CIS 116SUNY Ulster

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CIS 116 SUNY Ulster

• Chapter L5 The GUI
• Karl Wick

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GUIs and Linux

• X Windows is a graphical interface to the
  underlying linux components.

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Client / Server relationship

• The x window system has to power to run a program
  on one computer and take I/O from another
  computer. The computer that runs the program is
  called the X client and the computer that uses
  the program is called the X server. Note These
  terms are reversed from 'normal' networking
  terminology.

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Common Window managers

• Enlightenment - Used by Gnome
• Kwm - Used by KDE
• Over 50 others
• AnotherLevel
• CDE
• fvwm
• olwm
• mwm
• twm
• Gnome

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Gnome (sometimes pronounced guh-nome)

• Is a desktop environment that requires a window
  manager.
• Gnome uses Enlightenment
• The GUI that we installed on the class computers
  is gnome,
• With the standard Red Hat installation you have a
  choice of gnome or KDE or both if you have
  sufficient hard disk space.

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Starting the X Window System
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Starting X

• From the text interface type startx ltentergt
• It is best to use the GUI as a plain user
  although it will allow you to come in as root.
  This will generate a warning message.
• Gnome will display a picture and then a list of
  processed that it is starting. After a short wait
  you will see the main screen.

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Review

• You can set the system to automatically run the
  GUI by editing the /etc/inittab file. If you do
  this, it is hard to get back to the text
  interface. If you boot into text mode it is easy
  to go back and forth between text and GUI shells.

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How Its Done

• Look for this line
• id3initdefault in the /etc/inittab file
• 3 means boot to text shell
• 5 means boot to GUI
• Do NOT use any other value or you can trahs the
  system!
• You can force the program to reread the
  configuration file (and avoid the need to
  shutdown and restart manually) by typing
• init q ltentergt

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Gnome - The screen

• Icons
• The Panel
• Windows
• Desktop area

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Windows - Components

• A border
• Title bar
• Options button
• Iconify button (like mminimize)
• Minimixe/Maximize Button (like maximize/restore)
• Close Button
• Scroll bar

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Resizing

• Click (single click) the help icon
• Practice resizing from all four sides and corners
• Move by dragging the title bar
• Shade (roll up the window) by double clicking the
  title bar

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The options button

• Choices vary with build
• Stacking is interesting
• So is kill or annihilate

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The Panel

• The foot is the main menu
• The end arrows minimize the panel itself
• Standard icons
• Help
• Terminal emulation
• Open
• Try commands
• Leave open

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The Panel

• Tool Box
• Netscape
• Virtual Desktop selector
• Switch to unused and open help
• Click on terminal quarter, unused and help

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Clock

• Right click to modify properties

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The File Manager

• Notice the CDROM and floppy 0 icons on the
  desktop.
• These may not appear automatically with all
  implementations
• Click, foot, programs, file manager
• Click and - signs at left.
• Similar to windows explorer

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The File Manager

• /dev /home and other directories will be here
• open the /mnt directory.
• You should see cdrom and floppy
• Gnome tries to automatically mount these devices
• Open /home
• You will see all user account directories (but
  not root)

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Notice the buttons at the top of the window

• Icons, brief, detailed, custom
• Menu bar options

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Exercise - file management

• Open a new virtual desktop
• Open terminal emulation
• Create test1 test2 text3 (touch test1 test2
  test3)
• Switch to file manager desktop
• Click the rescan button
• Go to /home or /root (depending on how you logged
  in)
• The files should appear

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Exercise - file management

• Right click test1 and click on copy to test4
• The display will automatically rescan
• Right click test1 and delete
• Right click test2 and move to test5

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Multiple file operations

• Switch to brief view
• Click test3,
• Shift click test5
• Test3 test4 and test5 are selected. ltShift-clickgt
  selects a range of files
• ltCTRL-clickgt works too. It selects multiple files

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Open file on the menu

• Create a new directory called new_dir
• You can use relative or absolute paths

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Some applications

• Calendar
• footprint, programs, applications, calendar
• explore it
• Spreadsheet
• Footprint, programs, applications, Gnumeric
• Gnumeric will read .xls files
• Text editor
• Footprint, programs, applications, gedit
• Emacs is also available

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Configuring the desktop

• Click on configuration tool icon
• The "control center" appears
• At the top left is the desktop section
• Check out the background and screensaver areas
• In screensaver is where you can set a password
  to get back on

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Adding applets to the panel

• Right click on any empty part of panel
• Applets - monitors
• CPU load
• MEM load
• Disk usage

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Adding icons to menus

• Open footprint
• Right click any menu or sub menu
• Follow menus

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Games

• Are found under programs