Power Up Linux GUI Apps

Windowing interfaces to Linux have lots of advantages. Once you find the programs you need, the menus and dialog boxes list your choices, and there’s often not much else to know about the interface.

One big disadvantage of GUI apps, though, is that you’re mostly limited to whatever the interface lets you do — unless you want to re-code the interface yourself, that is. For instance, how can you use a photo viewer to see all of the photos you put in various places on your disk this past Monday? If you know where the photos are stored and what their names are, you can navigate through your directories in a file browser like Nautilus, clicking on files to view them. But what a pain!

Linux users have more choices. You can start most GUI apps from the command line with a list of arguments (usually filenames) to work on….

1. The State of Open Source System Automation
2. Are You Expecting? Your Boss Should Know
3. The Persistence of Time
4. NTP: Timing is Everything
5. Disk Space: The Final Frontier