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1.2 Exploring the Desktop Components
After logging in to KDE for the first time, you see the KDE desktop. It
consists of the following basic elements:
The integration and handling of desktop objects has changed from KDE 3.x
to KDE 4, which now uses a new desktop and panel interface tool called
Plasma. Plasma supports desktop widgets (also called
plasmoids ), similar to Apple’s dashboard
widgets. Learn more about the most key desktop objects in the following
sections.
1.2.1 Locking and Unlocking Desktop Objects
With KDE 4, desktop elements can be locked in their current position to
prevent them from being moved around on the desktop. As long as the
desktop elements are locked, you cannot add, move, or remove any objects
to and from your desktop.
To lock or unlock the desktop elements, right-click an empty space on
the desktop and select or
. Find how to add, remove and configure
widgets and change numerous desktop elements in
Section 3.0, Customizing Your Settings.
1.2.2 Desktop Icons
By default, the showing the contents
of the ~/Desktop folder, displays the following
icons by default:
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The icon is very useful for viewing
the most important information about your hardware, network status,
disks (hard disks, removable media, and external devices), operating
system, and some common folders at one glance. For example, find
processor type and speed listed there, information about your RAM and
the current swap status, or your graphics card. lists the most important information about your
operating system such as the Kernel version included, the current
user, version number and type of the operating system, and the KDE
version number. openSUSE ships with a number of further tools
(either graphical or command line tools) that you can use to get more
detailed information about your system. If you need detailed hardware
information about your system, use the YaST hardware probing,
described in Section 2.1, Probing Your Hardware, (↑ Start-Up ).
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Opens the Firefox Web browser. For more information, refer to
Section 20.0, Browsing with Firefox, (↑ Application Guide ).
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Opens a new OpenOffice.org document. For an introduction to the office suite,
refer to Section 1.0, The OpenOffice.org Office Suite, (↑ Application Guide ).
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Opens the SUSEgreeter which holds introductory information and links
to various information sources about openSUSE.
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Starts Konqueror Web browser and takes you to
the help page of the openSUSE
community from where you can access various documentation
resources, mailing lists, Web forums or chats with members of the
openSUSE community. Find more information about accessing and using
help resources (integrated with your system or on the Web) in
Section 12.0, Help and Documentation, (↑ Start-Up ).
1.2.3 Panel Icons
The quick launch area of your panel as shipped with openSUSE
includes the following icons by default:
- Main Menu Icon
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Opens the main menu, similar to the Microsoft* Windows start menu.
- Dolphin Icon
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Opens Dolphin, the default file manager.
- Device Notifier
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Informs you about recently plugged or inserted devices such as USB
sticks, external hard disks, cameras, CDs, or DVDs. For more
information, refer to
Section 2.5, Accessing Removable Media and External Devices.
Apart from the larger icons in the quick launcher, the panel also holds
a number of smaller icons in the system tray area on the right:
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KDE's clipboard tool that remembers the last entries
you have moved to the clipboard. To view the clipboard contents,
click the Klipper icon or press Ctrl+Alt+V. The most recent entry is listed on
top and is marked as active with a black check mark. To insert the
active clipboard entry again, move the mouse pointer to the target
application, then middle-click. For more information, see
Section 2.3, Moving Text between Applications.
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Your desktop's default mixer, KMix helps you to control sound on your
desktop after your sound card has been detected and configured with
YaST, the central tool for installation and configuration of your
system. By default, clicking the KMix icon in the system tray shows
the master controller with which to increase or decrease the overall
volume. For more information, refer to Section 25.0, Playing Music and Movies, (↑ Application Guide ).
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Helps you keeping your system up to date. When you connect to the
Internet, the openSUSE Updater automatically checks whether software updates
for your system are available. The applet icon changes color and
appearance depending on the availability of updates for your system.
For detailed information about how to install software updates with
openSUSE Updater and how to configure openSUSE Updater, refer to
Section 5.0, YaST Online Update, (↑ Reference ).
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If you manage your network connection with NetworkManager and have enabled the
use of NetworkManager in YaST, the KNetworkManager icon also appears in your system
tray be default. Use it to change and configure network connections.
For detailed information, refer to Section 10.0, Using NetworkManager, (↑ Start-Up ).
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Kerry is a KDE front-end for the Beagle search tool, which indexes
your personal information space to help you find whatever you need.
You can use Kerry to find documents, e-mails, Web history, IM/ITC
conversations, source code, images, music files, applications, and
much more. For more information, refer to
Section 5.0, Searching with Kerry.
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For information about the current date and time, click the clock in
the system tray or hove your mouse pointer over the clock. You can
change the clock settings (such as appearance or additional data to
be displayed) from the context menu available upon right-click. If
you need to update the system time, start YaST and select
. Refer to
Section 1.8, Clock and Time Zone, (↑ Start-Up ) for more information.
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Locks your screen and starts the screen saver. Access to the session
can only be regained with a password.
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Logs you out and ends your current KDE session. If not configured
otherwise in the KDE 4 Personal Settings, (see
Adjusting the Session Handling, the session
manager will restore the currently open windows by default next time
you log in to KDE.
Of course, you can also change the way your KDE desktop looks and
behaves to suit your own personal tastes and needs. To learn how to
configure individual desktop elements or how change the overall
appearance and behavior of your desktop, refer to
Section 3.1, The Personal Settings.
If you would like to start working with your desktop now, continue
reading at Section 2.0, Working with Your Desktop. Otherwise you can leave your
system with one of the possibilities described below.
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