What's a "Desktop?"

[Michael Beattie]

If you saved it to your desktop and want to grep it, open a terminal and do..

cd Desktop
grep -i "charlie" filename

On 1/14/06, bruce <bbales at cox.net> wrote:
> 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
>
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