Hi all,

I'm still (and always will stay probably) new to linux, so bare that in mind with your answers, plz ?

I looked at the screenshot-thread, and man, I did see some nice things in there!! So, i decided to make my desktop a bit nicer. I googled around, but there were so many different things, that I lost it...

The entire displaying consists of several things:
An X-server, Display manager, A window Manager, A desktopManager, A File-browser, etc.....

I saw some nice desktops, and they (thankfully) put some info with it. But I didn't get it....

So:
I run Redhat 7.3, and gnome.

I saw information like this:

GTK2 theme blah,
Metacity theme blah
Nautilus theme blah

Whats all that?

If you look at the screenshot, another thing I noticed, is the "taskbars".. They all seem customized to their personal flavour... How do you do such a thing??

Anyone that can shed some light on this, would be very helpfull...

I guess its not only making your desktop look nicer, but it gets me more into the whole linux-thing... (Sure, One day I will try Slack, but let me first take my first steps with Redhat7.3)

I'm sure if you ask the people who's screenshots you like how they accomplished that look they would be happy to help you. Any particular look you are going for?

I use Fluxbox which is a window manager as opposed to KDE and GNOME which are DesktopManagers. Fluxbox, like blackbox, is a lot more efficient then KDE and GNOME. It doesn't chew up a lot of resources.

I know what you mean about being intimidated by all this. Its funny because so many of us were used to the limited configuration of Windows. The only thing you could do was change your icons, wallpaper, and color of the taskbar. With Linux there are so many things you can do it gets confusing at some point but hey...at least we have these options available.

Thanks Crash!

Can you explain what all these things are?

How to tell what "whatever" manager you run?

Thanks alot!!!!

I'll give it a shot.

This one is Gnome. The little foot is a dead give away. The task bar has been moved to the top of the screen as opposed to the default bottom and there is definetly some sort of theme change going on there.

This one, which is very cool, is KDE with a bunch of different applications running like Karamba and whatnot. The taskbars shape has been modified as well.

This one, which is mine, is fluxbox. Usually you will see no icons on the desktop with most of the *box Window Managers but it is possible to have them.

There are a lot more out there but I think those three are the most popular(I think). Hope that helps.

Thanks Again Crash!

With the risk of really annoying you, This was not the answer I was looking for. (Although THe shots look great!)

What I was looking for, is the difference in all these parts of an X window-system.

As i said before: I read something about the X-server (That one is pretty clear to me), but then the "hard part"

I.e I run a loginmanager, which is gnome's. Since its called gdm, I presume its Gnome Display Manager.
Then In this login-screen I can choose a Session. (Gnome, KDE, Flux, WindowMaker)

Let's say, I start Gnome (That one I read the most about)

Gnome runs with GTK, Sawfish, MetaCity, and Nautilus, if I understood it right.

What are these components? I found that Sawfish is responsible for the way your windows look and work? Not whats inside the window, but more the frame and the "Open, Minimize, Close" bar ? So can I then Assume sawfish is the window-manager?

But then: whats GTK's function in all this, and what's nautilus function in all this?

So in regular I am stuck at that point: What's the function of each component (In this example, GTK, SawFish, Nautilus)

I forgot to mention MetCity in this one: Is that also somekind of windowmanager? I read Gnome runs on metacity?....

Thanks for your patience.

I'm not a Gnome user, but GTK and Nautilus are well known by reputation. GTK is the basis upon which Gnome, and I believe a number of other window-managers, are based. It's the library which defines things like the basic widgets (buttons, checkboxes, text labels, etc).

Nautilus is just the default filemanager application of Gnome. For example, if you clicked on your user directory icon on the desktop, Nautilus would lauch showing you the contents of that directory.

Thanks Obi!

So, (if I understand correct) GTK is for the llok and feel of the systems buttons etc, not depending on what window manager you use?

But what is the Sawfish / Metacity ? Is it basically the same thing? Or is Sawfish the window-manager, and does metacity a different thing for Sawfish? Or is it the other way around? (I am really getting there! Thanks!!)

Yes. And actually it was a cause of some strife to reviewers and Linux newbies about a year ago. Some programs are written using GTK for it's buttons, some QT (which by the way is the basis of KDE), some use other libraries. So when someone uses KDE for example, and they use a GTK program, it looks totally different to the 'native' KDE apps which use QT. This has to an extent been solved however with theme packs for both GTK and KDE that make both look as similar as possible. Bluecurve, Geramik, Mandrake Galaxy are all examples of these.

As for Sawfish and Metacity? Don't have a clue. Never used them.

Thanks again!

I now beginning to see the relationship between all components...

Still curious though about the metacity and sawfish thingie....

Anyone can explain these ?

sawfish = window manager, it decides what the window bar looks like, the edges to all windows look like, menu items, scroll bars etc..

it used to be the default for gnome 1.4 but in the new 2 series its metacity (though with gnome you can choose out of a load to use as your window manager). Altering the theme for these two alters the way that the individual windows are drawn. You can alter which window manager to use in gnome in the gnome control centre.

HTH

Alex

That clears a lot webtoe! Thanks!

So, since I only see Sawfish as my WM (and twm, KDE) I can assume I run gnome 1.4 ?

Is it possible to run other windowmanagers on Gnome 1.4 ? And if so, how to start with that ? I installed fluxbox, for instance, but I can only start is by hand, (First starting X, then run fluxbox ?)