On Wed, 5 Jul 2000, Mike Stephan wrote:
> Are there any meetings planned for the Central GNHLUG group (I live in
> Boscawen)?
We ("we" being rather loosely defined) try to keep the LUG calendar
up-to-date with all the latest events. Although it seems to be rather blank
as of late. (Hint, hint, LUG chapter leaders. :) The URL is:
http://www.slug.org/cgi-slug/calendar/calendar.cgi
> I have a lot to learn!
We all do. That's part of the fun!
> Is there anything that I will be prevented from doing with Corel Linux, as
> opposed to another distribution?
Nothing in particular. Linux all tends to be the same software. The
distribution vendors simply set defaults, tweak things to suit their needs,
and package it up in neat form. So while every distribution is a little bit
different, it's like the difference between Ford and Chevy. They may put the
dipstick on opposite sides of the engine, but they both use the same oil.
> Am I better off just loading Red Hat?
Believe me, as a Red Hat users and supporter, I can safely say that Red Hat
isn't magic. They just get more press. :-)
> Also (sorry for this stupid question - I am very new to this), I realize
> that KDE and GNOME are similiar. What is Xfree86? is this something that
> KDE and GNOME ride on or is a different graphical environment?
Unix (of which Linux is a close relative) really goes in for the "modular
pieces working together" approach.
XFree (AKA XFree86, http://www.xfree.org) is a free X display server.
Originally for Intel x86-based systems, it has since become rather
cross-platform. The X server makes the graphics screen, mouse, and keyboard
available to any X client program that needs it. It only handles basic
graphics primitives -- pixels, lines, rectangles, and so on. Things like
buttons, scroll bars, and icons are outside of the X server's domain. The X
server is the equivalent of the GDI32.DLL and the video device driver in the
MS-Windows world.
To use X effectively, you need something call a "window manager". A window
manager is responsible for putting all the "trim" on a window (title bar,
resize handles, etc.), as well as keeping track of icons, placing new windows,
and that sort of thing. The window manager is roughly equivalent to the
MS-Windows SHELL32.DLL and EXPLORER.EXE modules, but without the file manager
aspect.
As the X server doesn't provide any high-level UI objects (e.g., buttons),
most individual X programs (clients) make use of "toolkits". A toolkit is
just a shared library (like a DLL) which provides those UI objects (called
"controls" in the MS world and "widgets" in the Unix world). There are quite
a few toolkits, each of which looks a little different, but they all follow
the basic GUI metaphors we're used to. Any given toolkit is like the
USER32.DLL from MS-Windows.
GNOME and KDE are both "desktop environments", which basically means a
complete package including window manager, standard toolkit, plus a file
manager and accessories.
KDE uses the Qt toolkit, which is a cross-platform UI library developed by
Troll Tech (http://www.troll.no). Qt is available under an Open Source
license, with certain restrictions which have caused some problems. KDE has
its own window manager (kwm) and file manager (kfm). KDE is a very polished
package that does well when trying to ease the transition from MS-Windows to
Linux.
GNOME uses the GTK toolkit, and includes a file manager (gmc), but there
isn't a standard GNOME window manager (yet). Enlightenment and Sawmill (now
Sawfish) are both popular choices for GNOME. GNOME is a little more flexible
then KDE, but lacks some of the polish, and had some real stability problems
in its earlier releases.
Welcome aboard! :-)
--
Ben Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
| "All that is gold does not glitter, not all those that wander are lost." |
| -- J.R.R. Tolkien |
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