But that is a window manager

Post #37,317 by ben_tilly 5/3/02 7:50:26 AM Reply	But that is a window manager And a window manager does the same thing even if you run KDE or GNOME. For instance if you run GNOME using sawfish as your WM, then kill sawfish, your GUI is seriously hampered. However start up enlightenment instead and you are back in business. (Things may look a little different...) Conversely you can work perfectly well with programs that require either desktop environment from within a window manager that knows about neither. The truth is that the final user interface has a lot of components behind it. I will grant that a desktop environment is part of the user interface that a given user may take for granted. But removal of that desktop does not mean that there is no graphical user interface left, it merely means that it behaves somewhat differently and you can't run some applications. Cheers, Ben "... I couldn't see how anyone could be educated by this self-propagating system in which people pass exams, teach others to pass exams, but nobody knows anything." --Richard Feynman
Post #37,322 by imric 5/3/02 8:23:52 AM Reply	For that matter... You don't need a window manager - try running xwc, say, from .xinitrc (or start it from xterm)... Or Mozilla... grin Imric's Tips for Living Paranoia Is a Survival Trait Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised... Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.
Post #37,325 by CRConrad 5/3/02 8:36:08 AM Reply	But if you can't start an application by clicking an icon... ...can you really claim you have a "Graphical User Interface"?!? No, that'd be like running, I dunno... Harvard Graphics, perhaps? -- on DOS. i.e, a single graphical application, on a NON-Graphical User Interface. Christian R. Conrad Of course, who am I to point fingers? I'm in the "Information Technology" business, prima facia evidence that there's bats in the bell tower. -- [link\|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=27764\|Andrew Grygus]
Post #37,334 by imric 5/3/02 10:55:47 AM Reply	grin xterm is capable of launching multiple simultaneous gui programs - but before you claim that xterm is then the gui chuckle, it's X that provides the 'pointy-clicky' copy&paste functions, no? The argument that no other OS builds it's Internet browser in so that it cannot be safely removed / replaced still stands, I think! smile Imric's Tips for Living Paranoia Is a Survival Trait Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised... Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.
Post #37,336 by drewk 5/3/02 11:36:23 AM Reply	I wonder why we're arguing with each other here? The basic question is: Does any other OS integrate the web browser into the OS? Microsoft have taken the position that the web browser is somply one aspect of the GUI, which is itslef fully integrated into the OS. But here we are arguing over which particular part of a Linux distribution deserves to be called the GUI. "The GUI" is so modular and distinct from the OS that we can't even agree on what gets to be called the GUI! On top of the kernel there is (at least) the desktop manager, the window manager, the font renderer (probably) and the ... well I can't think what to call X, because there are desktops that don't even require X. So there is a module that handles the pointy-clicky-mousish stuff; a module that handles the window widgets; a module that handles font rendering; a module that handles drawing things to the screen; and desktop managers like Gnome, KDE, fvwm and others which may or may not include any combinatin of the above modules, or may provide them itself -- at the user's option. So instead of agruing about "what is The GUI" on a Linux box, can we just agree that it's pretty clear "The Gui" is not part of "the OS"? === I can't be a Democrat because I like to spend the money I make. I can't be a Republican because I like to spend the money I make on drugs and whores.
Post #37,345 by CRConrad 5/3/02 12:22:43 PM Reply	For the fun of it, of course, you spoilsport!!! :-) But the worst part is, this: So there is a module that handles the pointy-clicky-mousish stuff; a module that handles the window widgets; a module that handles font rendering; a module that handles drawing things to the screen; and desktop managers like Gnome, KDE, fvwm and others which may or may not include any combinatin of the above modules, or may provide them itself -- at the user's option. ...bit could probably do with being a little more integrated, be it "commingling-a-l-a-Microsoft" or some technically slightly different way. The stuff you read about on /. and here and all over the 'Net, all the time: "I can't get font manager Q to work with application Z under window manager R and desktop environment Y"; "How do I set up X to allow cut-and-paste between application G and application J under window manager H?", etc... And my own timid experience, of setting up the mouse to be this kind of hardware, button emulation so-and-so, cursor speed and acceleration this-and-that -- first in some X configuration thingy, and then again in (because the previous had absolutely ZERO effect under) some desktop environment... That all just sucks so unbelievably, I can only say Bill's minions do really do a much better job of it. And that's probably precisely because this, "the GUI", is such a mess of loosely-related but non-integrated bits that you can't even say precisely where it begins and where it ends. Christian R. Conrad Of course, who am I to point fingers? I'm in the "Information Technology" business, prima facia evidence that there's bats in the bell tower. -- [link\|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=27764\|Andrew Grygus]

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