Getting Started with OpenSolaris 2009.06 Desktop
Here is My GNOME(OpenSolaris 2009.06) Desktop's screenshot, to prove that theres nothing now which cannot be achieved in the world of Open-source. It now is no more limited to the community of computer geeks, but its increasingly becoming extremely user friendly proving it much suitable for the beginners as well. The time is gone when one needed to type long and cryptic commands in order to do anything they want on Linux & Unix systems. Though the command line alternatives are always there, leaving an entire world for the user to explore and learn! Everything is now offered in much more interactive and highly customizable GUI.
Thats the beauty of open-source- it can give you exactly what you want.
Open-source products including Linux and OpenSolaris opens itself to
change by anyone who uses it thereby giving the freedom and power to
users. There are multiple Window Managers available for using with it.
The most commonly used are -GNOME and KDE which generally comes integrated with most of the linux distributions as well.
Lets
begin with our familiarisation with GNOME, OpenSolaris 2009.06 Desktop
( but this might help you in other linux distros as well)
It
displays a menu bar at the top containing menus for Application, Places
and System on the left side of the bar along with the tray icons of the
processes and a calendar, sound control and the Username being on the
right side of the bar.
And a status bar at the bottom of the screen
with the icon to Show the empty desktop minimizing all the currently
opened windows, tabs of all the currently opened windows, a Desktop
Switcher showing the available desktops and finally a Trash (where the
deleted files reside giving option to restore back the accidently
deleted files, until manually cleaned).
- Application Menu: It contains Set of the applications installed and currently configured to be displayed in the menu format in different categories. It comes packed with a range of open-source applications preinstalled, like firefox for web browsing, Mozilla Thunderbird as the email client, Pidgin as the chatting messenger, Totem and Rythmbox for audio/video playing, many Image editing and viewing tools and a set of GNOME games!
- Places Menu: It presents links to some of the predefined locations so as to reach there quickly.
- System Menu: It presents the system specific tasks and configurations
Application and System menu can be manually altered by right clicking-> Edit Menu option.
Any system related information about the running processes or the present system memory and network usage etc. can be found anytime in Applications->System Tools->Performance Monitor.
Opensolaris presents with an exhaustive list of open-source software for anyone to download from anywhere in the world from its central repository using IPS (Image Packaging System) . This can be done in either of the following ways:
- System->Administration->Package Manager
- using command line utilities like apt-get :
- pfexec pkg install <package_to_install>
Some of the other Free utilities in which you would be interested to install are:
- Opera (a web browser)
- Netbeans IDE ( for programming in JavaSE, JavaME, JavaEE, C, C++, Javascript etc )
- openssh ( for enabling remote login into the machine)
- Evolution Mail ( another email client like Evolution)
- Avant Window Navigator ( enables a cool looking, highly customizable docking feature much like MAC )
- GVIM text editor ( a GUI based vim text editor, for the people who are addicted to the cool and simple, our beloved VIM ! )
- GIMP the Image Manipulation Program
More to cover in subsequent posts.
Happy Open-Source!
Posted at 07:11AM Oct 07, 2009 by Anurag Sharma in Personal | Comments[1]
"Thats the beauty of open-source- it can give you exactly what you want. Open-source products including Linux and OpenSolaris opens itself to change by anyone who uses it thereby giving the freedom and power to users"
No, the beauty of open source products, to the majority people, is that they're free (as in beer).
Only a tiny, tiny percentage of people who run software have the skills, the time and the inclination to modify/recompile it. And that percentage is decreasing, as computers and software continue to become more accessible to 'ordinary' people with no technical background.
Posted by Dowdy on October 07, 2009 at 05:16 PM IST #