Q I'm a command line junkie and I'm yet to decide which GUI I dislike least! What I'd really like to do is set up a system where I can log in as either CLI, KDE or Gnome and automatically get the relevant user interface. Incidentally, that doesn't mean a terminal window for the CLI. Can this be done? Of course it can - this is Linux! So how do I do it?
A Most display managers, including GDM and KDM, enable you to select the desktop environment you wish to use when you log in. Once you've logged in as each user with the desired environment, it will use the same one each time you log in. Of course, you can also have a single user and select the desktop environment you want manually when you log in. For the CLI, if you don't want to use xterm, rxvt or Eterm, you can simply hit Ctrl+Alt+F1 and switch to a terminal window to log in. A nice, simple window manager, such as twm or fvwm, would be adequate if you wanted to run multiple terminal windows and cut and paste between them. When learning how to use Linux, a pure CLI is often a little complex and lacks the familiar look and feel for those moving from a Windows environment.