freebsd-mobile Digest, Vol 34, Issue 1

[richard childers / kg6hac]

>
>
>Does anyone know how the applications are supposed to be accessed on
>BSD?  While using KDE I am able to access quite a few applications, but
>the desktop is quite complex, and I decided to try gnome2.4, to see if I
>could access the linux compatible stuff.  It seems to me that the only
>office/application stuff is the kde propriatary-ish apps.  Nothing else
>seems to be locatable.  I have the compat stuff installed ...
>

UNIX is the operating system; think of it as the cake.

X Windows is the graphic user interface; think of it as the frosting.

You can have a cake without frosting but you can't have a frosting 
without some cake to hold it up.

Similarly, you can have UNIX without X, but you cannot have X, without a 
UNIX server somewhere (obligatory caveats about Windows-based X clients 
inserted here).

One other thing: the look and feel of X Windows is radically modified by 
the actual window manager you choose to use with your X Windows 
installation. There are dozens of different WMs ... some are very 
sparse. Some give you a virtual desktop that is orders of magnitude 
larger than your physical screen size. Others give you the look and feel 
of Windows, complete with a task bar on the bottom of the screen. Others 
aim for aesthetic brilliance and cutting-edge graphical capabilities. 
You are best off picking one window manager and sticking with it until 
you know its limitations, and know why you are discarding it, and know 
what you are looking for, in terms of window management.


None of this is any use if you don't understand UNIX, though.

For instance, an application is nothing more than an executable file at 
the end of a long pathname - same as DOS, but the separator between 
directories is '/', not '\', and we don't use the C: drive as part of 
the pathname. Otherwise, it's pretty much the same.

You can type that long pathname manually and hit RETURN, the old way ... 
or you can click on a GUI and the GUI will type the long pathname and 
hit RETURN for you.

However, if there is no executable file at the end of the long pathname, 
it's no use clicking on your GUI and wondering why something doesn't 
start; it doesn't start because it isn't there.

If you don't know what 'there' is or where 'there' is then I can only 
suggest a good introductory book on using UNIX from the command line. 
Learn about files, directories and file permissions, as well as shells. 
A shell, to the command line user, is analogous to a window manager, for 
GUI users.

When you can write a small shell script - any shell, it doesn't matter 
which one - you're probably ready to start learning about X Windows.

Good luck; don't stop asking questions (even dumb ones; sometimes they 
are the best).


Regards,

Richard Childers / Senior Engineer
DaemonizedNetworking Services
https://www.daemonized.com
(415) 759-5571




Martes G. W. wrote:

>Hello All.
>
>Does anyone know how the applications are supposed to be accessed on
>BSD?  While using KDE I am able to access quite a few applications, but
>the desktop is quite complex, and I decided to try gnome2.4, to see if I
>could access the linux compatible stuff.  It seems to me that the only
>office/application stuff is the kde propriatary-ish apps.  Nothing else
>seems to be locatable.  I have the compat stuff installed, so how am I
>supposed to be able to access the other applications, since they don't
>seem to be available for FreeBSD itself. I really would like to use
>openoffice.org 1.1 or anything other than the kde stuff.  
>
>I would appreciate at least one response this time, if you guys would
>not mind....  
>
>Thanks again.
>
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