“You’ve probably been using Linux for years as a workhorse
system for file serving, Web serving, and other thankless tasks.
When Linux first came into the shop, it was as a server only and
little thought was given to needing a graphical user interface
(GUI). Recently, the focus on Linux has been as a workstation or
desktop operating system. It’s little wonder – the advantages of
Linux over other desktop offerings in terms of speed, reliability,
and cost of ownership are huge. However, one thing you don’t have
to think about with other operating systems is what GUI to use.
From a systems administrator’s point of view, choosing a GUI for
Linux doesn’t mean picking the prettiest of the lot, but finding a
GUI with the features users need with the lowest cost of
ownership.”
“With Linux, there are many GUIs to choose from. In this
article, I’ll provide a brief overview of the features of the three
most popular GUIs for Linux and try to ease the path through the
jungle for sys admins who until now haven’t had to worry about
anything other than Linux’s command line interface. Although
there are dozens of Linux GUIs out there, the big three are CDE,
KDE, and GNOME. Many of the GUIs for Linux are window managers
only, but these three are complete desktop environments. Each GUI
includes user tools, applications, network utilities, and
development tools.”