this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
25 points (85.7% liked)
Linux
48145 readers
659 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
If you want to time travel a bit, OpenWindows / OpenLook was very clean.
How clean? Literally nothing on the desktop.
Everything was accessed through an easily (re)configurable context menu.
By default there would have been absolute necessities on there but precious little else. It was up to the user to edit the config to add programs to it. Kind of like a forerunner of the Quick Launch toolbar or the Dock.
That said, I seem to recall it was possible to put launcher icons on the desktop too, although that is also where programs minimised to in icon form (Windows 3 used to do that too), so maybe I'm wrong about that.
I temember when Slackware still included it. Used to recompile any apps that still supported the toolkit just to have a better look and feel. I miss OpenWindows.