This section will introduce a few basic concepts and skills for using your computer. You may choose to use KDE or GNOME during the login process explained above.
All modern graphical environments share a common set of features: a main menu, a desktop area with some icons, a panel, etc. In the following paragraphs we will describe the elements that compose a desktop environment.
On the left of the screen and in the bar at the bottom of the screen you can see some “icons”. An icon is a little drawing, usually enhanced by a short description beneath it (the icon's title or name), representing a program, a folder or another object that lives on the desktop: clicking on an icon you can launch a program or open a folder. In both cases a window will appear on the desktop. In our example, the icon shown below gives you access to the Mandrake Control Center configuration tool.
In the lower part of the screen is the “panel”. It provides a quick access to useful tools such as a Terminal, the help system, etc. Each icon symbolizes an application (or program). Just move your mouse cursor over one of them and leave it there for a few seconds. A yellow help balloon will appear to describe the icon's function.
The icons and the panel do not float on the screen: they are “stuck” on something called the desktop, also called the “background”. In a sense, the desktop is where everything you see or use lives. Bring your mouse cursor on a free place on the desktop (i.e. where there is “nothing”, no windows or icons) and click on the right mouse button: a list of items, called a pull-down menu, appears which gives you access to several functions.
Since there aren't very many icons on the desktop or in the panel, you may be wondering how to access all the software you installed during the installation process. This is rather easy. The first icon of the panel starting from left should look like this:
Just click on this icon (slightly different whether you work with KDE or GNOME) and you will see a pull-up menu listing the programs you can run. They are organized by tasks, so finding the program you are looking for is easy.
To launch an application or a tool, click on the main menu icon with the left mouse button, navigate the menu tree until you find the desired item, then click again with the left mouse button and the program will be launched. If you are uncertain about the function corresponding to a specific menu item, leave the mouse cursor over it for a second or two, and an help message will pop up.
If you
click on the icon on the desktop labelled as
Home or Home of [your login
name], you will hear your hard drive work a
bit. Then one of those windows will appear:
You just launched a program, the file manager, which has opened a window showing the content of your Home directory. This is the directory where all of your personal documents and files are stored, accessible only by you. If you start saving a lot of files in it (e.g. text documents, mp3 files, etc.) we suggest that you create some sub-directories (for instance Documents, Music, etc.).
A window is composed of several parts. On the top is the “title bar”. It shows the name or title of the program you launched and possibly, the name of the document you are working on. It can be in two different states:
Usually, the active title bar is full-colored, whereas the inactive one is shaded or grey.
Just under the title bar is the “menu bar”. In our example, it says (from left to right) File, Edit, and so on. Click on File. A list of items appears in a drop-down menu, each item giving you access to one of the program's functions.
Under the menu bar is the application's “tool bar”. It consists of one or more rows of icons, each one equivalent to an item in a drop-down menu: you can view them as a short-hand access to frequently accessed program features which can be found elsewhere in the menu bar.
The “status bar” usually sits at the bottom of the window. There you will find information about what the program is doing. Not all programs offer this feature, but if the one you are using does, remember to check it from time to time.
We introduced the word desktop to point out the area of the screen where all objects (panel, icons, windows) are placed. Now, look at the panel on the bottom of the screen. You can see a group of four “buttons”:
These buttons give you access to “virtual desktops”, which are identical copies of the desktop you see after you have logged in. You will find more information on virtual desktop handling and usage in the Chapter 5, Using KDE and Chapter 6, Using GNOME sections.
Click on the button labeled 2: as you can see, the window you opened before disappears. Don't worry, you did not close the window, you simply switched desktops, just as if you went from one desk to another.
Click on the button labeled 1. The previous desktop is displayed.
This feature, called “ virtual desktops ” (also known as “workspace switcher”), is very handy. It allows you to open several windows and to organize them as you desire.
You can also change the virtual desktop the window is currently in. This may be handy to logically organize your work by desktop, for instance moving all network related windows in desktop 2, all multimedia applications in desktop 3, etc.
For this exercise you will need to use your mouse. With KDE, right-click on the window's title bar and a pull-down menu will appear containing an item named Move to. Just point to this item and a list of your virtual desktops will appear. Simply choose the virtual desktop towards which you want to move it.
With GNOME, right-clicking on the window's title bar gives you a pull-down menu in which you will see some Move to items, as shown in the image below.
Note that the workspace you are in will be grey-shaded, which obviously means you cannot move your window to that workspace since you are already in it :-)
You will often find your window is in the right place, but it is too small or too big. Click on this button in the title bar:
Now your window fits your screen! This operation is called “maximizing” a window. Click again on the same button to bring the window back to its original size.
On the contrary, if you want to hide your window but keep the program running, click on this button:
The window seems to disappear. In fact, you resized it to its minimal possible size: an icon. This is called “minimizing” a window. You cleared the screen space it was using, but the program is still running. You can still see it there in the panel, on the “task bar” for KDE, “tasklist” for GNOME:
To view the window on your desktop once more, just click on the icon associated with it.
In most cases, you do not want to maximize nor minimize the window. You just want some sort of a middle range where you can adjust the window's size according to your needs. You can achieve this with your mouse and the boundary borders of the window.
Bring
the mouse cursor to the right edge between the desktop and the
running program. Your cursor will change to a double-arrow. Now act
like you did when you moved the window, pressing the left button
and keeping it pressed while moving. The window resizes and its
contents rearranges. When the new size satisfies you, just release
the mouse button.
We did this using the right-hand border of the window. You can do the same thing with the bottom, top or left-hand borders. You can even do it with the window's corners, in which case you can resize the window in two directions simultaneously.
Not all windows can resize this way, and sometimes minimum and maximum sizes are predefined.
As a final note about the buttons in the window's title bar, consider this one:
If you click on this button, you simply stop the running program: you terminate it, you quit it. This button is called the “close button”.
A lot of things can be changed under both KDE and GNOME to suit your personal tastes, like the background, the windows and background colors, the “themes”, the way windows and icons behave, etc.
If you are running KDE, refer to Section , “Personalizing your Desktop”. If you are running GNOME refer to Section , “Personalizing GNOME” for more information about how to customize your desktop.