The GNOME and KDE Desktop Environments

A desktop environment for X provides one or more window managers and a suite of clients that conform to a standard graphical interface based on a common set of software libraries. When they are used to develop associated clients, these libraries provide graphical consistency for the client windows, menus, buttons, and other onscreen components, along with some common keyboard controls and client dialogs. The following sections briefly discuss the two desktop environments that are included with Fedora: GNOME and KDE.

GNOME: The GNU Network Object Model Environment

The GNOME project, which was started in 1997, is the brainchild of programmer whiz Miguel de Icaza. GNOME provides a complete set of software libraries and clients. GNOME depends on a window manager that is GNOME-aware. This means that to provide a graphical desktop with GNOME elements, the window manager must be written to recognize and use GNOME. Some compliant window managers that are GNOME-aware include Havoc Pennington's metacity (the default GNOME window manager), Enlightenment, Window Maker, IceWM, and sawfish.

Fedora uses GNOME's user-friendly suite of clients to provide a consistent and userfriendly desktop. GNOME is a staple feature of Red Hat's commercial Linux distributions and Fedora because Red Hat actively supports its development. GNOME clients are found under the /usr/bin directory, and GNOME configuration files are stored under the /etc/gnome and /usr/share/gnome directories, with user settings stored in the home directory under .gnome.

Ximian GNOME for Red Hat

In 1999, Miguel de Icaza and Nat Friedman, the original GNOME developers, created a company and a product now known as Ximian. Ximian is a polished GNOME environment that offers not only an updated suite of GNOME clients, but also groupware software that provides integrated mail, calendar, addressing, and instant messaging services.

In August 2003, Ximian was acquired by Novell, Inc. The Ximian GNOME distribution, now named Ximian Desktop 2, is not included with Red Hat's Enterprise Linux distributions or Fedora, but you might be able to install it via CD-ROM or, if you have broadband access, in about an hour or less over the Internet. Versions are available for many different Linux distributions (even those on non-Intel platforms).

To get started, you can go to Novell's Ximian Desktop website at http://www.novell.com/products/desktop/download.html. You first use wget to quickly download a graphical installer, which is then used to select a download site, selected files, and the base Ximian distribution. The download and installation are done as an automatic process, and Ximian replaces your default GNOME software with its own GNOME distribution. After installation, you can quickly install updates and bug fixes by using an update icon on the Ximian desktop. Be careful though, Ximian GNOME can cause headaches for Fedora, mainly because of package overlapping. Package overlapping is when different versions of packages are installed, making it difficult to upgrade without any problems with incompatible packages. When you are ready to update GNOME, you might have to remove the existing packages and install fresh packages to ensure a smooth transition.

A representative GNOME desktop, running the gconftool-2 client used for setting themes, is shown in Figure 6.10.

Figure 6.10. Fedora's GNOME desktop uses the metacity window manager and offers a selection of GNOME (and KDE) themes.

You can configure your desktop in various ways and by using different menu items under the Preferences menu, which can be found as part of the main Desktop menu. The myriad of configurations options allow you to tailor every aspect of your system's look and feel. In Figure 6.11 you can see a selection of the preferences options available to you.

Figure 6.11. You can customize your Fedora desktop by using preferences settings that are available in the Nautilus graphical shell.

KDE: The K Desktop Environment

KDE, which is included with Fedora, has been available for Linux, Xorg, and XFree86 since 1996. KDE is a graphical desktop environment that offers a huge suite of clients, including a free office suite named KOffice. KDE clients are located under the /usr/bin directory, and nearly all clients have a name that begins with k.

The .kde directory in your home directory contains custom settings and session information. You can use KDE's Control Center, as shown in Figure 6.12, to customize desktop settings. You can launch this client by clicking the Control Center menu item from KDE's desktop menu (hosted by the panel along the bottom of your desktop, known as the kicker) or from the command line, like so:

$ kcontrol &

Figure 6.12. You can use the KDE Control Center to manage nearly every aspect of KDE desktop sessions.

Related Fedora and Linux Commands

You can use these commands to create and configure the X Window System in Fedora:

Xorg The X server that is provided with the X Window System distribution from The X.Org Foundation

mouseconfig Fedora's text-based GUI pointing-device-configuration program

kcontrol The KDE Control Center client

system-config-display Fedora's graphical X11R7 configuration tool

system-config-mouse Fedora's graphical mouse configuration tool

gdmsetup The GNOME display manager configuration client

startx A shell script that is used to start one or more X sessions from the shell command line

xsri A display manager root desktop decoration client