Linux.com

In this article, I will first propose some arguments why I believe the concept of "icons on the desktop" is counterproductive and perhaps counterintuitive, and I will provide, in the second part, some pointers on how to solve these problems using the GNOME desktop environment, commonly available in most Linux distributions. The desktop metaphor as we typically know it reproduces some of the concepts of the real world, which brings its share of drawbacks. While GNOME still uses this metaphor by default, we can, however, customize it to fulfill more efficiently the needs of the increasingly complex information flow that we experience on a daily basis.