Linux may eventually succeed Windows, but for now its popularity is confined to the back office and engineering department, thanks largely to its user-unfriendly desktop. Nontechies expect a consistent interface, but Linux apps sitting side by side can have menus and scrollbars that behave very differently. And drag-and-drop operations often don't work.
GNOME (pronounced "gah-NOME") provides programmers with what amounts to a Linux dress code. Wordprocessors, spreadsheets, Web browsers, and email programs written with GNOME give users a consistent, recognizable, and surprisingly bug-free interface. You get all the things Windows and Mac users take for granted: scrollbars in a window, shortcut icons on a toolbar, drag-and-drop between applications. You can even drag an image file from a Web page onto the desktop to make it the background and screensaver. But if Windows does these things already, why switch? One good reason: In our experience, GNOME-powered apps crashed far less often than their Windows counterparts, and didn't lock up the computer when they did.
That said, only engineers and sysops seem capable of installing the GNOME 1.0 release and getting it to run. Red Hat Software has incorporated GNOME into its Linux 6.0 version, available on store shelves with 90 days of free email support for installation. But until consumers can buy a home computer pre-installed with Linux, GNOME, and a software suite, they can't be blamed for giving Windows its daily "three-fingered salute" reboots - instead of a one-fingered goodbye.
GNOME: free. The Free Software Foundation: www.gnome.org.
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