Modeled after the NEXTStep user interface, Window Maker offers the same smooth, refined, elegant look. You can see from Figure 4-9 that a lot of work has gone into creating the look. Eye candy isn’t the only thing you find with this interface, though.
It is just as functional as any of the other interfaces.
Figure 4-9: Window Maker shows off the Debian logo as its background.
The integrated configuration tool enables you to configure many aspects of the interface without having to edit a configuration file. You can configure things like window creation location, the workspace, animation, and so much more. Access the configuration menu by clicking the third button in the upper-right corner of the screen. Or access the menus by clicking the right mouse button anywhere on the background of the desktop.
This is not a single desktop interface. In the upper-left corner of the window is the control for the virtual desktop. To add a new workspace, right-click the desktop and select Workspace from the menu. Then select Workspaces from the second menu, and finally choose New from the last menu. You can add as many workspaces as you like. To access the newly created workspace, click the arrows in the corner of the workspace icon in the upper-left corner of the screen.
Installing and Using Desktop Environments
As the windowing applications have progressed, another layer has been added to the mix — the desktop environment. There are primarily two desktop environments used on Linux systems: GNOME and KDE. These environments use a window man-ager as the interface, which adds more function to the GUI. The desktop environ-ment provides a degree of flexibility, which adds to the window manager’s customization. Links to applications are represented as icons on the desktop.
These icons on the desktop now link to drives that mount automatically when exe-cuted with a double click.
Because desktops traditionally provide the primary interface to the users, the applications handle the data, preferences, and such themselves. These desktop environments can instead handle some of this work for the applications. This frees the programmer to focus his or her efforts on the function of the application, result-ing in better applications.
GNOME
Born out of the need for an entirely free desktop environment, GNOME (GNU Network Object Model Environment)leads on the cutting edge of desktops. However, some KDE enthusiasts may disagree. When it comes to the GNOME desktop, many of the features seem to have been copied from the early versions of KDE, although both were developed roughly around the same time. Using the object-oriented tech-nology in the creation of the desktop environment, GNOME offers many great advantages to users, such as a file manager, application tool bar, and interface styles.
The GNOME desktop, seen in Figure 4-10, offers the same workspace as the other window managers. The desktop area can hold links to applications in the form of icons. As you can see from Figure 4-10, there is a menu bar at the bottom, which you can also customize to hold additional programs icons.
You can access files through the menu in two ways. The first is through the GNOME button. Clicking the GNOME foot in the lower-left corner produces a menu from which you can launch programs. Or, you can right-click the desktop, which pro-duces the same menu.
Included with GNOME are applets that run on the bar at the bottom. To add GNOME applets, right-click the bar and select Add Applet from the menu. Follow the menus to locate the applet you wish to add.
Figure 4-10: The GNOME desktop environment looks smooth with its fully functioning tool bar, menu, and desktop.
Installing GNOME
You can install GNOME through Debian’s dselectapplication. To install GNOME, you must install gnome-core, gnome-panel, gnome-session, and gnome-control-center, plus any other dependent applications (there may be a number of them).
You can install as many of the GNOME-related applications as you want. Using gnomeas a keyword, search in dselectfor related applications. Some of these applications may not be official GNOME applications, but they may be worth installing anyway.
Once you have the main applications installed, you can run GNOME by executing gnome-session. GNOME still needs a window manager to run, so it uses the sys-tem default. You can also add whatever applications you want to start up automati-cally in the .xsessionor .xinitrcfile in your home directory.
When a GNOME user shuts down, GNOME saves the workspace (including open GNOME applications) and reopens them the next time the user starts GNOME. This process differs from that of the standard window managers, which only open what you configure them to open.
Some people are turning to Helix-GNOME for their installation of GNOME. They do have an easy installation for many distributions — even for Debian. You can reach the Helix-GNOME site at www.helixcode.com/desktop/. However, you may have trouble when you upgrade to the next version of Debian because HelixCode does not always hold to the Debian file system standards.