What's a "Desktop?"

[bruce]

Thanks for the help, Kelly.  It wasn't the filesystem I didn't need.  I 
was objecting to the name "Filesystem" appearing when I wanted to save 
a file.  Of course it would be saved in the filesystem.  Probably in my 
home directory somewhere.  Probably not on my desktop, although if I 
save to desktop, I see that it puts an icon on my desktop.  That might 
be useful, but if I want to grep -i "charlie" from that file, where is 
it?

I guess I'd better get used to it.
bruce




On Friday 13 January 2006 18:24, Kelly L. Fulks wrote:
> 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