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The Desktop Environment vs. Window Manager debate. Lots of people who use Linux spend time deciding on which Desktop Environment they want to use. Windows users don’t really have that option: Microsoft chooses your Desktop Environment, and that’s the end of it. That’s why Windows 98 looked so different from Windows XP, which looked different from Windows 7, which looked different from Windows 8, to Windows 10 and 11.

Here’s another Linux entry that I’m posting to remind me of what I’ve done to solve a problem. A friend came over to my home and saw my living room Linux computer set up to play media: movies, music, pictures, that kind of thing. He asked how it was done, and I mentioned the program KODI as the media server I was using. He was impressed, and asked if I could convert an old computer (or three) that he had to do the same thing. “Of course!” I replied, with a far too inflated view of my own competence.

If you are running Linux, and you’d like to use a Windows app, you can create a virtual machine, and run Windows inside of that. To clarify: my favorite applications are running on Windows XP *inside* of a virtual machine, which is actually a program running on my Linux box.