User Guide to Using the Linux Desktop

Nah Soo Hoe and Colin Charles

Preface

This user guide is meant as an introductory guide for a user to use a modern personal computer (PC) running the Linux operating system. The main aim is to provide a self-learning guide on how to use a modern Linux desktop system. It assumes that the user has no prior knowledge of Linux or PC usage.

After going through the guide the reader should be in a position to start using a Linux desktop for both personal and office use. In particular she should be able to:

access the Internet and use the WWW and Internet email

manipulate and manage files, folders and the file system

produce and print simple documents and presentation materials

advance to become a power user by further self-learning and exploring

Linux has many distributions and sometimes the programs or tools used to perform a certain function can vary from distribution to distribution. This guide tries to be as generic as possible in the description of the features and functionalities. However, in some cases, especially some of the GUI desktop configuration tools, there is no really independent generic tool that can be used and each distribution has its own tool. In such cases, we have tried to illustrate their usage using Fedora Linux.

This guide was written on a Fedora Linux system and as such many of the screen shots reflect this. However, this should not be construed as an endorsement of this distribution of Linux over the others on the part of the authors.

Nah Soo Hoe and Colin Charles

July 2004

2004-07-14T13:59:09