Penguin
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Acronym for Graphical User Interface.

A GUI provides a graphical way of looking at data and normally involves the WIMP paradigm.

The most obvious difference between GUIs and CommandLine interfaces is that a CLI makes you remember a command, where a GUI makes you recognize a command. The human memory is far better at recognition than recall (example: if I asked you the name of your first teacher at school, you probably wouldn't remember, but if I said "hey, do you remember Mrs So-and-So", you would probably recall her!) GUIs let you manipulate graphical (iconic) representations of data and programs.

In MicrosoftWindows the GUI, with all of its layers, is built right into the OperatingSystem. (For better or for worse!) Conversely, the Linux kernel has no provisions for GUIs of its own accord - it is provided by ordinary applications, commonly the XFree86 implementation of the X11 standard. This in turn is only a bare skelleton for GUIs, which a large variety of DesktopEnvironments are built on top of. The most common ones are GNOME or KDE but there are more, such as XFce. Purists1? use X11 only to run multiple copies of xterm(1).

Note that a GUI does not necessary entail leaving "text mode"; you can write console GUI applications using Curses.

Contrast CommandLine.


1? cf. "Masochists"