Chapter 3. Configuring Gnome

Red Hat Linux Version 6.0 is the first version of the Red Hat Linux product that is integrated "out of the box" with a visual shell—called a desktop environment. In fact, it actually comes with several desktop environments that you can switch among. The default—and most complete—desktop environment is Gnome (pronounced with a hard G: "Guh-nome").

Gnome is not the only desktop environment available to you: For information on the K and Another Level desktop environments, see Chapter 6. But if you accepted the suggestions made by the Red Hat installation program, your computer will start up with Gnome.

Gnome is a very complete and powerful graphic desktop. In look and feel, it is probably closer to the Mac OS than to Windows 98, but it incorporates suggestions of both. It is probably more user-configurable than either of those commercial OSes.

With the advent of Red Hat Linux 6 and Gnome, it is perfectly possible to use Linux visually — that is, to never access the Linux command line. (In truth, even Windows users find a few tasks that are easier to perform at the old DOS prompt. This is probably true of Gnome and Linux as well.) Gnome is a visual desktop environment equal to any other available. This chapter discusses how to configure your Gnome environment so that you can make the most of it.