Hello, and welcome to LinuxPlanet's look into the GNOME world. Once a week, I'll cover a detail or two about getting the most out of GNOME and take a look at the newest GNOME software.

This week we'll get up to speed on how to get GNOME, along with a basic configuration trick that makes GNOME's panels a little less obtrusive, provides a handy way to save desktop space, and unclutters your panels of all those app icons so you can save space for pagers and task lists.

Getting GNOME

There are two ways to get GNOME: the GNOME project way, and the Helix Code way, and for most uses, the latter is the way to go. For users of one of the following distributions, Helix Code has a binary release of GNOME for you:

• LinuxPPC 2000
• Debian GNU/Linux 2.3 (Woody)
• TurboLinux 6.0
• Yellow Dog Linux Champion Server 1.2
• RedHat Linux 6.x or 7
• SuSE Linux 6.3 or 6.4
• Linux Mandrake 6.1, 7.0 or 7.1
• Caldera OpenLinux eDesktop 2.4

You can pay a visit to the Helix Code download page and select your distribution. The primary way Helix Code gets GNOME onto your machine is via a graphical installer program you launch from the command line. The site provides the instructions you need to get the installer running.

Users of a distribution based on Debian's packaging system can also just add the following line to the /etc/apt/sources.list file:

deb http://spidermonkey.helixcode.com/distributions/debian unstable main

After adding that line, run the following commands as root:

apt-get update

then

apt-get install task-helix-gnome

If you aren't using a supported distribution, or you want to build GNOME from the ground up, a visit to the GNOME download page, provides information on how to get GNOME from the stable and unstable source trees, or CVS.

What's in a Version?

If you're wondering about the differences between Helix GNOME and plain old GNOME, it breaks down to a few simple issues:

Helix Code aims to take some of the roughness out of tracking an open source project by providing binary packages tested for integration into their GNOME distribution. They've made a few things easier to get at (like a generous collection of themes) by packaging them up, and their installer adds a level of order to the confusion many feel when considering which of the 80+ packages that comprise the GNOME environment to download.

The most notable difference in the desktop itself is that they've also included a menu panel at the top of the screen that provides easy access to menus, configuration commands, and (by clicking on the clock) the GNOME calendar.

They've also provided an updater program that makes keeping current simple. Running the updater brings up a list of packages changed or added to the Helix GNOME distribution, which it will download and install for you. The updater also allows access to the preview releases of Evolution, the GNOME mailer.

Unless you just like building from source, it pays to follow the GNOME project's lead and just go with the Helix Code version of the GNOME environment. I've seen it in action on Debian, Red Hat, Mandrake, SuSE, and Caldera, and it's a painless installation process that provides a stable, comprehensive desktop.

One of the things people like most about GNOME is the flexibility it provides, especially with the variety of configurations for the panels.

Helix GNOME has two panels out of the box: a menu panel at the top of the screen and a panel at the bottom. The menu panel provides access to menus for GNOME, your distribution, and even any KDE apps on your system. It also includes a "Favorites" menu item, quick access to the GNOME Control Center, and a "Desktop" menu that can log out, tidy up desktop icons, and lock the screen.

On the far right of the menu panel, there's a small spider icon. Clicking on that provides a menu of various web destinations in the GNOME world, including the bugtracking database, mailing list archives, and GNOME software list. Clicking on the clock provides a menu of calendar views, and selecting one invokes the GNOME calendar program.

The menu panel is somewhat inflexible: you can turn it off if you don't like it, but most of the other things you can do with a GNOME panel are missing: you can't resize it, make it automatically hide itself, or alter its placement on the desktop.

The normal GNOME panel at the bottom of the screen, though, is much more flexible. This week, we're going to look at how to create a panel that provides quick access to favorite applications or applets without being in the way constantly. It also spares having to navigate the menus to get at a favorite application: put it in a small pop-up panel and it will always be one click away. By covering how to do this fairly simple operation uncovers where some of GNOME's configuration options are hidden away.

The first step is to create a new panel by right-clicking on either the panel at the bottom or the menu panel at the top of the screen. Move the mouse over the "Panel" menu entry, then over the "Create Panel" entry. Select the entry labeled "Aligned." This will place a new panel on one edge of the desktop.

The next step is to right click on that new panel and select the Panel/Properties/All Properties item. That will bring up a window that determines where along the edge of the display you want the new panel will be placed and its size and hiding characteristics.

Since we're aiming for an unobtrusive application launcher, consider the following settings:

• Panel Size: 24 pixels
• Panel Position: select the edge of the screen where the mouse pointer comes to rest naturally when not in use.
• Enable Auto-hide
• Disable 'Show hide buttons'

Having set all the panel's properties by clicking "OK", the panel will hide itself against the edge where you placed it. Now it's time to populate it with application icons. Since GNOME's panels are drag-n-drop, just select an item from the "Programs" menu and drag it over to your new panel, which will pop up long enough to drop the icon onto it.

The panel will hide on the edge of the screen until you mouse over it. If you decide you don't like it, right click on it, mousing over the "Panel" menu entry, and select "Remove this Panel" to get rid of it.

Quick Tip:

The GNOME mail notification applet (found under Programs/Applets/Network/Mailcheck) has six different notification graphics. More than one of these can run at a time, and you can select which mailbox each monitors. If using procmail with multiple mbox files, or have multiple POP accounts, this is a great way to keep track of which box has mail. Just add an applet for each box you want to monitor, pick a separate notification graphic, and point each one at the correct account, maildir, or file.

Next Week:

Evolution's getting closer, and I'll have a look at the newest preview release.

discuss this topic to forum