Summary

This has been a basic introduction to the GNOME desktop, the default GUI for Red Hat Linux. GNOME includes many of the same tools that you might find in Microsoft Windows, and more. In fact, you can distribute open applications on four different desktops. It s easy to configure the GNOME desktop to your needs.

A substantial number of extras are available through GNOME. This includes a wide variety of software that could easily cost you hundreds of dollars. It includes the accessories that you need every day. The Internet applications consist of browsers, e-mail managers, and chat clients . The Sound and Video utilities allow you to manage, process, and record multimedia. And GNOME includes a number of system tools that help administrators manage their systems.

In the next chapter , we ll look at the most common Linux GUI desktop alternative, the K Desktop Environment (KDE). If you ve used KDE before, you ll see how Red Hat has customized it with a similar look and feel to GNOME.