Please explain all these Linux terms to me

[MichaelD]

I have a copy of SUSE 9.1 on it's way to me; I've always wanted to learn/try Linux. I've been reading up on it...but the terminology confuses the crap out of me!!

(Paraphrased by yours truly)

To install Linux, you run the CD. The Grub will come up and load KDE, which you then use the GNOME to get the NOME...unless you selected Option Ba1; no-grub-lub-a-dub.

😕

WTF does all this mean? Is there a "Linux Dictionary For Idiots" somewhere?

I have found several Linux websites...but they are written for people that already KNOW Linux.

Definition: GRUB: A recompiling of the ABC Kernel, as meant to be in the V2.6 of the GNome...but only after you install 32.9z. <--and crap like that.

Educate the ignorant, please!

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

hm, i don't know about a place that defines the various software, but for example, you can search on freshmeat.net for all of those names and they'll point you to the projects, where you can see a description, go to their website, etc. The ones you mentioned above:

grub: boot loader. this is what runs directly after the bios finishes its "thing." the boot loader finds the kernel (the very core of the OS) on the hard drive (or whatever drive), and then loads it. the kernel then takes over. to dual boot, you fiddle with your boot loader. grub is one boot loader, lilo is another - these are the two most popular by far, but there are also other more obscure, specialized ones i'm sure.

kde: k desktop environment. this is basically the whole gui you interact with. it manages your desktop, icons, "start"-like toolbar thing, and it is a complete environment with applications like a web browser, etc.

gnome is another desktop environment. gnome and kde are basically the two big juggernaut desktop environments. both are big, both have tons of users, developers, etc, both are somewhat competing against each other, but then again, due to the nature of open source, the competition isn't like what you'd see from two companies competing. they actually cooperate quite a bit. most of the venom is in the fanboy users.

 

[Raincity]

Just install Suse 9.1 and go from there. The install is easy like XP. If all your hardware is picked up then you have nothing to worry about. If not, get ready for some reading time.

 

[pitupepito2000]

Ok, here goes my definition to the therms.

GRUB: it is a bootloader, meaning it allows you to choose which Operating System you want to boot to. It's very important whne you are running more than one operating system in the same computer such as in dual-booting. There are basically two very popular boot loaders in linux. Grub which is more gui oriented and LILO (LInux LOader), you have to set them up, whether you have two operating systems in your machine or not. The main difference is that if you only have Linux on the machine you probably won't see the boot loader because there's only one choice "LINUX". Windows also uses a bootloader called "NTLDR" which doesn't show up during normal boot unless you have more than one OS installed in the machine. There are basically two places to install a boot loader: in the boot record, and in the first 512 KB of a partition.

KDE: stands for K Desktop Environment. When it comes to linux there is a program/server called "X" that allows you to have GUI (graphical user interface), you usually have programs called window managers that are the ones in charge of drawing the borders, manage windows, behavior of windows, keyboard bindings. Some of the window managers available for X are: blackbox, fluxbox, fvwm, kwin, sawfish, etc. Besides window managers there are other things called "Desktop Environments" that allow you to have a uniform look and feel across most of the programs in your desktop. Desktop Environment allows you to have set options such as look and feel of applications, style used, etc. Meaning all programs look and feel the same kind of like windows. Desktop Environments work together with window managers, in the cases of KDE it works wonderfully together with its own window manager, KWIN, if you wouldn't use KDE you wouldn't be able to use all the advanced features that KDE has.

GNOME: This is another desktop environment for X, it is the main competitor to KDE, they both have very different approaches. While Gnome aims more at looks, and things like that KDE tries to focus more on user friendliness. Actually both Desktop Environments can be made very good looking and are very good user friendly. If you have used Windows you will feel right at home with KDE and gnome.

Linux can be very confusing at first, but if you focus and do a lot of reading and really try to learn it, you will come to love it as much as I do. The trick to linux is to RTFM, read the friendly manual. You have to read, read, read, and read. Things may not seem very easy to set up at first in linux, but once you set it up, they take very little to keep up to date. Here are some good links for you:
www.google.com/linux
www.tlpd.org
www.kde.org
www.gnome.org

Take a look at the screenshots and see how linux can look with just a little bit of effort.


I hope this helps,
pitupepito

 

[pitupepito2000]

darn, BBWF beat me to it. 🙂

 

[drag]

The Online Linux Dictionary


Have fun!

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

pitupepito2000:

While Gnome aims more at looks, and things like that KDE tries to focus more on user friendliness.

I think you have that backwards. 😉

Actually I don't think looks is the number one goal of either. Gnome seems to be striving to be simpler and more intuitive than kde. Gnome also strays further from the windows way of doing things.

 

[pitupepito2000]

Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey
pitupepito2000:

While Gnome aims more at looks, and things like that KDE tries to focus more on user friendliness.

I think you have that backwards. 😉

Actually I don't think looks is the number one goal of either. Gnome seems to be striving to be simpler and more intuitive than kde. Gnome also strays further from the windows way of doing things.

You're right. I was just writing things that came to my mind, and I remember reading something like that about these two different DE, I remember that they had these two different goals in mind.

 

[pitupepito2000]

Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey
pitupepito2000:

While Gnome aims more at looks, and things like that KDE tries to focus more on user friendliness.

I think you have that backwards. 😉

Actually I don't think looks is the number one goal of either. Gnome seems to be striving to be simpler and more intuitive than kde. Gnome also strays further from the windows way of doing things.

I think I might be right. I got these two quotes

From gnome.org
The GNOME desktop environment, an intuitive and attractive desktop for end-users, users, and the GNOME development platform, an extensive framework for building applications that integrate into the rest of the desktop.

From KDE.org
KDE seeks to fill the need for an easy to use desktop for Unix workstations, similar to the desktop environments found under the MacOS or Microsoft Windows.

 

[n0cmonkey]

whatis.com might have some definitions.

GRUB: Bootloader. I think it's the first or second stage of the boot. Lets you choose between OSes if you're silly enough to need more than 1.
KDE: A Desktop Environment. It's what you could be looking at and using. Comes with a bunch of tools to make things "easier."
Gnome: The other big Desktop Environment. It's like KDE, with a twist. A twist of what depends on which you prefer. I recommend trying them both, as well as smaller Window Managers.

 

[Sunner]

You'll probably love this 🙂

 

[MichaelD]

Thank you very much, everyone!! Wow...I wasn't expecting such overwhelming responses. You guys rock. 😎 I'm so glad I haven't gotten myself banned yet...what would I do w/o you guys? 😀

I've got a ton of reading to do. SUSE9.1 should come in any day now.

SUNNER: That Jargon-Buster is cool. 🙂

 

[sciencewhiz]

I would say both KDE and GNOME strive to be easy to use desktop environments. However, KDE is easy to use because it lets you configure everything exactly the way you want, while GNOME is easy to use because it only includes the best, and doesn't confuse you with choices.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: sciencewhiz
I would say both KDE and GNOME strive to be easy to use desktop environments. However, KDE is easy to use because it lets you configure everything exactly the way you want, while GNOME is easy to use because it only includes the best, and doesn't confuse you with choices.

If choices are that confusing, *nix isn't for you.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

I don't think choices confuse most people, but if there are too many, it can be overwhelming and annoying. (jesus, where is that f#cking checkbox! it's in here SOMEWHERE!)

 

[CTho9305]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: sciencewhiz
I would say both KDE and GNOME strive to be easy to use desktop environments. However, KDE is easy to use because it lets you configure everything exactly the way you want, while GNOME is easy to use because it only includes the best, and doesn't confuse you with choices.

If choices are that confusing, *nix isn't for you.

It's not that they're confusing. It's that I don't have the TIME or patience to try all the 10 million stupid text editors or window managers or web browsers to see what I like best - I just need to know a good starting point. We actually have a similar problem at work... we switched tools and now have 3 potential "waveform viewers". We can't really blow a week getting familiar with each one to find the 'best' - it would be better if somebody just said "use tool X. If you hate it, I'll give you alternative information".


MichaelD: I'd suggest finding a distro that doesn't ever show you the word "grub" (or "lilo"). If no such distro exists, then linux deserves to continue to be on an insignificant share of desktops. While I currently do have the time to figure all of that out, how may people really care what program loads their OS? How many people even know such a program exists?

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: CTho9305

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: sciencewhiz
I would say both KDE and GNOME strive to be easy to use desktop environments. However, KDE is easy to use because it lets you configure everything exactly the way you want, while GNOME is easy to use because it only includes the best, and doesn't confuse you with choices.

If choices are that confusing, *nix isn't for you.

It's not that they're confusing. It's that I don't have the TIME or patience to try all the 10 million stupid text editors or window managers or web browsers to see what I like best - I just need to know a good starting point. We actually have a similar problem at work... we switched tools and now have 3 potential "waveform viewers". We can't really blow a week getting familiar with each one to find the 'best' - it would be better if somebody just said "use tool X. If you hate it, I'll give you alternative information".


MichaelD: I'd suggest finding a distro that doesn't ever show you the word "grub" (or "lilo"). If no such distro exists, then linux deserves to continue to be on an insignificant share of desktops. While I currently do have the time to figure all of that out, how may people really care what program loads their OS? How many people even know such a program exists?

I understand the problem of too many choices, but part of the philosophy of unix is to have many different ways to accomplish the same thing. Think about all of those shell commands. With the same parameters, we could come up with totally different scripts to do the same thing. Choice is a good thing.

As far as KDE and Gnome go though, as I understand it (which might not be very well since I haven't used either for years), they have their group of recommended programs. So using the program that comes with the DE might not be a bad idea until you find time to try others if you aren't happy.

 

[pitupepito2000]

Originally posted by: CTho9305

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: sciencewhiz
I would say both KDE and GNOME strive to be easy to use desktop environments. However, KDE is easy to use because it lets you configure everything exactly the way you want, while GNOME is easy to use because it only includes the best, and doesn't confuse you with choices.

If choices are that confusing, *nix isn't for you.

It's not that they're confusing. It's that I don't have the TIME or patience to try all the 10 million stupid text editors or window managers or web browsers to see what I like best - I just need to know a good starting point. We actually have a similar problem at work... we switched tools and now have 3 potential "waveform viewers". We can't really blow a week getting familiar with each one to find the 'best' - it would be better if somebody just said "use tool X. If you hate it, I'll give you alternative information".


MichaelD: I'd suggest finding a distro that doesn't ever show you the word "grub" (or "lilo"). If no such distro exists, then linux deserves to continue to be on an insignificant share of desktops. While I currently do have the time to figure all of that out, how may people really care what program loads their OS? How many people even know such a program exists?

I disagree with you. The fact that an OS shows you how things work doesn't mean "linux deserves to continue to be on an insignificant share of desktops." Yes, I understand that most end users don't care how the OS works, but Linux is trying to educate you how things work, so you won't if you get a flat you know how to fix it, sort of speak. Of course you may say I can go to a tire shop and get my tire fixed/replaced, but what if you are in the middle of nowhere. Then what do you do?

Linux is powerful, but the power has the trade off, that you have to control your operating system using your bare hands and figure out how things work. If linux doesn't deserve a significant share of the desktops because a distro shows the word "lilo" or "grub," then windows doesn't deserve to have a share of the market at all because they sell software that is full of security holes. Can you imagine if people where to think of computers as toasters, M$ would have so many people trying to return their toasters because once in a while there's a huge recall in a feature ("bug") in the toaster. 😉

 

[MichaelD]

Hey guys, my Lilo ran away with Stitch and my Grubs are in the garden, OK? 😕

Ihave plenty of reading to get myself spun up...it would help if my copy of SUSE 9.1 got here! I dont' want to DL some half-assed, half-functional freeware version that's just going to confuse me.

I LIKE the idea that I have total control over everything...I'm a bit of a control freak! 😀 I just want to know what the hell the button I click is going to do BEFORE I click it and blow things up. :Q

 

[n0cmonkey]

Learning requires blowing things up sometimes.

 

[drag]

If you don't learn from your mistakes, then you don't learn.

If you don't make mistakes then you just are not trying hard enough.

Get knoppix if you don't want to install right away, you can still try out all sorts of stuff.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Good judgement comes with experience. Unfortunately, the experience
usually comes from bad judgement.

😀

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Originally posted by: drag
If you don't learn from your mistakes, then you don't learn.

Sure ya do, you can learn what not to do without accidentally doing it. Of course, accidentally doing it will be a more painful way of finding out, and is more likely to stick in your memory, but it's by no means the only way. I tend to not hose things much, but I may still know more than the guy who has less experience than I but has hosed things 10x as much as I have. Sometimes hosing things just means you suck. 😛 (but of course, where there is a will, there is a way)

If you don't make mistakes then you just are not trying hard enough.

Nah, you're just not being wreckless. 😛

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey

Originally posted by: drag
If you don't learn from your mistakes, then you don't learn.

Sure ya do, you can learn what not to do without accidentally doing it. Of course, accidentally doing it will be a more painful way of finding out, and is more likely to stick in your memory, but it's by no means the only way. I tend to not hose things much, but I may still know more than the guy who has less experience than I but has hosed things 10x as much as I have. Sometimes hosing things just means you suck. 😛 (but of course, where there is a will, there is a way)

If you don't make mistakes then you just are not trying hard enough.

Nah, you're just not being wreckless. 😛

What fun is that?
When I'm feeling doubtful about something, I usually just think about it for a few seconds, and if I haven't figured something out by then, I just think "Fvck it" and go for it 🙂