4.3.2  Linux desktop environments

Compared to classical Windows or Mac systems, in  building  a Linux desktop 

you can be faced with multiple design decisions. In this building process, 

Table 4 3 demonstrates the choices that could be considered when designing 

each layer of the user interface.

Planning tip:

 Assuming that you are migrating to a Linux desktop distribution 

purchased from an enterprise vendor, then you will have the option of using 

the default pre designed desktop environment as the basis for your clients. In 

that case, you do not need to design your standard desktop from the ground 

up, as discussed in this section. In fact, your selection criteria for choosing 

which enterprise vendor distribution to use could be based in large part on 

how closely the default desktop provided by that distribution meets your 

client side functional requirements.

Table 4 3   Layers on top of the X Window system

Layer Choice

GUI Toolkits

OpenMotif, GTK+, QT, WXWidgets, FLTK, 

FOX, Swing, SWT

Window Managers

FVWM, IceWM, WindowMaker, Metacity

Desktop Environments

XFCE, ROX, CDE, Jesktop

3D Desktop Environments

Looking Glass, Metisse

Component Desktop Environments

KDE, GNOME, GNUStep

Window managers 

(

http://xwinman.org

)

 are X client programs that control how 

other X clients are positioned, resized, or moved. They can also provide title bars 

and other decorations to windows, handle window focus, and provide 

user specified key and mouse button bindings. Example 4 1 shows how to start a 

nested X server with 

Xnest

, which is an X server that is simultaneously an X 

client. This allows you to test other window managers or desktop environments in 

a window.

Example 4 1   Nested X server with Xnest

Xnest  fp  xset  q | grep fonts  :1 &

xterm  display :1 &

To simplify graphical programming, a lot of Graphical User Interface (GUI) 

toolkits have been developed on top of the basic X11 libraries. There are also 

 Chapter 4. Technical planning 

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