Introduction

This chapter was written for inexperienced users. If you know how to create an icon on the desktop, or how to put a window on all workspaces, skip ahead to the next chapter. If not, read on! You will learn how to access your desktop environment, launch programs and shut down the computer. After reading this chapter, all subsequent ones will make much more sense to you.

If you are an experienced Windows user, refer to the Chapter 1, Migrating to Linux from Windows® section, which is dedicated to users making the good decision to migrate from Windows to GNU/Linux.

We assume that you are sitting in front of a running Mandrake Linux computer which, when turned on, automatically displays the graphical login screen. This is what you should see if you previously followed the installation procedure.

Given the large number of graphical interfaces available under GNU/Linux, it is impossible to document them all. We will discuss two of the most popular ones: KDE and GNOME. Please refer to the Chapter 5, Using KDE and Chapter 6, Using GNOME chapters to learn more about these environments.