Silly Question

[Robert Locke]

On Thu, 2005-08-04 at 09:38 -0500, Tom Pangborn wrote:
> So here's the deal, I've been casually using Fedora Core for about
> nine months now and feel like I've come full term. No doubt about it,
> I'm convinced, it's a better deal than Microsoft Windows. Still, I
> have a question about how Fedora Core, GNOME, Linux, and Xwindows all
> play together, really I want to know who's who 
> 
> Okay, Fedora Core is a distribution, got it clear as rain. Linux, by
> comparison, would be the Windows equivalent of that crazy
> kernel32.dll. It's the relationship between GNOME and Xwindows that I
> don't get? Anybody want to take a shot at getting this into the thick
> skull of tepy?
> 

I'll give it a shot.

Think of X as the canvas on which to paint your desktop.  It provides
the graphical foundation and access to your physical hardware.  Your
desktop is your "experience" with that graphical environment and there
are plenty of zealot wars concerning who has the best desktop.  Gnome is
one of those desktops providing the user experience and a toolkit for
GUI applications to have inter-relationships.  Your desktop/Gnome is
providing you with your panels (launch menus at the top and bottom of
your screen), automatic mounting of your CD-ROM when you insert it, and
a window manager that allows you to control the individual
windows/applications (resizing, minimizing, closing, etc.), along with a
myriad of other "experiences"....

Does that help?

--Rob