# Introduction to GNOME V&manrevision;

2001
2002
Alexander Kirillov
2000
2001
Red Hat, Inc.
2000
2001
David A. Wheeler
GNOME Documentation Project

&legal;

Alexander
Kirillov
GNOME Documentation Project

     kirillov@math.sunysb.edu

David
Mason
Red Hat, Inc.

     dcm@redhat.com

David
Wheeler
Introduction to GNOME V&manrevision;
&date;

Alexander Kirillov kirillov@math.sunysb.edu, David C. Mason, David A. Wheeler

GNOME Documentation Project

Updated for GNOME 2.0. Some descriptions and screenshots are borrowed from GNOME Desktop 2.0 User Guide (May 2002), by Sun GNOME Documentation Team gdocteam@sun.com>, published by GNOME Documentation Project

Introduction to GNOME
April 2001

Alexander Kirillov kirillov@math.sunysb.edu, David C. Mason, David A. Wheeler

GNOME Documentation Project

This version described GNOME 1.4

This document was last updated in June 2002. It describes GNOME 2.0.

## Feedback

To report a bug or make a suggestion regarding this document, follow the directions in the GNOME Feedback Page.

## What Is GNOME?

GNOME is a user-friendly graphical desktop environment for UNIX and UNIX-like systems. GNOME includes a panel (for starting applications and displaying status), a desktop (where data and applications can be placed), a set of standard desktop tools and applications, and a set of conventions that make it easy for applications to cooperate and be consistent with each other. Users of other operating systems or environments should feel right at home using the powerful graphics-driven environment GNOME provides. GNOME runs on a number of UNIX-like operating systems, including Linux, FreeBSD, and Solaris.

GNOME is completely open source (free software) developed by hundreds of programmers around the world. Both the source code and ready-to-run binaries of GNOME are available for download on the Internet; they are distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (and its cousins, Lesser General Public License and Free Documentation License for libraries and documentation respectively). In particular, this means that everyone is free to use, copy or distribute GNOME. If you would like to learn more about the GNOME project please visit the GNOME website.

GNOME is highly configurable, enabling you to set your desktop the way you want it to look and feel. GNOME supports many human languages, and more are added every month. GNOME even supports several drag and drop protocols for maximum interoperability with non-GNOME applications.

GNOME comes from the acronym for the GNU Network Object Model Environment (GNOME). GNOME is a part of the larger GNU project, started in 1984 to develop a completely free UNIX-like operating system. For more information, visit the GNU website.

This guide describes GNOME 2.0 which is the latest (as of June 2002) release of GNOME.

## Purpose of This Document

This document gives you a short introduction to GNOME. It is not intended to cover all details of GNOME; if you need more information, you should read the detailed manuals listed in . Also, this document assumes you already have GNOME installed; if you need help installing GNOME, please check the instructions on the GNOME website.

This document was written by the members of the GNOME Documentation Project (GDP). If you have any comments or suggestions about this document or if you can offer any other help in improving or translating GNOME documentation, please send an e-mail to docs@gnome.org, or visit the GDP website.

The authors of this document assume that you are using the default configuration of GNOME (that is, default GTK theme and Sawfish window manager with Crux theme). GNOME is highly configurable, so it is easy to change not only the look but also the behavior of GNOME; however, we recommend that you do so only after you already have some experience with GNOME.

## Mouse Conventions Used in This Document

Before describing GNOME, let us introduce some terms used not only in this guide but in all GNOME documents. Most importantly, we need to clarify the use of mouse buttons and clicks.

Most GNOME documents assume that you are using a standard (for UNIX) 3-button mouse and talk about left, right, and middle mouse buttons; if a document says click without explicitly specifying the button, the left button is assumed.

If you are using a two-button mouse, you can emulate the middle mouse button by pressing left and right buttons simultaneously; if you have a wheel mouse, the wheel can be used in place of the middle mouse button.

You can switch the roles of the buttons using the Mouse preference tool in the Desktop Preferences submenu of Applications menu. Many left-handers choose to reverse the right and left buttons. If you have done so, you need to use the right mouse button whenever a document instructs you to click, and use the left mouse button whenever a document talks about right-clicking or mouse button 3.

If you use a mouse with an unusual placement of buttons, a trackball, or some other input device, you need to find out which buttons correspond to right, left and middle; this information can usually be found in the manual which came with your device. Usually, the left button (MB1) is the one under your index finger.

## First Glance at GNOME: Desktop and Panel

shows an example of GNOME running. GNOME is very configurable, so your screen may look quite different.

### Sample GNOME Display.

Figure of GNOME desktop, with menu panel, usual panel, Nautilus window, and standard desktop icons: home folder, Start here and Trash

### Panel

The two long bars at the top and bottom of are panels. The top one is called the menu panel, the bottom one is an edge panel (you can have more than one edge panel). Panels can contain a number of useful objects, such as

GNOME Menu button

  This is the button with the stylized footprint (in the example of , it is the left-most button on the top panel). Clicking this button brings up a menu containing all GNOME applications and commands, including the logout command.

Other menus

  Panels can also contain other menus, either submenus of the GNOME Menu or menus created by the user. In the example above, the top panel contains Applications and Actions menus. Both are actually submenus of the GNOME Menu.

Application launchers

  These buttons start various programs.

Panel applets

  These are tiny programs designed to work inside the panel. For example, the clock applet on the far right of the top panel shows the current time, and the Window List applet (in the left side of the bottom panel) shows the list of all application windows on your desktop (this will be discussed in detail in ).

As with all GNOME components, panels are highly configurable: you can add or remove application launchers and applets, edit the GNOME Menu, change the panel background, or even remove and create new panels. This will be discussed in .

#### NOTE

The top panel in is called the menu panel and has slightly different properties than other panels. For example, you can not move it to a different location.

To configure an object, get help on it, or remove it from the panel, right-click on it and select the appropriate item from the popup menu. To hide the panel when you are not using it, click on one of the Hide buttons. They are the small arrows at the ends of the panel.

More panel operations are available from the Panel menu, which you can open by right-clicking in any vacant space on the panel (for example, in the hide arrows) and selecting Panel from the menu. The Panel menu also contains the Panel manual, which describes all these options in detail.

### Desktop

Everything outside the panel is called the desktop. You can place icons for files, applications, and other items on the desktop (a default collection of icons is installed with GNOME). You can then double-click on an item to use it:

- If the item is a program, that program will start.

- If it is a data file, the appropriate program will start up with that data loaded.

- If it is a folder (directory), the File Manager will start and show the contents of that directory. Your desktop will probably have an icon showing a house and labeled as yourname's Home. Double-clicking on this icon will start the File Manager in your home directory.

The easiest way to place an item on the desktop is to drag a file from a file manager window, as described in detail in the Nautilus manual. Once the item is placed on the desktop, you can move it around the desktop using the left mouse button, or you can click on it with the right mouse button to bring up the popup menu which allows you to delete the item or change its properties.

### Using the Mouse

As you have already seen, you can do almost anything just by clicking with your mouse. Here are some conventions which work almost anywhere in GNOME:

- Clicking on an item with the left mouse button selects (hilights) it. If you need to select several objects, hold down the Ctrl key while clicking.

- Double-clicking on an item runs the default action for this item (running an application, opening the file, etc.)

- Clicking on an item with the right mouse button brings up the context menu, which contains all the commands and information available for this item. If you have selected a group of items, right-clicking on any of them will bring up the context menu which applies to all of these items.

- You can select text anywhere on the screen using the left mouse button, and then insert this text into any other place on the screen which accepts text input, by clicking with the middle mouse button.

In addition, right-clicking on any vacant place on your desktop brings up the Desktop Background menu, which allows you to change the desktop background or other properties, or add a new object to the desktop. Clicking on the desktop with the middle mouse button produces the Root menu, provided by the window manager (see ).

### Logging Out

To log out of GNOME, click on the GNOME Menu button and select Log out. GNOME will prompt you for confirmation; it will also give you an option to save the session — that is, information about currently open applications and their location on the screen will be saved, so that when you login next time, the same applications will be in the same places (this only works for applications which are fully GNOME-compliant).

## Working With Windows

The X Window System, a graphical system used by all UNIX-like operating systems, allows you to have several windows on your screen, with a different application running in each window. By itself, however, the X Window System can only do very low-level operations, so it is always used in combination with another piece of software, called a window manager. A window manager provides windows' frames, titlebar, and buttons. It also allows you to move, close, and resize windows. GNOME can work with many window managers. The most popular are Sawfish (included as part of the GNOME distribution) and Metacity. Each window manager can use many different styles of window decorations and buttons. (This is referred to as the window manager theme.) Since it is impossible to cover them all, in this section we only describe the default window manager shipped with GNOME, Sawfish, and its default theme, Crux. An example of the window titlebar using the Crux theme is shown in

### Window Titlebar Using Crux Theme.

Titlebar in Crux style, focused. Close button in the left side, minimize, maximize, and shade buttons on the right.

So, what can you do with windows?

Closing, Minimizing, and Maximizing Windows

  To close a window, click on the Close Window button (with the small x) in the window titlebar. If the application has any unsaved data, it will prompt you to save it.

  To maximize a window, i.e. make it fill the entire screen (except for the part taken by the panels), click on the Maximize button (middle button on the right side). Clicking on this button once again will restore the window to its original size.

  To minimize (sometimes also called hide or iconify) a window, click on the Minimize button. The window will disappear from the screen. However, it is not lost: the application in this window continues running, no data is lost — it is just temporarily hidden. All minimized windows are shown in the Window List applet and can be restored as described below.

  A convenient alternative to minimizing windows is shading them. When you shade a window, it rolls up into its own titlebar, so the titlebar is the only part of the window left on the screen. To shade a window, click on the Shade button; to unshade, click on this button again. You can also shade and unshade a window by double-clicking on the titlebar.

Raising and Lowering Windows

  Windows on your screen can overlap, so that one of the windows is on top of another. You can raise a window (i.e., put it on top of all others) by clicking on the window titlebar. You can also switch a window from raised to lowered and back by right-clicking in the titlebar, or by right-clicking anywhere inside the window while holding down the Alt key.

Focus

  Of all the windows on your screen, only one is active (in computer parlance, focused), which means that anything you type on the keyboard will be sent to the application running in that window. (It does not mean that the applications in other windows are idle — they can be running as well.) To help you see which window has focus, the titlebar of this window has a different color (the left side is blue, as opposed to gray for all other windows). To change the focus to another window, just click anywhere in that window. You can also click in the window titlebar to focus and raise the window simultaneously.

  You can also use the Alt Tab shortcut to switch between windows. This cyclically switches all existing windows. The window to which you switch is raised and given focus.

Moving and Resizing Windows

  To move a window, drag its titlebar to a new location using the left mouse button (i.e., click in the title bar and move the mouse without releasing the button). You can also move a window by clicking anywhere inside the window while holding down the Alt key.

  To resize a window, place the mouse cursor on any of the window borders or corners. The mouse cursor will change to an arrow pushing a line or corner, allowing you to drag the border or corner to a new position.

### Window List Applet

All the windows on your desktop (including the minimized ones) are shown in the Window List applet, located on your panel. For each window, a mini-icon and the beginning of the window title is shown. To restore a minimized window, just click on its title in the Window List applet. Right-clicking on the window title brings up the popup menu which allows you to shade a window, close it, etc.

### Window Menu

Sawfish also provides a menu for each window; this menu contains all the operations for this window described above, and then some. To access this menu, right-click on the Close button, or click anywhere inside the window with the middle mouse button while holding down the Alt key.

### Root Menu

Finally, Sawfish also provides a so-called Root menu. It can be accessed by clicking on any empty space of the desktop with the middle mouse button. It contains the following items:

Windows

  Provides list of all windows, including minimized ones. Selecting one of these windows restores it (if it was minimized), and raises it over other windows. Very convenient if you have so many windows that the one you need is completely covered by others.

Workspaces

  Allows you to switch from one workspace to another, create and delete workspaces. See the GNOME Desktop User Guide for details.

Programs

  Same as the Applications submenu of the GNOME Menu.

Customize

  Allows the user to customize Sawfish (see for details).

Help

  Provides links to the Sawfish website, the Sawfish manual (beware: this is not a user's manual but rather a manual for people who write extensions/customizations to Sawfish using the LISP programming language), link to the GNOME User Guide, and to the GNOME website.

## Nautilus: GNOME File Manager

GNOME includes a graphical shell, Nautilus. It combines a file manager, a web browser, an FTP client, and much more. It also provides access to tools for customizing GNOME (thus replacing the GNOME Control Center which was included in GNOME 1.4 and earlier releases).

To open a new Nautilus window, choose the Applications Home folder in the GNOME Menu, or double-click on any folder icon on your desktop, such as the Home icon.

### Managing Your Files With Nautilus

#### Nautilus Window

Nautilus Window, in icon mode

As most modern graphic file managers, Nautilus shows the contents of a selected folder using icons to represent files and subfolders. Double-clicking on any file or folder opens it (for data files, it starts the appropriate application which opens this file, as configured in the File Types and Programs preference tool). Right-clicking on a file or folder produces a popup menu. Using this menu, you can delete or rename the file, view and change file properties or permissions, and more.

Nautilus also provides an easy way to move and copy files between folders. To move a file from one folder to another, open these folders in separate Nautilus windows (you can use the File New window command). Select the file you want to move, and drag it from one window into another using the mouse. You can also drag a file or folder to the desktop. To copy a file, press-and-hold the Ctrl key while dragging the file.

To delete files, drag them to the trash can icon on your desktop.

Nautilus provides many more tools to manipulate your files. It is also highly customizable, so you can easily change the way files are displayed (for example, you can choose a custom icon for a given file). For a detailed description of all these possibilities, read the Nautilus manual, available from the Help menu of Nautilus.

### Accessing Floppies and Other Removable Media

To access files on floppy disks, CD-ROMs and other removable media, right-click on any vacant spot on the desktop and choose the required media from the Disks submenu of the Desktop Background menu. (This assumes your system is correctly configured, that is, you have the appropriate entry in `/etc/fstab` file.) This will open a Nautilus window showing the contents of the selected media.

#### WARNING

Before removing a floppy disk or other removable media from the drive, you must

1. Close all windows accessing files on this disk, including Nautilus windows, terminal windows, and others

2. Unmount the disk by right-clicking on the disk icon on the desktop and choosing Unmount volume from the popup menu.

If you remove the disk without unmounting it first, you may lose data!

### Other Features of Nautilus

In addition to the basic features listed above, Nautilus has many other advanced and exciting capabilities. Here we list some of them, referring the reader to the >Nautilus manual for detailed descriptions.

- Nautilus can be customized in many ways. In particular, you can change the background and icons used for files and folders, and the fonts used for captions.

- You can assign a custom icon to a specific file, or rescale the icon for a specific file, so that the most important files really stand out.

- You can assign an emblem (such as New or Favorite) to a file, which will be put on top of the file icon.

- Files can be sorted by name, type, modification date, or the emblem you assigned to them.

- Nautilus can also be used as a Web browser (with limited capabilities) and FTP client: just enter the URL (for example, ftp://ftp.gnome.org) in the Go To field.

- Nautilus can also be used as a music player: just open a folder containing music files in MP3 format, and Nautilus switches to music player mode.

## Customizing GNOME

GNOME is highly configurable — you can change almost anything: background color, key bindings, location of panels, contents of the GNOME Menu, and more. To see examples of different customizations of the GNOME desktop, take a look at the screenshots on the GNOME website and notice how different they look.

The following sections list some of the most common customizations. In addition, you can change properties of various items — most notably, panels and icons on your desktop — by clicking on them with the right mouse button and selecting Properties from the popup menu.

Almost every GNOME application has its own preferences settings (look for Preferences or Settings in the menus), so you can change, for example, colors used by the GNOME Terminal or make it transparent — the possibilities are unlimited!

### Desktop Preferences

To customize the appearance of your desktop and user interface, use special desktop preference tools, which can be found in the Desktop Preferences submenu of the Applications menu. You can also access the preferences tools by double-clicking on the Start Here icon on your desktop. This will open a Nautilus window. Double-click on Preferences and then on the tool you require.

Here we would like to give an overview of the most commonly used preferences tools.

Background

  This tool allows you to change desktop background. You can select solid color, gradient (visual effect where one color blends gradually into another color), or an image file.

  #### TIP

  You can also change the desktop background color by right-clicking on the desktop background and choosing Change Desktop Background, or by dragging a color from another window or dialog to the desktop background.

Theme

  This tool allows you to change the desktop theme (to be precise, the GTK2 theme). A theme is a collection of settings that determine the look of all menus, panels, toolbars, scrollbars, checkbuttons and other elements of graphical user interface for all GNOME applications.

  You can select one of the themes installed as part of your GNOME distribution, or download and install more themes from the Internet. In particular, you can find many GTK themes at the Sunshine In a Bag website (look for GTK2 themes).

  Please note that a GTK2 theme will not change the appearance of the window decorations, (the borders, titlebars, and buttons in window titlebar); this is determined by your window manager settings and can be changed as described in . Also, a GTK 2 theme only controls GNOME 2 applications. If you are using GNOME 1.x applications in GNOME 2, their appearance will not be affected (it is determined by a GTK1 theme which is configured independently from the GTK2 themes).

Font

  This tool allows you to choose the default font which will be used by all menus, dialogs, and other user interface elements. This overrides the font specified by your desktop theme.

### Customizing the Window Manager

To customize the Sawfish window manager, middle-click on the desktop and choose the Customize submenu. This submenu contains a number of customization tools. The same tools can also be accessed using Applications Desktop Preferences Advanced Sawfish .

The most popular customization tool is Appearance, which allows you to select the window manager theme (which determines the appearance of the window frame, titlebar, and buttons) and the font to use in the window titlebar. Other tools (such as the Bindings tool which allows you to specify keybindings for various window operations) are only recommended for advanced users.

### Customizing Panels

You can customize the GNOME panels as follows:

- To remove a panel, right-click on a vacant space on the panel and choose Remove this panel from the panel popup menu.

- To create a new panel, right-click on a vacant space on any existing panel and choose Create panel from the panel popup menu.

- To move an existing panel to a new location, drag it with the middle mouse button.

  #### NOTE

  The menu panel can not be moved.

- To modify a panel's properties (background, size, auto-hide), right-click on a vacant space on the panel and choose Properties from the panel popup menu.

- To remove an object (menu, applet, or application launcher), from the panel, right-click on the object and choose Remove from panel from the object popup menu.

- To add a new object to the panel, right-click on a vacant space on the panel and choose Add to panel from the panel popup menu. Alternatively, to add an application from one of the menus as a launcher to the panel, right-click on the menu item and choose Add this launcher to panel from the popup menu.

- To move a panel object, drag it with the middle mouse button. You can even drag an object from one panel to another.

- To configure a panel object, right-click on it and choose Properties from the popup menu.

## GNOME Applications and Utilities

GNOME comes with many applications and utilities; in addition, GNOME allows you to use any third party applications such as Netscape), KDE applications, or other applications and utilities installed on your system. You can also use GNOME 1.x applications under GNOME 2 (if you have installed appropriate GNOME 1.x libraries).

Below is a partial list of some of the most useful tools and applications found in the GNOME Menu.

### NOTE

The contents of the GNOME Menu depends on the applications installed on your system. In addition, if you are using a copy of GNOME packaged by someone other than the GNOME project (for example, packaged as part of your Linux distribution), the menu is likely to be slightly different from the one described here. For example, distributors can add some distribution-specific applications to the menu, or even completely reorganize the menus. In this case refer to the documentation that came with your distribution.

### Actions Menu

This submenu contains the following utilities.

Run Program

  This allows you to manually enter a command to run, saving you from starting full-blown terminal emulator.

  #### TIP

  You can also start the Run Program dialog by using the Alt F2 shortcut.

Search for Files

  This utility allows you to search for files and folders on your system.

Screenshot

  This utility takes a screenshot of your desktop and saves it in a file.

### Applications Menu

Accessories

  These include office and productivity applications such as:

  - GNOME Calculator

  - Several text editors, from the simple and easy to use Gnome editor (gedit), to (arguably) the most powerful text editor ever created, Emacs (which is not a GNOME application)

  - Dictionary, allowing you to look up a word in one of the many freely available dictionaries on the Internet.

Desktop Preferences

  This submenu contains preferences tools used to customize your desktop; see for details.

Games

  Lots of them — just try!

Graphics

  - Gimp — an image editing program for power users; it rivals Photoshop.

  - Image viewers such as Eye of GNOME, GQview and gThumb.

  - GNOME Postscript Viewer, which can also be used for viewing PDF files.

Internet

  Here you will find the Galeon web browser. If you haven't used it before, give it a try — you will never go back to Netscape.

  Depending on the software installed on your system, you are also likely to find here:

  - Netscape web browser

  - X-Chat, an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) client.

  - GNOME-ICU for talking with other people using ICQ protocol.

  - gftp, a graphical tool for file transfers, supporting FTP, HTTP, and SSH protocols. Note that the GNOME file manager, Nautilus, also has built-in FTP capabilities.

Other

  Shows all applications which do not belong to one of the other categories. In particular, this submenu is likely to contain many GNOME 1.x applications such as AbiWord, a lightweight word processing application and Gnumeric, a full-featured Excel-compatible spreadsheet.

Programming

  Bug report tool. Use this tool to make suggestions and report bugs in GNOME applications.

Sound & Video

  Here you will find a CD player, Volume Control, and an MP3 player XMMS.

System Tools

  This submenu contains various tools used for managing your system, such as:

  - System Monitor. This application can be used to view all processes (tasks) currently running on your system and the resources (memory and processor time) they use. You can also use the System Monitor to kill a frozen or otherwise misbehaving application.

  - Configuration Editor. This tool is only recommended for advanced users. It allows you to change all settings used by GNOME applications (unlike preferences tools which only cover some of the settings). However, it provides little assistance or safeguards; it can easily make your system completely unusable if you do not know what you are doing.

  - Archive Generator, a tool for creating archive files.

  - Floppy Formatter, a tool for formatting floppy disks.

  This submenu also contains tools for managing software installed on your system, namely GnoRPM and Red Carpet (if you are using the distribution of GNOME prepared by Ximian, Inc.). GnoRPM allows you to view all software packages installed on your system (if you are using a distribution of Linux based on RPM packages, such as Red Hat, SuSe, or Mandrake); it also allows you to remove, update, or install new packages. Red Carpet provides an extremely easy, almost one-click, way to update your GNOME installation. Both of these utilities, however, require that you have system administrator (root) privileges.

  And finally, the same submenu also contains various terminal emulators (xterm, Color xterm, and GNOME Terminal) letting you use the most powerful (but not the most user friendly) interface ever created — the command line prompt.

Help

  This starts the GNOME help browser, Yelp, described in .

Home Folder

  This opens a new Nautilus window showing the contents of your home folder.

## Help — I Am in Trouble!

Everyone runs into trouble sooner or later. Here is some advice on how to handle the most common problems:

### Killing a Stalled Application

If an application is stalled or frozen — that is, if it does not respond to your mouse clicks and keyboard commands, you can either wait and hope that it wakes up, or kill it. If you decide to kill it (NOTE: You will lose all unsaved data), start the GNOME System monitor (from GNOME Menu Applications Sytem Tools ). Select the application you want to kill and click on End process button at the bottom. You can also right-click on the application name and choose End process; if it doesn't help, right-click and choose Kill process. Using the GNOME System monitor also allows you to find and kill all helper processes started by this application.

If a GNOME application freezes or crashes (unexpectedly dies) repeatedly, you should file a bug report as described in the GNOME feedback page.

### My Whole System Froze!

If your whole system is frozen and is not responding, do not hurry to push the power button on the computer — this is usually the worst solution. Most probably, it is not the operating system itself that is frozen (UNIX systems are known for stability), but just the graphical part, the X Window System. In this case, you can try to restart the X Window System by simultaneously pressing Ctrl Alt Backspace . This should work for the implementation of the X Window system used on Linux and *BSD, XFree86 (unless it was disabled by your system administrator). Of course, in this way you also lose all unsaved data, but at least you do not risk harming the whole file system.

### My Whole GNOME Configuration Is Messed Up!

If you have a serious problem with your GNOME settings — for example, if your panel is missing — the radical solution is to remove all your GNOME configuration files and start from scratch. This is an emergency solution, as you lose all configuration settings and will need to configure your menus, panels, etc. again from scratch, that is, from the default GNOME configuration. However, this only affects your GNOME configuration, so your data files and settings for non-GNOME applications remain intact.

To remove all your GNOME configuration settings and return to the original GNOME configuration, logout then log in again holding down the keys Ctrl and Shift. (Do so immediately after entering your password in the login dialog.) You will be presented with a dialog, offering you the choice of resetting the saved session (that is, the applications open when you last logged out); resetting your GNOME configuration settings; or both.

Finally, if you have really severe problems and your system freezes or becomes otherwise unusable as soon as you login, you have one last option. You can select the Failsafe session type instead of the default GNOME in the login screen. Both GNOME and KDE Login Managers support this. In this session type, GNOME is not started; instead, you are presented with a single terminal window. This is almost guaranteed to start, and if you know how to use command-line tools to find and fix your problem, you have a chance. Otherwise, ask an expert.

## Where to Find More Information

### GNOME Help System

GNOME includes detailed documentation for the majority of applications, utilities and other components, such as the panel or the Nautilus file manager. To view a manual for an application, choose the Help menu in the application; to view help about the panel or panel objects, right-click on it and choose Help from the popup menu. This will automatically launch the GNOME help browser, Yelp, showing the appropriate manual.

You can also start Yelp by choosing Applications Help . This will show the top-level help system page, listing all GNOME documents conveniently organized by topic.

In addition to the manuals for individual applications, GNOME documentation also includes:

GNOME Desktop 2.0 User Guide

  This user guide provides a general overview of GNOME and detailed documentation for core GNOME components (such as the desktop, panel, Nautilus, and desktop preferences tools).

If you are new to UNIX/Linux...

  This short document gives the minimal necessary information about UNIX and UNIX-like operating systems, including such things as filenames, paths and directories, permissions, symbolic links and most confusing of them all, the notion of mounting. If you have never used a UNIX system before, be sure to read this.

Yelp can also be used for viewing non-GNOME documentation, such as man pages and info pages (see below).

### GNOME Resources on the Internet

In addition to documentation shipped with GNOME, there is also a wealth of information available on the Internet. A good starting point is the GNOME website. There you will find instructions for installing GNOME, reviews and tips, developer information, and more.

If you can not find an answer to your question there, you may ask other GNOME users and developers on the GNOME mailing list (subscription instructions can be found here). Note, however, that this list is for GNOME-related questions only (do not ask how to configure the X Window System, for instance), and it is impolite (to say the least) to ask a question without first checking if this question has already been answered in other available documents such as the GNOME User Guide.

Finally, if you use IRC (Internet Relay Chat), you can find other GNOME users and developers and ask questions on the #gnome and #gnome-help channels on irc.gnome.org.

### Everything Not GNOME

You should realize that GNOME is just part of your computer system. If you want to unleash the full potential of your computer, you need to understand not just GNOME but also the underlying operating system (UNIX/Linux/FreeBSD), various tools and utilities included with it, and its graphics system (the X Window System). Each of these components usually comes with its own documentation. Most of UNIX commands and utilities are documented in so-called manual pages, or man pages for short. You can view them using the Yelp help browser (see ). This documentation is usually very detailed and more technical than most users would like. Another documentation format used by utilities from the GNU project is called info pages. They, too, can be viewed using Yelp. Many applications also have documentation in other formats. Sometimes it is not easy to find documentation for a given application — try looking in the directories `/usr/share/doc` and `/usr/doc`.

Documentation for the operating system itself varies from one system to another. The best advice is to check the printed manual which came with your system. For Linux, a good source of information is the Linux Documentation Project (LDP); you can read their documentation on the Internet at http://www.linuxdoc.org. Virtually all Linux distributions also include copies of LDP documents; usually they are found at `/usr/share/doc/LDP` or `/usr/share/doc/HOWTO`.

And of course, there are a number of books available about all flavors of UNIX/Linux, GNOME, and about anything else you might be interested in. Check your local bookstore.

### Feedback

If you have found a bug in one of the GNOME applications, or have some comments or suggestions regarding GNOME applications or documentation, please let us know! Instructions for submitting bug reports and comments are given in the GNOME Feedback Page.