> a desktop system is not just its graphical layout. Let's get some
> clarity:
> - graphical setup is not an everyday practice:
>    whether it is accomplished by filling out a graphical form or
>    by writing very complicated software, it usually ends there,
>    once and for all. Only people with severe psychological
>    problems incessantly continue to change the parameters that
>    define the graphical appearance of the system: the
>    "self-documented" "ticked" GUI serves only once.  And it can be
>    done even without "desktop":  it is just a software to change
>    the configuration with a friendly interface.
>   --> A friendly software for configuring the graphical appearance
>       can be used even without desktop, for xterm as well as for
>       any program,  if you really want to. I don't think that's
>       what the "desktop" is aimed at,  because no sane person
>       keeps - insistently - changing the settings

> - A desktop is a system that provides too many things in one
>    block,  because they consist of daily practice: for example,
>    file-system navigation!  All operations in the file-system via
>    "desktop" applications are "gestural,"  they are by "primitive"
>    monkeys.  But those who turn on a computer are more advanced
>    monkeys: they can write!  If you can write, you can tell the
>    computer what you want it to do,  without having to repeat
>    operations in a boring and stupid way.  If you can write to the
>    computer-in simple, elementary language  (bash is easy to use,
>    to take one example) - what you want the computer to do for
>    you,  you not only don't need a desktop, you don't even need to
>    gesticulate like a stupid monkey, because you are a literate
>    monkey

> - the desktop is for the illiterate: if you are not illiterate,
>    then it is a limitation on your expression and action.  Many
>    people, used to the desktop, do not imagine what they can do
>    with a computer.  Basic principles of command-line programming
>    are the basis of any elementary education.  A 6-year-old
>    learning to read and write can give articulate language orders
>    to a computer.

> - a desktop system is systemic software designed for an overall
>    experience:  it is a habit of life. What I am contesting is
>    precisely this closed view of the possibilities of using a
>    machine that can have far greater potential even at an
>    elementary level:  "computer literacy" means being able to
>    write  to a computer telling it what to do, even in iterative
>    operations and using variables, through the file system...
>    Without a desktop, users would be forced to think, rather than
>    gesture with the mouse.
>    The power of the written word - according to logic - would
>    become central.  It is a pedagogical problem, but above all a
>    civil and political one: it concerns habits and the attitude to
>    freedom
>    --> as McLuhan said: «the medium is the mEssage»
>    --> but also (as claimed by his successors, for example De
>        Kerckhove) «the medium is the mAssage»