Graphic User Interfaces with Linux

Some preliminary commentary and perspective

As much as I like Linux and think that it is the best operating system out there today, most people who use computers equate Microsoft with computing. In particular, the only computing environment that most PC users have ever seen comes in the successive versions of their flagship operating system Windows(tm). However, computer scientists and people who have an interest in computers beyond the mere end-user stage know that graphic user interfaces or desktop environments like Windows really represent the look and feel of the computer experience, but not the experience itself. Windows has become famous for essentially blurring the reality of what a computer really does. That is to say that Microsoft Windows, especially since the release of Windows 95, has masked any trace of the traditional "black" computer screen experience. It was still there - you just couldn't see it unless you purposely looked for it.

Bill Gates, chairman of the Microsoft Corporation once stated that: "Linux is 1960's technology with a new development model". What does he mean by this? I think basically that he bet his whole company on the assumption that people didn't want to see the traditional black screen and the command prompt anymore. The sales of Windows 95 proved that with a good marketing campaign he was able to sell the idea that people didn't want it and people responded. Then Linux started to gain in popularity and be noticed by a certain segment of the public around 1998-99. The problem was that Linux offered the black screen and the graphic user interface as a separate package. Bill Gates had already established that this was a no-no and so Linux gets chalked up as "retrograde".

Now it's 2002 and Linux still offers the black screen and graphic user interface separately. But then again, a lot has happened since 1998. For one, IBM has spent 1 billion US dollars on Linux and essentially gotten its investment back. Linux's market share continues to rise. It still pales in comparison with Microsoft's desktop popularity - so much so that as most everyone knows, Microsoft was convicted of being a monopoly in restraint of trade. Then again, in 2000 and 2001 successive email viruses and worms crippled Windows-based IT departments and brought scores of corporate networks to a grinding halt. Why? Because we're in a new world of connectivity. Bill Gates' comment about Linux may be turned back now upon his own company. If you asked your average Linux enthusiast what he or she thinks of Windows, you might get this reply: "Windows is pre-Internet technology with a slick new marketing campaign". Microsoft spends most of its days now fighting security brush fires because in blurring the difference between the operating system and the graphic user interface it sacrificed security for ease of use. Windows development model was conceived before everybody's computers where connected to each other and it continues to reflect that. Linux, however, was born on the Internet and grew up with it. Unfortunately, more complaints about Linux's perceived lack of user friendliness outnumber complaints about Windows being essentially a Maginot Line solution for secure computing. Hopefully in this lesson on graphic user interfaces under Linux, you'll get a good idea how the balance between user friendliness and security is a good one with our favorite OS.