Graphical user interfaces in linux

Linux Jargon Buster: What are GUI, CLI and TUI in Linux?

When you start using Linux and following Linux-based websites and forums, you’ll often come across terms like GUI, CLI and sometimes TUI.

This chapter of Linux Jargon Buster briefly explains these terms so that you, as a (new) Linux user, can understand the context better when these acronyms are used.

To be honest, the terms GUI, CLI and TUI are not exclusive to Linux. These are generic computing terms that you’ll find used in non-Linux discussions, as well.

GUI – Graphical User Interface

“GUI” is probably the most common term you’ll come across on It’s FOSS because we focus on desktop Linux users and try to cover the easy-to-use graphical methods and applications.

A GUI application or graphical application is basically anything that you can interact with using your mouse, touchpad or touch screen. You have icons and other visual prompts that you can activate with your mouse pointer to access the functionalities.

In a Linux distribution, a desktop environment provides the graphical interface for you to interact with your system. Then you can use GUI applications such as GIMP, VLC, Firefox, LibreOffice, and file manager for various tasks.

GUI has made computing easier for the average user.

CLI – Command Line Interface

CLI is basically a command line program that accepts inputs to perform a certain function. Any application that you can use via commands in the terminal falls into this category.

Early computers didn’t have mouse to interact with the operating system, only keyboards.

If you think that’s difficult you should know that the earlier computers didn’t even have a screen to see what was being typed; they had actual paper printers to display the typed commands. I have never used such a computer, or even seen one. The closest thing I used were the microcontroller kits during my studies.

Is CLI relevant these days? Absolutely. Commands always have benefits, especially when you are dealing with the core functioning and configuration of the operating system, such as setting up a firewall, managing a network or package management.

You may have a GUI-based application to do the same task, but commands give you more granular access to those features. In any case, you’ll find that GUI applications also interact with the operating system with commands (used in their code).

Many popular GUI applications are often based on CLI tools. Consider Handbrake for example. It’s a popular open source media converter that uses the FFMPEG command line tool underneath.

Quite evidently, using command line tools is not as easy as the graphical ones. Don’t worry. Unless you have specific needs, you should be able to use your Linux system graphically. However, knowing the basic Linux commands helps a great deal.

TUI – Terminal User Interface

TUI is also known as Text-based User Interface. This is the most uncommon term of the three. TUI is basically part GUI and part CLI. Confused? Let me explain it for you.

You already know that early computers used CLI. Before the advent of GUI, the text-based user interface provided a very basic kind of graphical interaction in the terminal. You have more visuals and could use mouse and keyboard to interact with the application.

TUI stands for text-based user interface or terminal user interface. Text-based because primarily, you have a bunch of text on the screen and terminal user interface because they are used only in the terminal.

TUI applications are not well-known to many users, but there are a bunch of them. Terminal based web browsers are good example of TUI programs. Terminal-based games also fall into this category.

You may come across TUI when you are installing multimedia codecs in Ubuntu where you have to accept EULA or make a choice.

TUI apps are not as user-friendly as GUI applications, and they often have a learning curve involved but they are a bit easier to use than the command line tools.

In the end …

TUI apps are often also considered as CLI applications because they are restricted to the terminal. In my opinion, it’s up to you if you consider them different from CLI.

I hope you liked this part of Linux Jargon Buster. If you have any suggestions for topics in this series, please let me know in the comments and I’ll try to cover them in the future.

Источник

How to Install a Desktop (GUI) on an Ubuntu Server

Ubuntu Server is a variant of the Ubuntu OS that does not include a graphical user interface (GUI) by default. GUI applications consume system resources needed for server-oriented tasks, so Linux server distributions usually avoid a GUI in favor of the command-line terminal.

Some tools, however, perform better and are easier to manage with a GUI. If you use a tool with a GUI, installing a desktop environment may improve the experience of working with the server.

This guide will show you how to install a desktop (GUI) graphical interface on your Ubuntu server.

• A server running Ubuntu Linux Server
• A user account with sudo or root privileges
• The apt package manager, included by default

Update Repositories and Packages

Start by ensuring the software on the server is up to date.

1. Refresh the repository and package lists, and perform the necessary upgrades with the following command:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

2. When prompted, hit Y and press Enter to start the upgrade.

Install and set up Display Manager

A display manager is an application that starts the display server, launches the desktop, and manages user authentication. The default GDM3 is a resource-intensive display manager. To conserve system resources, consider a lighter tool, such as SLiM or LightDM.

This guide uses SLiM to illustrate the rest of the GUI installation process.

2. Press Y and then hit Enter to start the installation procedure.

Note: If you prefer to install the LightDM display manager instead, type:

Install GUI on Ubuntu Server

With a display manager installed, proceed to install a GUI. The sections below contain instructions for the most common Linux desktop environments.

Ubuntu Desktop

The default Ubuntu Desktop is a modified version of the GNOME desktop environment.

1. Install Ubuntu Desktop by running the following command:

sudo apt install ubuntu-desktop

Note: if asked, confirm slim as the default desktop manager.

2. Reboot the system when the installation finishes by typing:

Note: If you do not wish to reboot immediately, type the following command to start SLiM:

After the system reboots, a graphical login screen appears. The default display manager generates this screen.

3. Type your username in the field and press Enter to reveal the password field. Enter your password to access the desktop environment.

Note: For the vanilla GNOME experience, install the following packages:

sudo apt install vanilla-gnome-desktop vanilla-gnome-default-settings

KDE Plasma

KDE Plasma is a flexible and customizable desktop environment that provides visual consistency and style while remaining fast and responsive. To install KDE Plasma, use the following command:

sudo apt install kde-plasma-desktop

Reboot the system and log in to access the KDE environment.

XFCE

The XFCE desktop environment is designed to be lightweight and user-friendly. The main package, xfce4-session , provides a bare-bone environment. If you want the full experience, install the xfce4-goodies package as well.

Install the packages with the following command:

sudo apt-get install xfce4-session xfce4-goodies

After you reboot the system and log in, the XFCE desktop appears.

MATE

MATE is a fork of GNOME 2 and a popular graphical interface designed to be light on resource consumption. Install it by executing the following command:

sudo apt install ubuntu-mate-desktop

LXDE

LXDE is a desktop environment with a very lightweight GUI. Use LXDE if you need a graphical interface but want to minimize the impact on system memory and CPU.

To install LXDE on Ubuntu, use the following command:

Switching between GUI

If you install more than one desktop environment, you can switch between different GUIs from your display manager screen. SLiM, for example, lets you cycle through the installed environments by pressing F1 repeatedly. The name of the currently toggled environment is visible at the bottom of the screen.

Log in once you toggle the GUI you want to use.

Removing the GUI and Display Manager

To revert to the command line interface and remove the packages related to the display manager and the desktop environments:

1. Open the terminal, and enter:

sudo apt remove [display-manager] [desktop-environment]

For example, to remove SLiM and LXDE, type:

sudo apt remove slim lxde

2. Reboot the system and log back in.

3. Finish by removing orphaned or unnecessary dependencies with autoremove :

Note: Deploy and manage physical servers in a cloud-like environment with Bare Metal Cloud. To find out more, read about phoenixNAP’s cloud-native dedicated servers.

If you’ve worked extensively with conventional operating systems, it can be challenging to have to work in a command-line interface. Fortunately, Ubuntu — like many Linux systems — is open-source, so there are many available GUIs to install.

After completing this tutorial, you should know how to install a display manager and a desktop environment on your Ubuntu Server.

Marko Aleksić is a Technical Writer at phoenixNAP. His innate curiosity regarding all things IT, combined with over a decade long background in writing, teaching and working in IT-related fields, led him to technical writing, where he has an opportunity to employ his skills and make technology less daunting to everyone.

Remote Desktop is a useful and user-friendly service allowing you to control another computer remotely. It is .

The XAMPP stack is an open-source Apache distribution of a PHP development environment consisting of .

Pip Installs Packages (Pip) is a package management system that simplifies the process of installing and .

In Linux, special tools were developed for managing applications. Application software for Linux typically .

Источник