What's a "Desktop?"

[Kelly L. Fulks]

On Friday 13 January 2006 12:07 pm, bruce wrote:
> I keep running into "desktop", "filesystem." and "Home' (the latter
> apparently meaning "/home/bruce") when I am trying to save a file.  I
> am guessing that microsoft windows uses such terms, but why is it
> suddenly in my Linux box?
>
> Can I get rid of that somehow?
> bruce

Bruce,

A "filesystem" is literally a system of files and directories.  On a Unix or 
Linux system this will start with "/" and will include everything.  The name 
"filesystem" has been around for quite a long time.  It was probably in use 
somewhat before Unix, but I don't know that for sure.  I wasn't working with 
computers before Unix came into being.  It probably was not used until files 
could be arranged in a hierarchical fashion.

"Home" is a somewhat special directory on the "filesystem".  It goes way back 
in Unix to mean your home directory (or where you login as a base in the 
character based days).  It is usually named /home/<your username> in present 
days, but there have been other locations.  I would guess (given when Home 
became a useful term for WIndows) that it came from the Unix/VMS world into 
Windows.

"Desktop" is a more specific special directory within your home directory.  It 
has only come about in more recent times and could have been derived from 
Microsoft Windows.  It refers to the directory where the items that appears 
on your "Desktop", or the root windows of your window system/window manager 
are stored.

Now when I say special, I don't mean that there is anything different about 
it.  It is just how it is used that is special in both of the above cases.  
They are created just like any other directory, etc.  It is simply that KDE 
looks for the Desktop directory for certain things.  Several programs look at 
the home directory for certain things and even set environment variables to 
remember where it is, etc.

I would venture a guess that those names are all quite familiar to Windows 
users, so they are used to make the transition to KDE (or probably some other 
desktops) easier for Windows users.

If you really want to get rid of them, you can, but I wouldn't recommend it.  
You can type "rm -rf /" to get rid of the filesystem.  However, your computer 
will no longer function as expected.  You will be forced to load it from 
scratch, and then you will again have a filesystem.  You also lose all your 
data in the process.

However, if you have an account on a Unix/Linux system, you MUST have a home 
directory in order to login.  If you use KDE, you MUST have a Desktop.   You 
can change to a different Window Manager that uses different terminology to 
get rid of the Desktop if you wish.  And if you are really lucky it won't 
refer to "Home" either.

I hope that this helps with your understanding of these terms.  I wish you 
luck in getting rid of them if you really wish to do so.  But if it were me, 
I would just deal with seeing them and appreciate the functionality.

-- 
Kelly L. Fulks
Home Account
near Huntsville, AL