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From: Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: What programs do you make sure are installed on a new Linux
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2024 07:48:26 -0000 (UTC)
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On Wed, 17 Jul 2024 08:13:26 +0100, Richard Kettlewell wrote:

> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
>
>> On Tue, 16 Jul 2024 21:09:52 +0100, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
>>
>>> Windows executables either use the CUI (console) or GUI subsystem, and
>>> this is represented by a field in the PE file header, rather than
>>> being a behavior of the application after it starts.
>>
>> Which is a pretty dumb way of doing it, don’t you think?
> 
> It’s not necessarily how I’d have done it, but in the big picture, it
> doesn’t seem very different from any other way that an application
> declares its dependencies and the system arranges for them to be
> satisfied.

It is the reason you need two different versions of the Python interpreter 
on Windows. Or of any other language interpreter that wants to offer the 
option of running with a GUI or without.

>> But it was all a part of the 1990s trend of building the GUI
>> inextricably into the OS kernel. A trend which *nix-type systems never
>> succumbed to.
> 
> AFAIK the only graphical component of Windows that was ever in the
> kernel was GDI, which is a low-level drawing AP and isn’t relevant here.

It is the reason why the use of a GUI has to be declared within the 
executable, before it can even start executing. So that the part of the 
kernel that is responsible for launching executables can decide whether to 
set up the process to use a GUI or not.