Difference between revisions of "Linux Standard Desktop"
From Blue-IT.org Wiki
(→Introduction) |
|||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
== Introduction == | == Introduction == | ||
| − | This article is the summation in my experiences with the linux desktop in '''real world office work'''. None of the existing linux distributions come with all these settings preinstalled for a lot of good reasons. | + | This article is the summation in my experiences with the linux desktop in '''real world office work'''. None of the existing linux distributions come with all these settings preinstalled for a lot of good reasons. Each has it's own philosophhy or simply licence restrictions. I don't like to go into detail here. |
| − | + | This article is bound to the '''[http://www.gnome.org gnome desktop]''' for several reasons: | |
* Completely written for free use ''and'' development under the GPL without any restrictions for both: development platform and development community | * Completely written for free use ''and'' development under the GPL without any restrictions for both: development platform and development community | ||
* Very good [http://library.gnome.org/ documentation] | * Very good [http://library.gnome.org/ documentation] | ||
| Line 9: | Line 9: | ||
* Project with one of the first ''usability guidelines for desktop usage'' that apply to the linux desktop, the [http://library.gnome.org/devel/hig-book/stable/ HIG (Human Interface Guidelines)] | * Project with one of the first ''usability guidelines for desktop usage'' that apply to the linux desktop, the [http://library.gnome.org/devel/hig-book/stable/ HIG (Human Interface Guidelines)] | ||
| − | Other '''major programs''' that are | + | Other '''major programs''' that are described are |
* The ''firefox'' webbrowser | * The ''firefox'' webbrowser | ||
* ''Openoffice'' | * ''Openoffice'' | ||
Revision as of 20:08, 25 June 2008
Contents
Introduction
This article is the summation in my experiences with the linux desktop in real world office work. None of the existing linux distributions come with all these settings preinstalled for a lot of good reasons. Each has it's own philosophhy or simply licence restrictions. I don't like to go into detail here.
This article is bound to the gnome desktop for several reasons:
- Completely written for free use and development under the GPL without any restrictions for both: development platform and development community
- Very good documentation
- Commonly and widely used as standard desktop on different linux/unix/solaris platforms
- Continuous and reasonable development - not bleeding edge - but with a major sin for keeping stability and backwards compatibility
- Project with one of the first usability guidelines for desktop usage that apply to the linux desktop, the HIG (Human Interface Guidelines)
Other major programs that are described are
- The firefox webbrowser
- Openoffice
- The CUPS linux printing system
- Evolution Mail and Taskmanager
- Exaille Musikmanager
- Multimedia settings
Gnome
This section recommends the usage of this settings for gnome 2.22 and above. All settings in gnome can easily be read out and set via the gconf program. All settings are stored in an xml based file hierarchy with can - but should not be - edited by hand. Either the gconf commmand or the graphical gconf-editor should be used to alter the settings. We will see that this can be very handy using a batch file.
Nautilus
- View settings for listview and iconview
- Listview as default
- Document folders hierarchy
- ACL's
Gnome-panel
- Large bottom menu
Gnome-power-manager
Desktop
Notebook
Multimedia and other default programs
Smplayer
Mplayer is one of the best and commonly used multimedia apps for linux/unix. Despite there exist a lot of user interfaces for mplayer, not much of them are teally useful. A very good an feature rich user interface for mplayer is the smplayer. Install it and make it the default.
Adobes Acrobat Reader
The default PDF reader in the gnome desktop enviroment is evince. There are several severe problems with evince specially with printing. If you experience these problems, then install Adobes reader and make it the default program for PDF files:
Firefox
mplayer
If you experience problems with playing multimedia files within firefox, then install mplayer-plugin instead of the totem-plugin.
Behaviour
- Alter the behaviour of saving files to "save as ..."
- Alter the usage of the default PDF reader to acroread (importand for official documents)
Power management
- pm-utils
Openoffice
Settings
- autosave 3 minutes
- always make backup
- database - see extra article
CUPS
Evolution
Multimedia settings
Exaille
Use for music, internet radio and podcast settings
Adobe flash
Mythtv
Use for scheduling, watching,recording and archiving tv and videos.