2.1. First tour.

In this section we'll see Linux running for the first time, we login into it's main desktop environment and graphical user interfaces (GUIs), we'll move around then learn how to shut it down and land safely.

Section quotes:

• "Unix IS user friendly... It's just selective about who its friends are."
      -- Tollef Fog Heen
• "You know, if you really do not understand the implications of running everything with permissions equivalent to root - get the hell out of any UNIX-related programming until you learn."
      -- Al Viro explaining the merits of doing everything as root on LKML

Section contents:

• 2.1.1. First run.
• 2.1.2. GNOME.
• 2.1.3. KDE.
• 2.1.4. Dealing with windows.
• 2.1.5. Exit.

2.1.1. First run.

When you turn on your computer, it run the boot loader for example LILO (Linux loader) or GRUB, those two are smart full featured boot loaders they give you a menu of systems to boot, for example Windows and Linux, to look like the next screenshot. Tip You can set a timeout to boot one, you may change colors,background picture, and you may hide the boot loader so that it boots one system by default unless you press SHIFT (or other key) while your computer is starting up, then it show the menu. Boot loader interface could be a text menu or even a command prompt! You are FREE.

Tip

RedHat prefer GRUB and it say it won't ship LILO in future, other distribution prefer LILO, GRUB is more powerful than LILO but LILO is easier to configure manually.

Select Linux and it will start some services one by one, then it will start a login manager (formally called display manager) to enter you name and password to login, this program could be KDM from KDE as in Mandrake, or GDM from GNOME as in RedHat.

KDM

GDM

Warning

If you get a black screen text login program this mean that you have not installed KDE or GNOME or what ever X graphical environment (in this case, reinstall Linux in upgrade mode to add those programs), or if you have too old distribution (eg. RedHat Linux 7.3) that does not configure X by default , in both cases type 'root' then password, then try to type 'Xconfigurator' (in RedHat Linux) or 'drakeX' (Mandrake) now type 'exit' then login as normal user and type 'startx', see '4.1. Hardware configaration.' section.

Warning

If you are using GDM as in RedHat Linux, and you want to enter KDE then you should remember not to specify your language using this GNOME'ed tool but instead in KDE control center.

Type your login name (regular user NOT root) then move to password entry using TAB key or by mouse, type your password, and select the graphical interface you want from session list or button, if you did not specify it will login to the last one.

Warning

DO NOT ENTER AS ROOT, never ever do that what every circumstances you are in, ENVEN IF you are the administrator and you are doing what ever root only task, create a regular non-privileged user and use it, because if you login as root you could damage your system and because of Linux is too loyal it may no ask you "are you sure ?", you are the root you are supposed to be sure. we will discuss how to do root task while you are not logged in as root.

Tip

GNOME, KDE and XFCE is a suite of applications along with a Window manager, that's way it's called Desktop Environments, interfaces without a suite of application is called Window managers.

Each of GNOME and KDE has a different design, using different tools and libraries, you could run application of each in the other, what makes you login to one not the other is just your taste and mode, the logo of GNOME is the G footprint, it looks like a rock to resemble how robust it is, KDE looks more crystallized, the logo of KDE is a gear (and a dragon), GNOME uses double click by default while KDE 3.0 uses single click by default (this is changed in later versions), you may change any thing, what you see is just the defaults.

KDE desktop

GNOME

Tip

I'm a GNOME fan, but KDE users are more than GNOME users, try both and decide.

Waring

KDE 3.0 case problems with your sound card, the one that comes with Mandrake 9.0, if you face problems with some games and multimedia application, that could be the reason, KDE 2.0 does not support bidirectional languages like Arabic (may mother language). All KDE problems were solved in KDE 3.1 (that comes with Mandrake 9.1). I'm a GNOME user, I'm baised! try them both.

2.1.2. GNOME.

Once you have loged to GNOME you will see a splash image while loading (you could replace it from 'http://art.gnome.org' or draw one yourself) then the desktop it loaded with icons (also called 'launchers' double click on this picture to launch the program it represent), a backroung with a wallpaper, a panel at the top with two menus (main menu and action menu), more icons at the panel, clock and other applets, another panel at the buttom has a taskbar with a switcher of 4 workspaces (also called virtual desktops) click on one to have different desktop you can use it when you feel that your desktop is crowded with windows move some to other desktop, it's like you have 4 monitors. (non of this description should be true, you can change every thing)

Tip

If you don't have main menu in the buttom panel, right click it then select Add then GNOME menu, right click it and move it where you like,

Tip

To add an icon of your favorite program to the panel, click on it then select 'Add' then 'Launcher from menu' and select your program, or instead 'Add -> Launcher' then type it's name.

GNOME could be driven by keyboard, it's sometimes much faster, those shortcut hot keys (in GNOME 2.4 but usually they won't change), but you may change them all:

Hot Key	Task
ALT+F1	open GNOME main menu
ALT+F2	open 'Run' dialog
PrintScreen	take a screenshot and save it as a PNG at your home
ALT+PrintScreen	take a screenshot of tthe active window
CTRL+ALT+D	activate desktop and minimize all windows
F1	Help
CTRL+ALT+ "arrow"	move to some virtual desktop with the direction of the arrow
ALT+TAB/(ALT+ESC)	press and hold ALT then press TAB frequently to move to the next window, or ESC to the previous one, then release ALT
CTRL+ALT+TAB/CTRL+(ALT+ESC)	press and host CTRL+ALT then press TAB or ESC to move to next or previous panel.
F10	open first menu (eg. file menu) in the current window, but if the active is a panel, this key will open GNOME main window.
ALT+space	open current window properties menu.
CTRL+F10	open the right click menu.
ALT+under lined lettter	It will open the menu having this letter, or move and set focus to the widget having this widget.

in most GNOME application those hot keys will work:

HotKey	task
CTRL+N	new file
CTRL+X	cut selection
CTRL+C	copy to clipboard
CTRL+V	paste from clipboard
CTRL+Z	undo
CTRL+S	save
CTRL+Q	exit

There are small applications called applet, like clock,volume mixer and keyboard layout switcher, you can see them on any panel, to add new one, right click where you want to add it then select 'Add -> add applet' then select the one you like. To remove,configure or move it later right click on it then select corresponding option. You may add new spliters or even new panels, those are some applets:

• Inbox Monitor - new mail indicator.
• Window List - like the taskbar.
• Workspace Switcher.
• Clock.
• Wanda the Fish - a moving fish animation that do something when you click on it, usually it tells you a cookie, a joke or a peice of wisdom from fortune-mod.
• charpick - character selector.
• cdplayer - small CD player.
• battstat - battery state indicator.
• mixer - sound volume.
• mini-commander - small command line.
• gweather - download weather from NWS.
• gtik2 - sticky notes.
• gkb - GNOME keyboard switcher.
• geyes - pair of eyes that follow the pointer.
• drivemount - (un)mount a device.
• modemlights - monitor your modem.
• multiload - your system(CPU,memory,network,swap and other resources) load.

Tip

Right click everything.

Warning

There is no relation between GNOME and KDE applets and JAVA applets, applet mean little programs.

You can run application from GNOME main menu, or by typing program name on Run dialoh box (ALT+F2), you may change the background to be a color, colors gradient or a wallpaper from any type like JPEG and PNG, right click on an empty place on the desktop then select 'change desktop wallpaper' which will open a dialog box then click on the picture to open file dialog to select one, another method is to drag the picture from your file manager to the dialog box, you may change windows border style (Metacity/Sawfish themes) just goto GNOME control center ('main menu' then 'desktop preferences' or run 'gnome-control-center') then select 'theme' then click on 'Window border' tab (if there is no such tab click on 'details' button), you may change application widgets style (GTK+ themes) the same way but using 'application themes' tab, press 'PrintScreen' button to take a screenshot of your screen, to take a screenshot to the current active window just press ALT+PrintScreen.

Tip

Visit 'http://art.gnome.org' and download best themes, they are little tarball '.tar.gz' files, to install them, drag them to the themes dialog then select that theme (you may need in old versions to close theme dialog and reopen it again), to install them manually copy them to a hidden folder called '.themes, type '~/.themes' at your file manager then copy te tarball there you may keep them compressed or uncompress them refere to '3.1. File System Hierarchy.' section.

Tip

If you select 'theme' from GNOME 2.4 control center you will see a list of composed themes of application(GTK+), window border(MCity) and icons themes to select each one click on detials button.

Tip

There are more things that could use themes, for example the splash screen, GDM theme, wallpapers, and even mouse cursors.

To exit from GNOME select from Actions menu 'Log off', or from GNOME main menu, or even the icon of a monitor with stary sky, then you may shutdown the computer from the login program by selecting halt.

2.1.3. KDE.

There is no much appeared difference between KDE and GNOME, a spash screen a desktop with icons, a button panel (called kicker) with K menu, some launcher incos on the panel,applets and a virtual desktops switcher. With KDE 3.0 you have to use single click, you can move or change every thing, you can right click any thing to get context menu, for example right click the kicker and select larger size, you can do the same thing in many ways thet last example could be done using 'K-menu ->panel size'.

Tip

To change KDE appearance using 'KDE Control Center -> Look & Feel -> themes' you can change the style of windows borders or application widgets, and many more effects for example you could make menus partially transparent.

Tip

Visit 'www.kde-look.org' and get what ever eye candy you can imagine, those themes are tarball('.tar.gz'), to install then untar (extract) them then read README and INSTALL files, there should be a '.Ktheme' that could be used when you go to 'KDE Control Center -> Look & Feel -> themes->Install new theme' or a '.sh' script in this case all you have to do is to execute it. Unlike what you may expected you could find some GTK+ themes for GNOME to make it look like KDE.

2.1.4. Dealing with windows.

There is a button to maximize the window (so it occupy all the desktop), restore original size,minimize (hide it on the task bar) and the last is for closing it. Usually double click on title bar will shade (also called roll up/down) the window, which mean to hide the window except it's title bar, there are another button on the other side of title bar which has window related options like to send it to other virtual desktop or make it above or below all other windows, to change window position drag it's title bar, you could also (if it's not visible) do that by holding ALT and drag it from any part of it (even from the middle of it), in KDE there are a pin you could tuggle so that the window will appear in all virtual desktops, to resize the window drag it's border. To change resolution you could press 'CTRL ALT +' or 'CTRL ALT -', to move(activate) between windows use 'ALT+TAB' and to move between virtual desktops use 'CTRL+TAB', those tricks works in most interfaces. You could copy (and paste at same time) a text just highlight it then at the destination position click on the middle mouse button (the wheel) (in some old X programs, right click works too).

Tip

If you have two button mouse (no wheel) you could press both buttons to emulate the middle button.

Tip

If a hot key is taken by another running program and you don't want that, for example in GIMP you ALT drag to move selection area but it's taken by KDE or GNOME to move the window, another example in 'mc' text completion done by 'ALT+TAB' but it's taken to activate next window, in all those cases and more hold extra CTRL with the hot key, out examples become 'CTRL+ALT drag' and 'CTRL+ALT+TAB'.

2.1.5. Exit.

To shutdown your computer safely you should use halt (the same as shutdown in windows), you could type it on run dialog (press ALT+F2), or from menus in KDE it's 'K-menu -> logout' (the power off icon), in GNOME you select it from action menu, the same services you see when you start the computer are now get stopped, at last if you use power managment (APM or ACPI) tthe power will go off, or else a message saying 'System halted.' it means you may now turn the power off by hand. You could back to the login manager (display manager) like GDM and KDE (specially in case of GNOME) then select halt from it's menu. What ever you do don't turn it off by cutting the power from the computer directly.