguration of computers is only for no-nothing Windoze users! If you aren't prepared to study, understand, and HAND COMPILE all the source code that goes into a GNU/Linux distribution, you have ABSOLUTELY NO RIGHT TO USE IT!!!!!!

(there, I feel better now)

jiml8

And this is wrong, how...

The very idea that you have to be a highly knowledgeable specialist in order to use a *nix environment is absurd. In fact, as a general statement, the more knowledgeable/specialized you have to be to use a technology, the less mature that technology is.

All the OS's have to do a better job of accommodating the non-knowledgeable/unspecialized user because computers are ubiquitous and more and more people who are not specialists and have no desire to be specialists are going to use them.

The major problem on the internet today is that Windows has tried to make this accommodation and has done a bad job of it. That OS is opaque and hard to service, and - because of how they have tried to accommodate the nontechnical user while achieving their strategic goals (hegemony over the entire computing world), it is poorly secured and relatively difficult to secure properly.

Linux and OS-X both can improve greatly on Windows in this regard.

False. Linux is not pre-net; Linux is barely pre-web. Unix is barely pre-net, and it grew up with arpanet. Security and networking are deeply buried within it.

The linux kernel particularly is tightly controlled by Linus Torvalde. All innovation must be approved by him to make it into the kernel. Very few Linux users/developers "innovate" with the kernel - and when they do, the kernel developers (quite properly) won't support them.

So? This is the vast majority of the computer using public.

I don't get the point here. Part of the beauty of linux is that you CAN build it yourself if you want to, but the distros mean that you don't HAVE to build it yourself.

If I had to build it myself, I wouldn't use it. I am fully capable of building it myself, but I don't want to take the time and effort; I have better things to do. A distro permits me to do those better things.

And all of this is just a rant against microsoft, not relevant to unix or linux or anything else.

And yet, specialization is the very heart of civilization.

The reality is that eliminating the microsoft monoculture is desirable from literally every perspective except that of microsoft shareholders. For this to happen, there must be viable alternatives - which means alternatives that work better than Windows and are as accessible to the non-computing masses.

Linux is rapidly becoming the most viable of the alternatives - more so than OS-X because Apple, after all, is a sole-source company and in some ways in that regard is actually worse than Microsoft.

The major hurdle that must be crossed is convincing those non-computing masses that Linux really is "at least as good as" Windows, AND it is "at least as easy to use" as Windows. I do believe that the most recent distros make it possible to legitimately make those arguments, and all of our interests are best served if we DO make those arguments.

greeniguana00

I agree that more powerful configuration GUIs would certainly make linux better. People are forced into command line because they need to manually edit a conf file, and it gets annoying after a while. What is even more annoying is poorly constructed GUIs which don't work or don't do anything useful.

I have to say, I definitely like using Linux over Windows once I get it set up to look like this:
http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/765/snapshot9mt1.png
http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/7...apshot8jy5.png
http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/5...apshot7gb1.png
http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/184/snapshot2fm4.png
http://img409.imageshack.us/img409/9...apshot6id1.png
http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/7...apshot5tx8.png
http://img475.imageshack.us/img475/7...apshot4sq2.png

millertime588

Try beryl for some eye candy, but anyway I guess overall it would be nice to have a few options to pick from.