User Interface

Screens: Range from 12 to 20 inch. Generally, the bigger the better. Size is becoming more important as the use of GUIs increases. Colour screens are more fun, but monochromatic screens are generally better for serious work.

Keyboard: UNIX software has always had to anticipate being used with a variety of different keyboards. But get one with function and arrow keys.

Mouse: UNIX systems were designed for the 3-button mouse.

GUI - Graphical User Interface

Originated from the Xerox Park project around 1975. Most UNIX systems have GUIs based on Xwindows. Advantages of Xwindows are:
it runs on all sorts of computers - not just UNIX
its screen layouts and styles are not constrained
uses a networked client-server architecture
it's free via the Internet from MIT

Although basic Xwindows is free, you need to adapt and recompile the code for your particular screen-type.

The work of determining what appears on the screen is divided between three different programs as follows:

You can do the following to the windows on your screen:

Change their layering: which window is at the front.
Move them around
Change their sizes
Reduce them to icons and vice versa
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