Chapter 3. Getting Started with the Desktop

In This Chapter

  • Logging in to Linux

  • Getting started with the desktop

  • Choosing KDE or GNOME desktops

  • Using the GNOME desktop environment

  • Configuring an Online Desktop

  • Switching desktop environments

  • Using the KDE desktop environment

  • Getting your desktop to work

The desktop is the most personal feature of your computer. The way that icons, menus, panels, and backgrounds are arranged and displayed should make it both easy and pleasant to do your work. With Fedora and RHEL, you have an incredible amount of control over how your desktop behaves and how your desktop is arranged.

From the initial login screen to the desktop background and screensaver, the latest version of Fedora is sporting yet another new look for the desktop. Designs feature the new Fedora Infinity artwork and Nodoka desktop theme. The two desktop environments available with Fedora, KDE 3.5.8 and GNOME 2.20, have made further improvements to the Fedora desktop. With each desktop environment, you can get a full set of desktop applications, features for launching applications, and tools for configuring preferences.

The basic desktop is provided by the X.Org X server. The X server provides the framework on which GNOME, KDE, and other desktop applications and window managers rely. If you have used the XFree86 X server in other Linux distributions, special features of the X.org server described later in this chapter might interest you. (See Chapter 1 for a description of the X Window System.) ...

Get Fedora® 8 and Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® Bible now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.