## Introduction to Gnome

Gnome
Documentation Team
This document was last updated on April 25, 2001.
2000, 2001
Red Hat, Inc., David A. Wheeler, Alexander Kirillov

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. You may obtain a copy of the GNU Free Documentation License from the Free Software Foundation by visiting their Web site or by writing to: Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.

Many of the names used by companies to distinguish their products and services are claimed as trademarks. Where those names appear in any Gnome documentation, and those trademarks are made aware to the members of the Gnome Documentation Project, the names have been printed in caps or initial caps.

## What is Gnome?

Gnome is a user-friendly graphical desktop environment for UNIX and UNIX-like systems that enables users to easily use and configure their computers. 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 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 web site.

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 1.4 which the latest (as of March 2001) release of Gnome.

## About This Guide

This guide 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 detailed manuals listed in . Also, this guide assumes you already have Gnome installed; if you need help installing Gnome, please check the instructions on Gnome Website.

This guide was written by the members of Gnome Documentation Project (GDP). If you have any comments or suggestions about this guide 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 GDP Web Site.

The authors of this guide assume that you are using the default configuration of Gnome (that is, default GTK theme and sawfish window manager with MicroGUI 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 Guide

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. Some documents use notations mouse button 1, mouse button 2 and mouse button 3 (or MB1, MB2, MB3 for short) for left, middle, and right buttons respectively.

If you are using a two-button mouse, you can emulate the middle mouse button by pressing left and right buttons simultaneoulsy; 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 Gnome Control Center. 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 document instructs you to click, and use left mouse button whenever a document talks about right-clicking or mouse button 3.

If you use a mouse with some 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, 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.

Sample Gnome Display

### Panel

The long bar at the bottom of is a Gnome Panel. It contains a number of useful things, such as

- The Main Menu: this is the button with the stylized footprint. Clicking this button brings up a menu containing all Gnome applications and commands, including the logout command.

- Application launchers: these are buttons that start various programs. For example, the toolbox button starts the Gnome Control Center (for configuring your system).

- Panel applets: these are are tiny programs designed to work inside the Panel. For example, the clock applet on the far right shows the current time, and tasklist applet (in the middle of the panel) shows the list of all application windows on your desktop (this will be discussed in detail in ).

As with all Gnome components, Panel is highly configurable: you can add or remove application launchers and applets, edit the Main Menu, change Panel background, or even create new Panels. For example, to move an object, drag it to the new location using the middle mouse button; 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 pop-up menu. To hide the Panel when you are not using it, click on one of the Hide buttons (with 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 empty space on the Panel (for example, in the hide arrows) and selecting Panel from the menu. The Panel menu also contains Panel manual, which describes all these options and more.

### Desktop

Everything outside the Panel is called desktop. You can place icons for files, applications, and other items on the desktop (a default collection of icons is installed with Gnome), after which you can 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 directory, the File Manager will start and show the contents of that directory. Your desktop will probably have a icon showing a house and labeled yourname's Home. Double-clicking on this icon will start the File Manager at your home directory.

The easiest way to place an item on the desktop is to drag-and-drop a file from the File Manager window. This will be discussed in more detail in . 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 pop-up 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 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, clicking with the right mouse button on any empty space on your desktop brings up a pop-up menu, which allows you to change desktop background or other properties, or add a new item to the desktop. Clicking on the desktop with the middle mouse button produces the default menu for your window manager (see ).

### Logging Out

To log out of Gnome, click on the Main 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 graphical system used by all UNIX-like operating systems, X Window System, allows you to have several windows on your screen, with a different application running each in each window. By itself, however, X Window System can only do very low-level operations, so it is always used in conjunction with another piece of software, called window manager. A window manager provides windows' borders and buttons, allows you to move, close, and resize windows, etc. Gnome can work with many window managers. The most popular are: Enlightenment and Sawfish (formerly known as Sawmill). Each window manager can use many different styles of window decorations and buttons (this is referred to as 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 (MicroGUI). An example of the window border in the MicroGUI theme is shown in

### Window Border in MicroGUI Style.

Window border in MicroGUI style

So, what can you do with windows?

Closing, minimizing, and maximizing windows

  To close a window, click on the button with the small yellow x in the right side of the window border. 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 button with small yellow up arrow. Clicking on this arrow once again will restore the window to its original size.

  To minimize (hide or iconify) a window, click on the button with small yellow down arrow. The window will disappear from screen. However, it is not lost forever — the application in this window continues running, no data is lost — it is just temporarily hidden. All minimized windows are shown in the tasklist 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 title bar, so the title bar is the only part of the window left on screen. To shade a window, double-click on the title bar; to unshade, double-click again. Try it!

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 title bar. You can also switch a window from raised to lowered and back by clicking on the title bar with the middle mouse button, or by clicking anywhere inside the window with the right mouse button while holding down 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 title bar of this window has different color (left side is blue, as opposed to gray for all other windows). To change focus to another window, just click anywhere in this window. You can also click in the window title bar to focus and raise the window simultaneously.

Moving and resizing windows

  To move a window, drag its title bar to a new location using 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 (except the top one) 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.

### Tasklist

All the windows on your desktop (including the minimized ones) are shown in the tasklist, located on your Panel. For each window, a mini-icon and beginning of the window title is shown. To restore a minimized window, just click on its title in the tasklist. Right-clicking on the window title brings up the pop-up menu whihc allows you to shade a window, close it, or kill the application running in the window. The last option should only be used when an application is frozen and does not respond to close window command. If you kill an application, you lose all unsaved data!

### Window Operations 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, click on the button in the left side of the window title bar (with the small triangle pointing down). You can also invoke this menu by right-clicking in the window title or clicking anywhere in the window with the middle mouse button while holding down the ALT key.

### Desktop Menu

Finally, Sawfish also provides a desktop menu; it can be accessed by clicking on any empty space of the desktop with the middle mouse button. It contains the following options:

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 Sawfish manual for details.

Programs

  Same as Programs section of the Main Menu.

Customize

  Allows the user to customize all properties of the Sawfish behavior. For a new user, we recommend trying various Appearance settings, but leaving all other subsections alone.

Help

  Provides links to Sawfish web page, Sawfish manual (beware: this is not a user's manual but rather a manual for people who write extensions/customizations to Sawfish using LISP programming language), link to Gnome Users Guide, and to Gnome Web site.

## Nautilus: Gnome File Manager, Help Browser, and More

Gnome 1.4 includes a graphical shell, Nautilus. It combines file manager, help browser, web browser, FTP client, and much more. To launch it, select Nautilus in the Main Menu, or just dpuble-click on any directory icon on your desktop.

### Managing Your Files With Nautilus

As most modern graphic file managers, Nautilus shows the contents of a selected directory using icons to represent files and subdirectories. Double-clicking on any file or directory opens it (for data files, it starts the appropriate application which opens this file). Right-clicking on a file or directory produces a pop-up 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 files between directories. To move move a file from one directory to another, open each directory in a different Nautilus window by selecting New window from the Nautilus File menu. Select the file you need, and drag it from one window into another using the mouse. You can also drag a file or directory to the 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 detailed description of all these possibilities, read Nautilus manual.

### Reading Documentation With Nautilus

In addition to being a file manager, Nautilus is also a help browser: you can use it to read documentation installed on your system. This includes not only Gnome documentation, but also UNIX-style manual pages (manpages), GNU info pages (documentation format used GNU project utilities), and other types of documentation. To view the list of all documentation installed on your system, click on the Help tab in the left panel of Nautilus.

## Customizing

Gnome is highly configurable — you can change almost anything: background color, key bindings, location of panels and contents of the Main Menu, and more. Most of these changes are done using Gnome Control Center, which can be found in Settings submenu of the Main Menu; this menu also allows you to access a specific section of the Gnome Control Center. The Control Center has its own detailed documentation which you should consult before making any changes.

Here we would like to give just an overview of the most commonly used options of the Gnome Control Center.

Background

  You can change the desktop background by selecting Background in the Desktop section of Gnome Control Center. (A quicker alternative to access this section is to right-click on any empty space on your desktop and select Change Desktop Background from the pop-up menu).

Theme Selector

  Theme Selector allows you to change the desktop theme (also known as GTK theme). This changes the appearance of the Main Menu, as well as menus, toolbars, scrollbars, checkbuttons and other elements of graphical user interface for all Gnome applications. Many users find the default GTK theme rather dull, so the first thing they do is switching to another one.

Sawfish window manager

  This section allows you to change settings for the window manager. In particular, in the Appearance subsection you can change the frame style (theme), which determines the window borders and buttons. You can also change the font used for window title bars. If you are a new user, we recommend that you do not change other settings.

Session

  In this section you can define the startup programs (that is, programs that are run every time you log in), enable or disable login hints and logout confirmation dialog.

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 pop-up menu. In this way, you can change the caption of an icon, size and background color (or even background image) of the Panel, and much more.

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!

## 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. Here is a list of some of the most useful tools and applications which you can find in Gnome's Main Menu (this is not a complete list!)

Applications

  These include office and productivity applications such as

  - Gnumeric — a full-featured Excel-compatible spreadsheet

  - AbiWord — a lightweight word processing application

  - Gnome Calendar to help you manage your busy schedule

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

Graphics

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

  - Image viewers such as Eye of Gnome, GQview and xv

Utilities

  Among other things, here you will find

  - Calculator

  - Gnome Search tool which you can use to find a file on your system

  - gfloppy for formatting floppy disks

  - GDictfor looking up a word in one of the many dictionaries freely available on the Internet

Multimedia

  Here you will find CD player, Mixer (which also can be used to adjust volume of your speakers), and an MP3 player XMMS.

System

  This submenu contains utilities for managing your system. You can find out detailed information about your processor, memory, and operating system using System Info, check how much space you have left on your disks using Gnome DiskFree, or view all the processes (jobs) which are currently running on your computer using System monitor. In addition, System monitor also shows you load level for the processor and memory, and allows you to kill a stalled or otherwise unwanted job.

  This submenu also contains tools for managing software installed on your system, namely GnoRPM and Helix Gnome Update (if you are using the distribution of Gnome prepared by Helix Code, 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. Helix Gnome Update 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, Gnome Terminal) letting you use the most powerful (although not most user friendly) interface ever created — the command line prompt.

Internet

  Here, you will find Netscape web browser, X-Chat for Internet Relay Chat (IRC), Gnome-ICU for talking with other people using ICQ protocol, and gftp which is a graphical tool for FTP file transfers. Note that Gnome file manager, Nautilus, also has built-in FTP capabilities, so gftp is needed only in those rare cases when you need something really complicated (for example, transferring files using secure version of FTP, based on ssh).

Games

  Lots of them — just try!

## 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 System submenu of the Main Menu), right-click on the frozen application name, and select Kill now. Using 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 .

### My Whole System Froze!

If your whole system is frozen and is not responding, do not hurry to push the reset 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, X Window System. In this case, you can try to restart X Window System by simultaneously pressing CTRL-ALT-Backspace. This should work for the implementation of 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 to mess up the whole file system.

### My Whole Gnome Configuration is Messed Up!

If you have more serious problems than just desktop icons — 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 Gnome configuration, so your data files and settings for non-Gnome applications remain intact.

To remove all your Gnome configuration files and return to the original Gnome configuration, logout then log in again holding down keys CTRL and SHIFT (immediately after entering your password in the login dialog). You will be presented a dialog, offering you the choice to reset the saved session (that is, which applications were open when you last logged out); reset 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 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 OK, 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

### Documentation Included with Gnome

Gnome includes detailed documentation for the majority of applications, utilities and other components, such as Panel or Nautilus file manager. You can view the list of all Gnome documents installed on your system using the Help Contents tab in Nautilus. So, if you want to know more about one of these components, read the appropriate manual.

In addition to the manuals for individual components, Gnome documentation also includes:

Gnome Users Guide

  In addtition to general overview, this users guide also contains detailed documentation for core Gnome components (Desktop, Panel, Nautilus, Control Center and more).

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 never used UNIX system before, be sure to read this.

Glossary

  Gives brief explanation of some of computer-related terms you may see in Gnome documentation, from ASCII to X Window System.

### Gnome Resources on the Internet

In addition to documentation shipped with Gnome, there is also wealth of information available on the Internet. A good starting point is, of course, 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 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 X Window System, for instance), and it is impolite (to say the least) to ask a question without first checking if this question is already answered in available documents such as Gnome FAQ.

### 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 (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 Nautilus (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 Nautilus. Many applications also have documentation in other formats. Sometimes it is not easy to find documentation for a given application — try looking in the directory `/usr/doc`.

Documentation for 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 or 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/doc/LDP` or `/usr/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 any comments, suggestions, or complaints about this guide, please send them to Gnome Documentation project at docs@gnome.org.

If you find a bug in one of Gnome applications, please report it! The developers do read these reports and try to fix all reported bugs. The easiest way to send a bug report is to use Gnome Bug Report Tool, found in the Utilities submenu of the Main Menu. This tool will be automatically started if a Gnome application crashes. It should also be used for submitting suggestions or requests for new features for Gnome applications: just select Severity: enhancement in the appropriate window of Gnome Bug Report Tool. Detailed information about contacting developers and reporting bugs can be found in Reporting GNOME bugs and other feedback document, which you can find in the Help tab of Nautilus file manager.

If you have questions about Gnome, or want to discuss Gnome with other users and developers, you should subscribe to the Gnome mailing list as described in .