Re: How is work divided ?

[Paul Barton-Davis <pbd Op Net>]

>X server
   
   interacts with the display hardware, mouse, keyboard
   either directly or via device drivers. responds to
   requests from clients to draw various things on the
   screen, sends events to clients such as key press,
   button press, etc.

>Xlib

   programming API allowing clients to send requests
   to the X server, and to process events received
   from the server.

>X font server

   supplies data to the X server when requests to draw
   text are received.

>window manager

   controls the positioning, sizing, stacking order etc.
   of windows. no requirement to use one, but things
   are pretty difficult without it (no way to move
   windows around unless an application does it itself,
   for example). these days, most WM's also provide
   various kinds of "virtual screens", simulating
   the existence of more than 1 monitor (but not
   simultaneously).

>GDK

   programming interface that attempts to abstract away
   the use of Xlib. it presents a similar set of functionality
   as Xlib does, but as a recent port to the Linux framebuffer
   shows, it doesn't have to use Xlib internally.

>GTK

   programming API built on top of GDK that provides a level
   of programming that is more useful than "draw a line",
   "draw this text". instead, you work with "widgets"
   that contain useful functionality and defined methods
   of interacting with them.

>various Gnome libraries

   who knows ? who cares ? :))

--p