> > >From what I've seen, X is hard to program apps for. > KDE and Gnome provide a much richer API than X, hence > lots of programs being written for it. I'll bet not > that many apps are written for X anymore. > > I guess I'd like to see a Linux GUI that is more > abstracted than X or even KDE|Gnome. A pure SVG > (http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/) capable desktop > where apps describe their visual interfaces in XML. > Ok, I'm dreaming... >
X was part of my problem with understanding Linux and, I assume, confuses a lot of newbies as well. The confusion is when someone tries to explain the difference between a Window manager and a desktop environment and X. It would be a lot easier if X could be taken out of the equation. Let KDE or Gnome or any other desktop run their own X server. It should be installed or uninstalled with that app. I think this is a hurdle that GNU/Linux needs to overcome to compete in the home desktop market/easy user market. (If it wants to compete there.) A lot of people say we don't really want Linux to be used by the masses. But then a lot of people tell their friends, parents and grandparents to use Linux so it's going to be used in that market. If so then a few things in the overall OS needs to have a bit more cohesion. I know there are supposed to be standards, so why don't people follow the standards? Especially the big players should. Suse, Redhat and Mandrake (haven't really used mandrake in a while so I'm probably wrong making a generlization about it) have different ways of completing the same task. Whether it's a GUI tool or a CLI tool there needs to be cohesion between distro's. At least from the major players. Still, there are hundreds of other distro's where people want to do their own thing, which is fine, because most newbies don't venture into "other" distro's. Usually. Myself, i've always been happy digging into problems and figuring things out. It's just the geek in me. But my wife or my mother don't really care to know why X is broke or why KDE won't load cause X is broke or because X can't load drivers or sync rates for the monitor. bb
