By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff

Even in the software business, looks matter. Which is why the red-hot Linux operating system is getting some cosmetic surgery.

To devoted technophiles, Linux is already quite sexy. Developed by Finnish computer student Linus Torvalds and a worldwide network of programmers coordinated by the Free Software Foundation in Cambridge, it's powerful, sophisticated, and available at little or no cost.

But Linux is a clone of the powerful Unix operating system. It shares Unix's complex command structure, forcing the user to memorize dozens of arcane instructions like ''tar xvf'' or ''mount /mnt/sda1.'' Linux is excellent for running powerful server computers, and it's now a significant challenger to Microsoft Corp.'s Windows NT. But because of its complexity, Linux hasn't got a prayer of supplanting Windows 95 and 98 on desktop machines.

The solution is clear enough. Linux needs a good graphical user interface, or GUI, like Apple Computer Inc.'s Macintosh or Microsoft's Windows. Nearly everybody uses GUI-type computers today. Instead of typing commands, we point and click at images on the screen.

Many computer purists sneer at GUIs. They're a barrier between the user and the machine. When I was a kid and the TV broke down, we'd unscrew the back and replace a few vacuum tubes. Today's sets can only be fixed by trained technicians.

GUIs can have much the same effect on software. With a Mac or Windows computer, you usually don't know what's going on under the hood, and can't do much about it anyway.

But that's just fine with people who want to turn on the computer and get to work. These are the users who must become true believers if Linux is to be more than just this year's software fad. So the best Linux brains are writing up programs that slap a pretty smile across Linux's ugly mug. I've got the two most popular Linux GUIs running on my home machines, and both of them are just good enough to make me wish they were better.

The best-behaved of the two is a German product called KDE, which is included with a number of popular Linux packages, like Caldera Systems Inc.'s OpenLinux.

The KDE look is cool, efficient, and rather plain. But it gives you the kind of push-button features that most computer users expect these days. Text editors and file managers come to life with a click. You can set up a wide range of standard Linux functions without learning all of those nasty commands.

Too bad it's not as easy to use applications like Netscape's Web browser or Star Office, a German-made Linux word processor. Icons for such programs don't automatically appear on the desktop, and putting them there takes a fair amount of know-how.

If KDE sports a girl-next-door look, the Free Software Foundation's Gnome interface calls to mind an episode of ''Baywatch.'' Gnome is ultra-flashy, with big, buxom icons and a lavish selection of visual ''themes'' for designing the desktop of your dreams.

Gnome is pretty, but it's also pretty buggy. Utilities like the file manager would refuse to work. The Netscape browser often wouldn't load up. And Gnome has an irritating streak of absent-mindedness. It let me customize the desktop, putting all of the icons right where I wanted them. But the next time I ran Gnome, all of my changes were gone. Good looks are well and good, but reliability comes first. Which is why I'm sticking with KDE, at least until a debugged version of Gnome turns up.

KDE and Gnome have one thing in common: They're difficult to install. And to make them work on a PC, you must first install a program called XFree86 -- a task so complex you could almost devote a book to it. Besides, XFree86 is incompatible with many computers' graphic accelerator cards -- something to check before experimenting with Linux.

In fact, Gnome and KDE don't simplify Linux very much. All of the complexity is still there, just below the colorful wallpaper. What's needed isn't plastic surgery but a brain implant -- a way to make ease of use integral to the software. Until that happens, Microsoft's hold on the desktop is secure.

One more thing. Remember last week's column about the dark side of Internet auctions? Antique collector Cindy Allen certainly does, and with good reason. I got her name wrong. Terribly sorry. Won't happen again.

E-mail Hiawatha Bray at bray@globe.com.

This story ran on page C01 of the Boston Globe on 03/25/99.
© Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company.