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 or MacOS user, refer to Chapter 4, Migrating to Linux from Windows®/Mac OS X® which will ease the transition between the two OSes and 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. If this is not the case and you are facing black screen with something like:
Mandrake Linux release 9.2 (CodeName) for i586 Kernel 2.4.22-9mdk on an i686 / tty 1 machine_name login: |
with a flashing cursor, type your user name (usually your first name or your nickname), then your secret password. You should now be “logged in”. Then type startx and the graphical interface will be launched.
GNU/Linux offers many graphical interfaces. In this manual we will discuss the popular KDE (see Chapter 7, Using KDE) and GNOME (see Chapter 8, Using GNOME).