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发信人: linuxrat (叫我老鼠错不了), 信区: Linux
标  题: 该给GNU/Linux挑选什么GUI呢?[FWD]
发信站: BBS 水木清华站 (Mon Jan 17 14:16:05 2000)

URL: www.samag.com
=========Begin===========
  Selecting a GUI for Linux

   Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier
     _________________________________________________________________

   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.

   CDE, the Common Desktop Environment, has been around the longest. If
   you have a UNIX background, you've probably seen CDE before. CDE is a
   commercial product that is not free in any sense of the word. CDE is
   licensed by the Open Group and was originally designed as a standard
   for UNIX desktops under the COSE (Common Open Software Environment)
   initiative by Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Novell, and SunSoft. CDE is not as
   widely used in the Linux community as the other GUIs. However, if you
   are integrating Linux workstations amongst existing UNIX workstations
   and wish to keep a standard GUI, CDE might be a good bet.

   KDE, the K Desktop Environment, is an Open Source project that derives
   features from CDE, Windows 9x, the MacOS, and also includes some
   innovative features of its own. The KDE project began in 1996 and has
   made amazing progress. The current version is 1.1.1, and the 2.0
   version is in development. Although KDE is not a commercial product,
   it does receive some support from Linux distributors, and it is
   undergoing rapid development. At last count, there were several
   hundred developers working on KDE, and 110 working on translation
   alone! KDE uses the Qt libraries, which were not under an Open Source
   license by the strictest definition. KDE is the default GUI for most
   Linux distributions and is included with all major distributions.

   GNOME, the newest GUI to the party, is also known as the GNU Network
   Object Model Environment. (Free software geeks love recursive
   acronyms.) GNOME was created in response to the fact that there were
   no completely free desktop environments for Linux and other Open
   Source operating systems at the time. GNOME is completely Open Source
    everything included with GNOME is licensed under the General
   Public License. GNOME is included with most Linux distributions.
   Unlike KDE and CDE, GNOME does not come with a standard window
   manager. Instead, GNOME works with "GNOME-aware" window managers like
   Enlightenment and Window Maker.

   Cost of Ownership

   Cost of ownership is usually the most important consideration when
   choosing hardware, operating systems, or application software 
   what is the total cost of ownership? Good administrators won't save
   $10 on a network card that is likely to fail and cost $100 in lost
   time and labor to replace later, and they haven't gone with Linux on
   price alone either.

   Of the three GUIs mentioned above, only CDE requires a license to be
   purchased for use. KDE and GNOME are available for free via download
   and require no licensing. Of course, cost of ownership goes beyond the
   initial purchase price. However, if you're setting up more than three
   or four Linux workstations, you can be looking at a hefty fee to equip
   each of them with CDE. Xi Graphics' version of CDE, bundled with their
   Accelerated X Display Server, has a suggested retail price of $199.95
   for one license. Even with quantity discounts, that can get expensive
   fast.

   The other major question of cost of ownership is the stability and
   performance of the GUIs. Free software isn't a bargain if it's too
   buggy to use. Most of us would prefer to install software once,
   configure it, and forget it exists. Having used each of the GUIs for
   some time, I've found no stability issues with CDE, KDE, or GNOME. The
   1.0 release of GNOME was somewhat buggy, but GNOME has matured very
   quickly. The best scenario would be to install each desktop on a
   testbed machine similar to the machines that they will be deployed on
   and put them through their paces.

   Features

   Each of the desktop environments include everything a user would
   expect with a modern OS. User tools include file managers, calendars,
   mail clients, calculators, online help, etc. The one problem with KDE
   and GNOME's online help is that it isn't always complete. Several
   programs under KDE and GNOME have only partial help files available
   for them at this time. The biggest downfall with most Open Source
   software is not in the quality of the software, but the availability
   of freely available documentation. CDE offers support for English,
   German, Spanish, French, and Italian. KDE and GNOME support at least
   30 languages, with more support on the way.

   Each desktop also includes configuration tools for the user to easily
   customize the look and feel of their environment. This is a major
   improvement for most users compared to the typical window managers
   available under Linux, which require customization to be done to text
   files by hand. While this is okay for the systems administrator, it
   doesn't work well for end users.

   KDE and GNOME both come with a dizzying array of network tools, games,
   system tools, and other utilities. CDE is slightly more modest in the
   bundled software (as packaged by Xi Graphics), but it does include a
   number of useful tools including Adobe Acrobat reader, postscript and
   image viewers, and calendar and mail tools.

   KDE and GNOME also include image and postscript viewers, calendar
   applications, and mail applications. Neither comes with the Adobe
   Acrobat reader, but it is freely available from Adobe's site. Tools
   included with KDE range from extremely useful to time-wasting. The
   tape backup tool, KDat, and the KFloppy floppy formatting tool
   simplify tasks that would intimidate most users unfamiliar with Linux
   or UNIX. The Font Manager greatly simplifies using fonts under Linux,
   something that Linux really needs before it can become a viable
   desktop option.

   KDE also includes several SOHO type tools that would make KDE an
   attractive option for people wanting to use Linux in an office
   environment. A personal time tracker, the KOrganizer application, and
   address book applications are all very useful apps not currently
   included with CDE. The KDE project is also in the process of
   developing the KOffice suite. Now in an alpha stage of development,
   KOffice is a suite of applications that, when completed, should give
   Microsoft Office a run for its money. (Granted, that's quite a bit of
   money...) KOffice currently includes ten office programs, including
   word processing, a database application, and presentation and layout
   software. The fact that the applications are in alpha doesn't mean
   that they aren't stable, but they're not yet feature-complete. KOffice
   can be found at http://koffice.kde.org/, if it's not included in your
   Linux distribution.

   Developers will appreciate KDevelop, a C/C++ IDE that allows
   programmers to develop KDE applications in a GUI environment. Although
   many Linux programmers shun IDEs in favor of Emacs or vi, KDevelop
   will be comforting to those developers who are newer to Linux.
   KDevelop is not included in the default KDE install, but is available
   from http://www.kdevelop.org/.

   GNOME also has a time tracker, a calendar, and comes with a killer app
   for number-crunchers  the Gnumeric spreadsheet application.
   Gnumeric is currently at version .38, but seems stable and is feature
   rich. GNOME also includes office apps, but there aren't quite as many
   as in KDE. The GNOME Workshop project is working on an office suite
   for GNOME as well, but it is not as far along as KOffice.

   Currently, KDE is probably the best bet for an office-type
   environment. The K Window Manager will be more familiar to users
   accustomed to Windows or the MacOS, and KDE is slightly farther along
   the development path than GNOME. However, as with all Open Source
   projects, that could change rapidly. The best bet may be to install
   both environments, which will allow users to use applications designed
   for either KDE or GNOME. The beauty of using Linux and Open Source
   solutions is that you're not locked into solution A or solution B
    you can choose both!

   System Requirements

   The version of CDE distributed by Xi Graphics requires a Pentium or
   better processor, at least 32 MB of RAM with 64 MB recommended, and
   about 135 MB of free space on your hard drive. The company also
   recommends using CDE with their Accelerated-X server, rather than the
   free X servers distributed by the XFree86 project.

   KDE and GNOME have slightly more modest system requirements than does
   CDE  that is, they will run on 486, and possibly 386,
   processors. However, it is unlikely that anyone would be greatly
   pleased with the performance provided by a system with less than 16 MB
   of RAM and a Pentium-class processor. KDE and GNOME run just fine on
   XFree86 servers.

   Wrap Up

   There is not a clearly superior product between CDE, KDE, and GNOME.
   However, unless you're looking for compatibility with machines already
   using CDE, it doesn't seem to offer enough benefits to justify the
   price tag. On a typical UNIX workstation, the cost of CDE was marginal
   compared to the cost of the hardware. On today's PCs, CDE would
   represent a large chunk of the cost compared to any other component of
   the system.

   Unless there is a clear reason to require a unified desktop in the
   workplace, the best solution would be to install KDE and GNOME and
   allow the user to choose the desktop environment that they're most
   comfortable with. This can be done almost as easily as installing only
   one environment, and allows the end user to choose the preferable
   desktop. n
     _________________________________________________________________

  About the Author

   Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier has been working with, and writing about,
   Linux since 1996. Zonker is the VP of Marketing for LinuxMall.com and
   edits the Linux Newsletter, along with his other duties. His first
   book, Installing, Configuring and Customizing Slackware Linux will be
   published by Prima Publishing in early 2000. He can be contacted at:
   zonker@linuxmall.com.

   Walnut Creek

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|======================+========================+====================|
| 以无法为有法，      |  拳本无法，有法也空；  |  我爱GNU/Linux,    |
|   以无限为有限       |    一法不立，无法不容。|     因为我爱自由！ |
|                      |                        |                    |
|   截拳道宗师-李小龙  |        意拳宗师-王芗斋 |     土人  Linuxrat |
|======================+========================+====================|

※ 修改:·linuxrat 於 Jan 17 14:18:19 修改本文·[FROM: 202.112.168.253]
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