Chapter 4: Everyday Applications

Overview

With the Fedora Operating System now installed, you have probably looked around to see what s new and found that a fair bit has changed. Some of the new additions have already been introduced to you, and a few applications you will find yourself using again and again. For example, at some point, you ll probably be looking for Office-type applications that will allow you to create documents, spreadsheets, and so on. Maybe you ll even want to embed some graphics into your documents that you ve either scanned or captured from your digital camera. Finally, while you re drafting your latest masterpiece, you may want to listen to some music either from a CD you ve bought or from some MP3s you ve downloaded.

Well, the good news is that this and more is available in Fedora, out of the box. This chapter looks at some of the new applications available within the Fedora distribution. While Red Hat already had such a bewildering array of applications out of the box that covering them all in a single chapter would be impractical , Fedora has updated or added yet more applications. We ll introduce some of them, concentrating on the applications that we think you re most likely to need to complete those vital everyday tasks , and have some fun, too.

The applications in this chapter are grouped into the following sections:

• Office applications

• Internet applications

• Personal information management applications

• Multimedia applications

• System utilities

Each section will discuss what s required to install the application (if it hasn t already been installed by default), and how to configure the installation to suit your requirements. We ll also point out some of the similarities and differences between these applications and other applications that you may be familiar with ”such as those found on the Microsoft operating system.

This chapter also covers emulator technologies, which emulate the Microsoft Windows operating system or interpret Windows applications and allow them to run on Linux. These will be of interest if, for example, you re thinking of developing a cross-platform application and you want to check its compatibility with both Linux and Windows operating systems.

As a survey, this chapter is designed to show you what s available, rather than to act as a user guide for individual applications. For most of these applications, the online help is comprehensive and well written, and can be accessed from the application s Help menu. In addition, you ll find URLs of Web sites that provide further documentation and support.