Chapter 14. A Brief Survey of the Linux Desktop

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This chapter is a quick introduction to the components found in a typical Linux desktop system. Of all of the different kinds of software that you can find on Linux systems, the desktop arena is one of the wildest and most colorful because there are so many environments and applications to choose from, and most distributions make it relatively easy for you to try them out.

Unlike other parts of a Linux system, such as storage and networking, there isn’t much of a hierarchy of layers involved in creating a desktop structure. Instead, each component performs a specific task, communicating with other components ...

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