Primary Advantages of GUI over CLI in Linux System Administration
The Graphical User Interface (GUI) is typically easier to use than the Command Line Interface (CLI). Primarily because the GUI requires less training and experience, a GUI user can conveniently click around the applications to find whatever is needed, on the other hand the a CLI requires the user to have knowledge of different kinds of arcane commands which the average user lacks. GUI makes it easier to multitask as compared to the CLI since users can utilize windows to manipulate, toggle and control a multiple applications and files at the same time. New users can also quickly pick up a graphical interface since it is primarily visually intuitive.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop Managers
The GNOME GUI desktop manager is the most popular desktop environment that is simple to use and relatively low on the resources of the system. It has a fair amount of advanced settings that can be used to configure the desktop interface to one’s liking. It has a combination of a taskbar at the bottom and a menu bar at the top that make the GUI look quite similar to that of the Mac OS (Ward, 2014).
The KDE desktop environment is a relatively complex one that with numerous functionalities that make it less user-friendly compared to the GNOME desktop environment. The Menus on the environment are set much like those of the Windows OS- has a main menu located on the bottom left-hand corner of the display that is used to launch most of the applications. The desktop environment has numerous different settings and preference panes that make the learning process of a user to be quite long before a user can be able to efficiently locate the settings that he or she needs to tweak KDE is an excellent choice for the tech-savvy users however even with the tech knowledge there is still a relatively long learning curve (Red Hat Customer Portal, n.d).
Recommendations
The KDE desktop environment is well integrated with numerous applications. The KDE desktop environment can run a broad range of applications that do not have to be specifically built for the KDE environment. Applications that typically run on the GNOME environment can comfortably run in the KDE environment. This makes the environment quite flexible for developers who are consistently testing and running new applications (Ward, 2014).
The GNOME desktop environment can attract new users, therefore, in a situation where there is the need to attract new users of the Linux OS then this desktop will be more efficient. The minimalistic offering of configuration options that are readily visible easily attracts new users.
Power and Flexibility
References
Blum, R. & Bresnahan, C. (2015). Linux Command Line and Shell Scripting Bible. New Jersey: Wiley.
Red Hat Customer Portal. (n.d). Desktop Environments and Window Managers. Retrieved 15th July 2015 from https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Deployment_Guide/s1-x-clients.html
Ward, B. (2014). How Linux Works: What Every Super-User Should Know. San Francisco: No Starch Press.
