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Walking through the Open Source desktop

With so much focus moving towards the Open Source desktop, we have a wander through some of the common applications...

In the last few years, the Linux Operating System has gone on to become a viable desktop environment. Not only deemed viable by the Office Of Government Commerce and in use by thousands of organisations across the world, the desktop has become a feature rich and incredibly usable software tool.

In this article, we will have a wander through a typical Linux desktop. The desktop in question is GNOME; the desktop that ships as part of the Ubuntu Linux distribution. Although GNOME offers a usable and simple desktop, you should also be aware that there is a second, very usable, desktop called KDE and a great many cut down simple window managers such as Xfce and IceWM.

To begin with, this is the desktop when you first log in:



Loading applications is simple. To do this, simply click on the foot icon and you can select your programs from the menu.



Here we have loaded the OpenOffice.org suite. In the following screenshot, you can see how the suite has opened a Microsoft Word document. OpenOffice.org has fantastic support for a range of different file formats. In addition to this, you can save your documents in a range of file formats including Adobe Acrobat PDF files and Macromedia Flash animations:



OpenOffice.org is an incredibly flexible suite. Here is the spreadsheet component loading a Microsoft Excel file:



OpenOffice.org is also incredibly useful for creating feature rich, attractive presentations:



If you want to perform any kind of image processing, you can use the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP). GIMP provides a huge range of functionality for managing photos, post processing them and creating new images from scratch:



Linux is increasingly being used as a document production and desktop publishing platform, with the fantastic Scribus suite:



A fundamental part of any desktop is the web browser. Mozilla Firefox provides a solid and efficient platform for browsing the web safely. With better security than its competitors and with features such as pop-up blocking and tabbed browsing, Mozilla Firefox is an essential tool:



If you want to keep on track with your information, you can also use the powerful Evolution suite. Containing support for email, calendaring, address books, to-do's and much more, Evolution is a compelling tool.



There are of course, many, many other applications within the Open Source desktop, but this article should have provided you with a generic example of the kind of possibilities available.