rsjagtia Posted March 23, 2004 Share Posted March 23, 2004 Hey everyone, thanks alot for the poeple who are taking the time to help n00bies like me out. U guys ROCK! Now my n00b questions are: 1) What is GNU? 2) What is the difference between GNOME, KDE and GTK? 3) How do i select between the 3? 4) What is IceWM? is it good? reccomended usage by anyone? 5) Once i install a .rpm package... how do i run the program. I mean should i go to the control center (SuSE) and select it from there and then manually create a shortcut? How do you guys like to arrange ur desktops? 6) A brief overview of the directory structure ... ie what dir's are for what etc LOL i know thats a lot of questions :rolleyes: but these r some answers i just cudn't find in the guides around ... I know i prolly didnt look hard enough but thanks alot guys. Open Source ROCKS! :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eevoo Posted March 23, 2004 Share Posted March 23, 2004 1. http://www.gnu.org/ 2. Gnome and Kde are the 2 major window managers for linux. GTK has always confused me as to what it is also. 3. Personal perference ;) 4. IceWM is yet another windows manager, never tried it. 5. It you install it like that normaly you can just type the program into a command line and it will run, or create a shortcut for where ever you want. 6. for the directory structure look here, http://www.comptechdoc.org/os/linux/usersg...filestruct.html Hopefully markjensen can come along and give you some better informed answers, as I am not a total noob to linu I am no code monkey guru either. ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bladerunner81 Posted March 23, 2004 Share Posted March 23, 2004 1.) linux is the kernel, gnu/linux is the operating system. there was a guy back in 1984 who said "well, let's create an operating system that is free as in free beer". so he did, used linus' linux-kernel and gnu/linux (gnu beeing an acronym for "gnu's not unix") was born. 2.) gnome & kde are huge desktop environments whith their own window- & login-managers. they come with graphical tools for the tasks you expect windows to come with, but give you more choice :rolleyes: . gtk & gtk2 are so-called "widgetsets" for programmers of apps. they include generic routines for creating buttons, toolbars,... there are tree big ones out there: gtk, gtk2 (known as the gimp tool kit, derived out of the development of the gimp image processor) & qt (kde uses qt, which is developed by trolltech and a free gnu/linux-license is donated back to the open source community). 3.) when you mean "select" in terms of "which one is better" i have to say: the app that suits you will be the better one for you. it's all about choice. if you thought in terms of "how do i select which one to start": at your login manager (usually gdm or kdm) you should be able to select the prefered session. 4.) icewm is an old window manager. i have not used it for so a long time i quite don't remember. don't have it on my box here 5.) thats the problem with rpm's: you'll never really know what they will do. some of them will create shortcuts, some of them not. most of them will install apps and libs into the right location and path to simply start them with one command, some not. use your favorites window manager or desktop environments "run command" feature to run it manually, then, if it is not created automatically, edit your menue and add the app 6.) / = root directory, every path has it's roots here /bin = binary, system used binaries /boot = holds e.g. kernel, system.map, bootloader information /dev = devices are created here, e. g. /dev/hda1 for first partition of first harddisk in your system, resides in ram /etc = holds configuration files for your system, also the runlevels are defined here /home = home directories for your users. user-related data will be stored here. for the individual user refered to als "/~" /lib = system binary used libraries /mnt = e. g. home of external mount points as /mnt/cdrom or /mnt/floppy /opt = usually used for "optional packages" like kde on suse if i remember right. /proc = process file system, holds runtime-info about your running processes. resides only in ram. /root = home directory of user root /sbin = system used binaries only accessable by user root /sys = 2.6.x-kernel specific directory, holds system runtime-info. resides only in ram /tmp = temporary files (for compilation etc...) /usr = holds user-accessable programs, libraries, shares,... /var = holds variable data as logfiles, temp,... that was the base structure, that should be equal for all dists. deeper inside they all differ, so i won't outline that. hoping to have helped out somebody, have a nice day :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rsjagtia Posted March 23, 2004 Author Share Posted March 23, 2004 Thanks guys woah that was fantastic! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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