What do you get when you runMandriva ONE 2007?

The desktop

In contradiction to what a lot of people still seem to think, the desktop environments of the current Linux distributions are up to par to a Windows based system. 
This is seen in the fact that they already support 3D desktop features, which Windows will only do in Vista, which will at the time of writing not be available for several more months. In this Linux distributions are further ahead than Windows based systems, though all have pros and cons.

Again the choice given here is an advantage. In the install version, there are two very complete desktop environments in Mandriva (a desktop environment is the software that manages the user interface): KDE and GNOME. Next to that, there are a number of less bloated environments, but those often request much less from the hardware and as such these desktop environments are very suited for old or even very old PC's. One of the reasons to pick a KDE version for this article, is that KDE requests the least adaptation from users that are already knowledgeable with Windows (see Figure 1.: The desktop). So users that have little experience with Linux get the environment that suits them best.

Figure 1.: The desktop

TIP: If the standard orange desktop is a bit too flashy for your taste, that can be changed very easily. Just right click on the desktop somewhere. From the menu that appears, chose 'Configure Desktop'. You'll get a desktop configuration application that will allow you to change the background very easily. Between all of the backgrounds included, surely you will be able to find one you like.

The panel

At the bottom of the desktop, you can see the panel. From left to right, it contains the following elements:

The K Menu

The K Menu is very similar to the Windows Start Menu.

Figure 2.: The K Menu

it contains:

• A menu that gives you access to all the graphical applications

• A list of the most used applications (for faster access).

• A search function

• A fast access to the most recent opened documents

• A function to quickly start a command TIP: This can be very convenient in some cases when one wants to changes files or folders where you don't have access rights (where for instance root rights are required). You can then just introduce the command konqueror and use the option Run as a different user to open the application (Konqueror) as root user. From there you can then change all files and folders as you wish (e.g. to modify the access rights). Watch out: if folders or files are root restricted, there is usually a reason, often linked to security, so only modify these when you know what you are doing.

• A menu that allows you to let another user to log in (Linux by default anticipates the need for several users per system). This can be at the same time, or it is possible to end the session of the current user first.

• A function to leave the PC in a secured state (so that a password is required to access the PC again).

• A function to shut down the PC

Of course it is easy to configure this menu (for example to change the list of most used programs in a list of the most recently used programs).

The Panel Menu

The star shaped button that gives access to the K Menu, is itself a part of the Panel Menu (see Figure 3.: the Panel Menu). But we discussed it already separately because of its importance.

The other icons are in fact just links to applications. Left from the star shaped K menu icon there is the Firefox icon (well known web browser), then the Kmail icon (for a mail application) and finally the Konsole icon (for command line stuff, which you won't need if you don't want to).

You can easily manage the Panel Menu after a right click somewhere in the Panel Menu (see Figure 4.: Managing the Panel Menu). An application that you could certainly add is Konqueror. Konqueror can be used as Internet browser but as well as file browser and as such is used quite often (even if you prefer Firefox as browser).

The 3D desktop

When the live CD starts up, you are asked a number of questions to set up your Mandriva Linux. One of those questions might whether you would like to use 3D desktops or not. Might, because Mandriva will detect automatically whether your hardware is up to it and will only propose 3D desktops if it is able to. The hardware requirements are not at all that high, so there is a good change that your hardware will support it. So what will you get? First of all, you get 4 different desktop, all of them on the sides of a cube.

Now, in order to use these 4 desktops you need to know some key combinations:

• Ctrl and alt together with left or right arrows move between the sides of the cube

• Ctrl and alt together with the upper arrow will show all windows on your current desktop in small version lined up next to each other. That makes it very easy to switch applications if you have several open at once. This is a feature with real added value, but it has a great coolness factor as well: the applications keep running, so you see everything happening in each of your applications at the same time. You get the same effect when you go with your mouse pointer in the upper right corner of your desktop.

• Ctrl and alt together with the down arrow will show you three of the four desktops next to each other. You can switch desktop by moving between them with the left and right arrow keys.

• When holding down the ctrl and alt key together and left clicking anywhere, one can rotate the complete cube and see its six sides by dragging it around (see Figure 5: The 3D desktop cube).

• The alt and tab key together let you cycle through all of the applications of the current desktop while ctrl, alt and the tab key together let you cycle through all of the applications of all four desktops. Compared to Windows or the the old non-3D desktop, there is a real added value here as well. During the cycling you don't just see icons, but miniature versions of the applications windows with their actual content of that moment. Also the full scale window of the selected application lightens up and is brought forward while the full scale windows of the other applications become a little transparent (see Figure 9: ctrl + alt + tab).

• When holding down the ctrl key one can grab an edge of a window and pull it back. Easy to quickly take a look at another application behind it (to see what state it is in or read some value you need). While letting go of the mouse button, the window will spring back into its normal state.

The technology used for these 3D desktops is not yet very mature. Not in the sense that it does not what it is supposed to do, but there are some problems that have popped up for compatibility with other applications. The 3D desktops technology uses the hardware acceleration from your graphics card (OpenGL). Some people have reported problems with video and 3D games. Should you have problems with that, there seems to be only one solution for the moment: not use the 3D desktop (at least not while looking at video or playing that game, you can switch back to it after that). That is a pitty then because 3D desktops have a very high coolness factor and also a bit of added value, but it's not that you're really missing out on much functionality if you don't have it.

The virtual desktops

If you did not choose for the 3D desktop experience (or were not able to get one), you'll have instead the classical Linux virtual desktop environment. Linux has already offered the concept of virtual desktops for a long time. Once one gets to know them, it becomes very annoying when one has to do without them. It is possible to change virtual desktop via the icon provided for this in the panel.

Figure 10.: Virtual desktops icon

The advantage that virtual desktops give you is a clear overview. You can use each virtual desktop to put some of the applications you use at that moment (for instance one with the monitoring applications that you look at once in a while and one with the applications that you actively use in the mean time). This allows you to easily make the switch between the different type of actions that you perform.

The taskbar

By default Mandriva Linux shows all applications in the taskbar, also the ones that you have open in another virtual desktop. We find it much easier to see only the applications open in your current virtual desktop. You can change that easily in the KDE Configuration Center (more about that later) by deselecting Show windows of all desktops in Appearance & Themes / Taskbar. NOTE: Not possible with 3Ddesktop unfortunately.

The applets

The panel is also the place where a number of applets turn up (see Figure 11.: Applets). These are small applications for specialized tasks that run in the background.

In the figure we see from left to right the following applets:

• The KLaptop applet: This is only installed on laptops and allows to manage the power usage of your laptop (to do so, right click on icon to open the KLaptop menu). If the laptop is not plugged in, the icon changes into a battery.

• The KMix applet: This allows you to change your sound settings. Left clicking once results in a very small window. It mainly contains a simple slider that controls the outgoing sound level. By clicking the light green ball above, the sound is muted (the ball turns dark green and the icon changes as in the figure above). The button 'mixer' below gives access to a the advanced setup screen for all your sound sources and exits. TIP: if you hang with the pointer above the KMix icon, you can adjust the sound level very fast with the mouse wheel without as much as one click. The KMix applet might not be present when you first run Mandriva. The first time you run the Sound Mixer application from the Multimedia section in the KMenu, the applet will be added.

• The Klipper icon allows you to select what data you copied or cutted earlier to paste at this time (it contains a history with a number of items).

• The KOrganizer applet gives access to the Kontact (the KDE Personal Information Manager that contains e-mail, calendar, tasks, etc.) and needs to run for automatic notifications of tasks and events to run.

• The network applet allows more than simply managing your network connection. It allows you as well to monitor your network activity, but also gives access to the interactive firewall called Mandi. As I'm behind a hardware firewall, my PC is never under attack. It is not so easy to simulate such an attack, so I've been a bit lazy in this section and kept the screenshots of my article on Mandriva 2006. As far as I know, nothing has changed though.

The actual firewall engine is based on Shorewall. Shorewall is a very powerful firewall but it is not easy to configure and manage. That's why Mandriva has made Mandi to allow you to interact with Shorewall. It gives you the power to indicate per suspicious action (a possible attack on your computer) whether or not it can be accepted. You get notified through the change of the the network icon into an alarm icon (see Figure 13.: Mandi alarm icon) and a warning message that indicates the nature of the attack (see Figure 14.: Alarm message). By clicking on the alarm message it is possible to indicate right away what you wish to be done (allow the action anyway or blacklist the attacker).

Figure 13: Mandi alarm icon

Figure 14: Alarm message

If you ignore the alarm message, the attack is simply blocked. It is possible though to open the Mandi log at any time and verify all ignored attacks (see Figure 15.: Mandi log).

From here it is possible to whitelist an attacker if it concerns a trusted computer. At that moment the suspicious computer will be added to the whitelist (see Figure 16.: Mandi whitelist), and all actions started from that (now known as trusted) PC will be accepted from now on.

Figure 16.: Mandi whitelist

If you are not sure that you can trust a computer, you should of course assume it concerns a malicious attacker. Certainly if you see a couple of times suspicious behavior from the same computer, you'd better blacklist it (see Figure 17.: Mandi blacklist), which will mark that PC known as untrustworthy and to be blocked.

Figure 17.: Mandi blacklist

• The Mandriva Online applet is the last one in Figure 11.: Applets. But you can remove it right away. It was supposed to be an alarm icon to show whether there are new updates to be installed, but it is not functional anymore in the 2007 release (at least not at the time of the writing of this article, it is possible that an update will fix this ;-).

This was an overview of the applets that are activated by default. However it is entirely possible that other applets will be added on your system. For instance, when you have the media player Amarok running on the background, the Amarok applet will be shown in the panel as well.

The clock

The clock is the last application of the panel that is left to discuss. And there is quite little to mention about it, except of course that you can configure it according to your wishes. But we would not want to withhold you the following tip: TIP: During the installation of Mandriva 2007 you have the opportunity to activate the the Network Time Protocol (NTP). If you do this, the clock of your PC will be synchronized with an atomic clock, when you are online. As a result your system clock will always remain extremely accurate. As the NTP protocol includes a system to compensate Internet traffic delays, it is not that important to choose the closest NTP server, but it certainly does no harm. If you have not chosen for this option during installation you can still activate it if you launch 'Adjust Date & Time'.

Other

You can personalize the panel a lot through the addition of other applets, applications shortcuts, etc. but even additional panels. TIP: We think is is really worth it to activate the Universal Sidebar. That is a panel that gives you fast access to anything on your system at all times.

The Desktop Icons

By default the desktop background contains four icons: Home, Devices, Welcome and Trash. The names illustrate very well their functionalities. Home opens your Home directory in Konqueror, Devices opens an overview of all storage media accessible from your computer (CD Roms, hard drive partitions, network storage devices, etc.) in Konqueror, Welcome opens a welcome message in Konqueror with links to several Mandriva websites, and Trash shows you in Konqueror all files that you have deleted on non permanent basis so far. Actually there are four icons after the install, before the installation on the hard drive, there is fifth: the Live Install icon you use to perform the install on the hard drive.

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License

This work is governed by the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 license. In order to obtain a copy of this license, please visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 543 Howard Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

The author to be credited is Wim Coulier (website: coulier.org).

English translation polished by John Barron (http://www.europa.demon.co.uk/)