This manual introduces you to the GNOME graphical desktop environment as implemented in openSUSE and shows you how to configure it to meet your personal needs and preferences. It also introduces you to several programs and services, including office programs such as OpenOffice.org, Web browsers, file managers, scanning tools, and image editing tools. It is intended for users who have some experience using a graphical desktop environment such as Macintosh*, Windows*, or other Linux desktops.
This guide contains the following parts:
This guide is intended for users of the GNOME desktop.
We want to hear your comments and suggestions about this manual and the other documentation included with this product. Please use the User Comments feature at the bottom of each page of the online documentation, or go to http://www.novell.com/documentation/feedback.html and enter your comments there.
For the latest version of this documentation, see the http://www.novell.com/documentation/opensuse102 Web site.
There are other manuals available on this product. If you want to have a look at the other end user documentation for openSUSE, the following manuals might be interesting:
Guides you through the installation and basic configuration of your system. For newcomers, the manual also introduces basic Linux concepts such as the file system, the user concept and access permissions and gives an overview of the features openSUSE offers to support mobile working. Provides help and advice in troubleshooting.
This manual introduces the KDE desktop of openSUSE and a variety of applications you will encounter when working with the KDE desktop. It guides you through using these applications and helps you perform key tasks. It is intended mainly for end users who want to make efficient use of applications running on the KDE desktop.
openSUSE also comes with a comprehensive manual for system administrators and home users with basic system administration knowledge. Check out Reference for advanced system administration tasks and a general understanding of openSUSE.
For an overview of all manuals shipped with openSUSE, refer to http://www.novell.com/documentation/opensuse102/, where you can also download the manuals. You can also access the information online in the Help Center of your desktop.
The following typographical conventions are used in this manual:
/etc/passwd: filenames and directory names
placeholder: replace placeholder with the actual value
PATH: the environment variable PATH
ls, --help: commands, options, and parameters
user: users or groups
Alt, Alt F1 : a key to press or a key combination; keys are shown in uppercase as on a keyboard
, : menu items, buttons
Dancing Penguins (Chapter Penguins, ↑Reference): This is a reference to a chapter in another book.
This book is written in Novdoc, a subset of DocBook (see http://www.docbook.org). The XML source files were validated by xmllint, processed by xsltproc, and converted into HTML using a customized version of Norman Walsh's stylesheets.