As I’ve explained some terminology you have to get used to before using a linux OS, in the first part, it’s time now to get a quick look at the list of commons linux – related tools, utilities and UI features. Even in a real-world situation you might not deal with them, I thought is good to mention them since those tools helped linux become famous.

The X Window System

As it’s name says it’s a window system helping developers to build user interfaces – windows. The main task it does is to provide a set of standards and protocols to interact with the physical devices, leaving the drawing tasks (look-and feel) in the developers hands. The first version of the system was written by MIT, back in 1984. The latest version is X11 and is here since 1987. Some of the most used graphical interfaces for linux, GNOME and KDE are based on X. Find more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System .

RPM (Resource Package Manager)

Maybe the best package manager, rpm has been originaly developed for Red Had Linux. It is used to manage (install/uninstall/search/update) software packages on linux distributons. It also provides an API to let software developers to write UI interfaces in various languages and environements.  Find more: official site is http://www.rpm.org/ and the wikipedia  page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPM_Package_Manager .
A similar software is dpkg developed by the Debian Linux team, and it’s replacement,  apt (Advanced Packaging Tool) .

GNOME

If you ever saw a linux OS, I’m sure you heard it. Gnome is a desktop environement and ui interface for linux. It’s job is to provide an graphical desktop environement  users.  I know those words are hard to remember, but just to show you the differece:

Linux whithout a desktop environement:

 Linux with desktop environement and graphical UI:

Now which one do you think looks more cute?  The one with Gnome on it course. And Gnome itn’t the only one, there’s also KDE, LXDE, XFCE, EDE, or Mezzo.

Window Manager

A window manager is an component or an extension of the desktop environement. It provides the users with the ability to customize the look and feel of the windows. In this list i’ll mention: Compiz, Metacity, Enlightenment, Fluxbox, IceWM,  Blackbox, Xmonad, Window Maker, Sawfish, Pekwm, StumpWM .

Compiz Fusion

As I staded before, Compiz is a window manager. The “Fusion” comes from Beryl, another window manager, now merged with the Compiz project. This is a very popular one, because it enables 3d, wobble, bubbles, fire and a lot of other effects for desktop. Just watch it in action:

GIMP

Gnu Image Manipulation Program is a free, open source image manipulation software, very popular among linux users. It supports layers, effects, alpha channel,  text layers, animations, quick mask, paths, transofmable paths and selections MING support,  and much more using plugins. Find out more on the official page www.gimp.org .  Similar software packages are: Inkscape, Krita, Kolourpaint .

XMMS

It’s name comes from X Multimedia System, and it’s an audio player for linux systems. Nowadays it’s not very popular, beacause there are better alternatives, but it was heavily used before. Find more on the official website www.xmms.org . And the plethora of alternatives are: Audacious,  Amarok, RhythmBox, Exaile, Banshee , Noatun and many more.

MPlayer

One of the oldest and the best video players for linux, MPlayer has been around since 2000. It also has been ported for Windows and Mac OS. It features a good post-processing, and lots of formats supported by default. There are a lot of GUIs for it so, I’m not gonna list them here, only a few alternatives like: VLC, Banshee, Kaffeine, Miro, Xine .

OpenOffice

Not so much linux-related, but still widely used by linux users, OpenOffice is a free office suite, and one of the best competitors for MS Office. Free office suites for linux, are also: KOffice and Scribus .

Some popular games on linux

Course there are some great ones like: Americas Army,  Cube 2 (Sauerbraten), Pingus, Neverball,  Enemy Territory, Nexuiz . And some of these games are also available on Windows or MacOS, so you can start a LAN Party anytime – no matter what OS your foriends choose.

Also “awareded” 

Other noticeable software for linux are: Konqueror – a file manager for KDE, K3B – CD/DVD burning, Cinelerra – non-linear video editing and compositing,  Wine – Windows emulation on Linux, ALSA – sound driver architecture, PulseAudio – sound server, CloneZilla – drive imaging, Audacity – audio editor, Grip – CD ripper, Cenon – vector drawing,  Ktoon – 2D animation, Ark – archiving (zip, rar etc.), Blender – 2D, 3D animation, AvideMUX – video editor, GParted – partition manager and so many more.

So now let’s stop and make a consclusion:

As you probably noticed most Linux operating systems  are just as smart as any other commercial OS. You can do just about anything with it using only free software: watch videos, listen to music, edit documents, play games, draw, reder 3d scenes, make videos etc.

And unlike other commercial operating systems which offer an all-in-one OS with proprietary UI, file manager, web browser etc. from a single vendor; A linux OS offers different copmonents, mostly free, from different vendors. That means that you can make your OS look and feel as you need!

Hey ther’s a new face in OS town, after Microsoft announced Windows 8.

Well first time when I watched the video, I remained a bit worried… . Why? “It looks great”  might said some of you, beacuse it’s UI it’s more likely for tablets – with a touch screen, motion sensors and other freaky devices I don’t have on my laptop!

Windows wa thaught to work on PCs and laptops so why this all new change in the UI? Maybe it won’t be “Windows” no more???

I heared som rumors last week, as Microsoft might re-brand the Windows OS and change it’s name to something else, and as the video shows there’s no more “windows” in the UI… .

I think Windows 7 is very good, I am a linux geek, but I’m not agaist Windows, every OS has it’s place in the market and Windows was around for some time – so why blame it for being bad. Course it  has it’s flaws but so far in my experience with Windows 7 I think is the best Windows yet.

So my question is obvious, why Windows 8? I don’t really need it, I’d prefer Windows 7.1.  Do you remember the “Longhorn” codenamed version – that never came out, and the result of waiting was Windows Vista – better-looking then Windows XP but resource consuming and still unsecure.

Will Windows 8 change the way we look over Windows OS? What do you think. Point that out in your comment.

As you may have read in the first part, we made you a short introduction in the Linux universe. Things that I think any Linux user should know.

Now, in this part we are going to teach you some more about linux. We are talking here about Linux – so I’m not gonna make a comparison with other operating systems, I will only resume to Linux as this article is for persons wishing to switch to this OS. So we are gonna talk today about distributions and how they rose.

What is a distribution?

A distribution, is a specifically designed and/or packaged version of an operating system, targeted to a market or a group of individuals.
As other operating systems nowadays have “Home”, “Enterprise” and “Server” editions, that way the distributions are. But unlike some other operating systems, which share almost the same interface and support, Linux distros have only one thing in common – the kernel – which is the same Linux Kernel for every distribution. On the other hand, the package-driven installation system gives developers as well as users a very high state of flexibility. So different applications, on Linux may share the same librairies whithout the need to install specific ones.

What is the User Interface?

First of the linux distributions, were much like the MS-DOS, with a bit more functions embedded.  And the user interface… well this term was not invented yet. Let me shortly explain you what it that supposed to be: You are driving your $100,000 convertible car, on a highway. Then you notice it’s too warm inside so you decide to open it’s roof. You push a button, and the roof opens and reveals the shiny sun.
Well, that magical button is an element, a part of the “user interface” of your car. And all the buttons and automatic commands together are called “the user interface” – shortly UI.
Now it’s easier to understand when using the command line it’s like you are opening the hood manually, you need to know all the steps to do so: stop the engine, get out of the car, put your both hand on the roof’s handle, make sure it’s not blocked and so on. But when using the button, you don’t need to know them at all, an automatic system will take care of them, and maybe you won’t even need to stop the engine. In the computers world the things are pretty much the same – the user interface makes things easier and intuitive with graphical elements and messages on the screen. It’s true that the commercial OS systems got first a graphical user interface, and Linux got it too a bit later, but nowadays any linux distro  has a graphical UI.

Well, if it was not so “powerful” – how comes Linux has so many users?

The keyword here is FREE. Yep, even at the beginning,  it was not the best of it’s time, because it was free it got adopted and used in the academic medium, mostly by college teachers and their students. Can you imagine in 1993 experiencing on a free OS, in times when other companies were charging  hundreds dollars for their proprietary os. It was like a dream came true over night.
Now let’s take a moment to think. From the start, the users and developers contributing to the Linux project were some of the best people in the industry – teachers and talented students from universities around the world. That’s why it got better and better over the years, growing communities and a plethora of distributions to choose from.