Graphical User Interface

Linux has a lot to offer its users. Their are thousands of optional packages that are designed to complete various tasks. Also, Linux offers many different graphical desktops to choose from. My personal favorite is called Gnome, but their is also KDE, Fluxbox, Xfce, and others.

The Gnome desktop (pronounced Gee-Nome in most cases) is sometimes considered to be a little faster than the KDE desktop. I still fail to notice much difference in the two interfaces as far as speed goes. From my expiereience I can safely say that KDE is more prone to bugs than Gnome. Actually, Gnome has no bugs. Zero. The only real 'bug' I have experienced running Linux that is noteworthy came from the KDE desktop after I hacked the panel to make it translucent. This was years ago, and there has been many serious changes  made to Linux to make it better since then. The Gnome ideal is to have a seperate program for every individual utility, thus, the programming is simpler. This makes the user expeirience faster and more productive.

The KDE desktop is a very advanced desktop that was originally aimed at being slightly more user friendly than its predecessors. KDE gives a user more of a 'MS windows' feel to it. Programs have many funtions in them, although KDE and Gnome often share some of the same program interfaces. I would recommend KDE as a desktop for a new user that feels less confident about Linux. KDE has a K-Menu that is similiar to the 'MS Start' button. It also has a utility that is similiar to the 'MS Control Panel'. Thier are many KDE programs built to be similiar to 'MS windows' to help in the migration from windows to Linux.

Other desktop interfaces include Xfce and Fluxbox. These are lightwieght, fast desktops. Any computer can handle these. Fortunatly, Linux is extremely verstile, there is no need to restart your computer to change between any of these desktops; and, there isn't actually a need to run any graphical user interface.