3 GNOME Quick Start
openSUSE® provides the tools required by Linux* users for their daily activities. It
has a user-friendly graphic environment (the GNOME* Desktop), which communicates
with the Linux base system and allows access to les, folders, and programs, as well
as their management. openSUSE provides an integrated suite of applications for a
wide range of oce, multimedia, and Internet activities. It also contains the LibreOce
Suite which enables editing and saving of les in a variety of formats. The oce suite
is available for several operating systems, meaning you can use the same data across
dierent computing platforms.
3.1 Getting Started
When starting up your system, you will normally be asked to select your user name
and enter your password. If someone else installed your system, ask your system
administrator for your user name and password.
The GNOME desktop appears after you rst log in. Its appearance depends on whether
openSUSE® could activate the 3D functions of your graphics card. Optics and func-
tionality in both cases are the same, only the operation diers slightly.
3.2 The standard GNOME desktop
If openSUSE® could activate the 3D functions, the GNOME desktop noties you. The
largest part is taken up by the initially still empty desktop with the green background
image. You will see a narrow black bar on the top edge of the screen. This so-called
panel allows you to access all functions and applications. Specically, it has the fol-
lowing elements:
GNOME Quick Start 41
