Configuring Gnome

Gnome is one of the most used interfaces in Red Hat Enterprise 7 for managing the system. Let's look
at the Gnome environment and how to configure some of its properties.

Table of Contents
1. Navigating the Gnome Desktop Environment
2. Configuring the Gnome Environment
3. Getting Built-in and Online Help
4. Exploring with the File Manager
5. Manipulating Files and Directories
6. Creating and Editing Files
7. Performing Login, Logoff, and Power Operations
8. Configuring Email Clients
9. Using Network tools
10. Recognizing the Link between Xwindows and Gnome
11. Configuring System Settings from Gnome
12. Switching Users and/or Desktops

Navigating the Gnome Desktop Environment

In this video, I'll discuss how to navigate the Gnome desktop environment. There are other desktop
environments we can use besides Gnome, including KDE. But, with Gnome, the menu bar appears
across the top of the screen where – in the upper right – I can see the name of the user currently
logged in, which in my case is user root. I can click right on root. And, from there, I get a menu
where I can Log Out, Lock the screen, or Power Off the machine. I can also see the day of the week
and the time. And, if I click that, I can configure date and time settings. I've also got two menus in the
upper left. One is called Applications and the other is called Places. I'm going to click Applications
where, under the Internet submenu, I'll choose Firefox Web Browser. When we launch an
application in Linux – if we look to the right of the title bar for the launched application – we've got
three control buttons. The first looks like a dash, which will minimize the application. So it's still
running as evidenced by the listing down in the taskbar at the bottom. I could simply click it once to
bring it back up on screen.
The Gnome desktop is open. Running along the top, there is a panel. The leftmost part of the panel
contains two menus, Applications and Places. Below the panel, there are two icons, home and Trash.

The second control button looks like a little square. And, if I click it, it restores the window. So it's no
longer full screen. I could click it again. So it's maximized. And, of course, the "X" would close the
application. It's no longer running, but I'm going to start it up again. I'm going to launch yet another
application from the Applications menu, but this time under Accessories. I'm going to start
Calculator. I'm going to right-click on the title bar for the Calculator application. And, from there,
I'm going to choose to Move to Another Workspace. With the Gnome desktop environment, we get
four workspaces by default. Currently I am on Workspace 1. We can see that because it's grayed out.
I can't send the Calculator app to Workspace 1 because it's already there. We also see that we're on
Workspace 1 in the bottom right where it says 1/4. So I'm going to send the Calculator app to
Workspace 2.

So it disappears from this screen, which is Workspace 1. I can switch to Workspace 2 by clicking the
indicator in the bottom right and then just choosing Workspace 2. And there is the Calculator
application. But why would you do this? Workspaces let us organize our open windows on the screen.
Workspaces are also sometimes called virtual screens. They each have the same kind of desktop
environment but the beauty is in the fact that we can have different open windows in different
workspaces to organize the many apps that we might have opened at a given time. For example, on
this current workspace – which is Workspace 2 – I'm going to go to the Applications menu where I'll
again go to Accessories. But, this time, I'll launch the gedit text editor program. Here we can see, we
now have two open windows available on Workspace 2. If I were to switch to Workspace 3, nothing
is there. What I'll do here is – perhaps – browse the file system, go to my Downloads folder, and open
up the PDF that I've previously downloaded from the Internet. So we can see that we can use
workspaces to organize our open windows to facilitate switching between different sets of apps. In
this video, we discussed how to navigate the Gnome desktop environment.

Configuring the Gnome Environment

In this video, I'll demonstrate how to configure the Gnome environment. Some Linux systems have
only a command line, whereas others might have the graphical user interface installed. KDE and
Gnome are probably the most commonly used desktop environments for Linux. Here, in Red Hat
Enterprise Linux, we're using the Gnome desktop environment. And we can tweak it to suit our
personal preferences. For example, I'm going to right-click the desktop background and I'm going to
choose the option that says Change Desktop Background. I can see the current image that's in use.
So I'll go ahead and click it. I then get a list of other images that were installed with the operating
system that I can select for my desktop background. So I'll go ahead and choose one. And then I'll
choose the Select button. We can also configure the appearance of the panel bar across the top of the
screen. To do this, we can go to the Applications menu in the upper left. Then we can choose the
Utilities submenu from which we would choose the Tweak Tool. The Tweak Tool also allows us to
customize items on the desktop such as the icons and their text. In the left-hand navigation panel, here
in the Tweak Tool, it's automatically selected Shell. On the right, I have an option to Show date in
clock. In the upper right in our panel, I can see the day of the week and the time, but not the date. So
I'm going to go ahead and turn the slider to ON for that option.
The Gnome desktop is open. The presenter opens the Settings window. The window includes the
default image of the desktop background. The presenter clicks the image, and a list of background
images is shown. The bottom of the window contains the Select and Cancel buttons. He selects a
background image and clicks the Select button. Then in the Applications menu, the presenter selects
the Tweak Tool option from the Utilities submenu option. The Tweak Tool window opens, and the
window is divided into two sections. The left section includes different options such as Fonts, Shell,
and Theme. The right section shows the page of the selected option.

In the left-hand navigator, I'm going to click Theme. The current Icon Theme for example is Hicolor.
That applies to icons in our menu system as well as on our desktop. So what I'm going to do is change
that, for example, to HighContrast. Here I can see it has made a change immediately for desktop
icons, but it also will have made the change for the icons in our menuing system. In the left-hand
navigator, I'll choose Fonts. The current Text scaling factor on the right is listed as being 1.0. I'm
going to click the + button numerous times to increase the Text scaling factor. But notice it does not
apply to the font for desktop icons, but rather for our menu system and – of course – for items listed at
the top of the screen in our panel bar. The other thing to note is that these changes will apply to all of
our workspaces. In the bottom right, the workspace selector indicates I'm on Workspace 1/4. If I click
that and – for example – choose Workspace 3, notice everything is the same. So, when you make
customizations to the Gnome visual environment, they will apply to all of your workspaces. In this
video, we discussed how to configure the Gnome environment.

Getting Built-in and Online Help

In this video, I'll discuss how to get built-in and online help. Unfortunately nobody knows everything.
So periodically, we'll need to refer to documentation to complete a task in Linux. In the upper left, I'll
click the Applications menu and I'll choose Documentation. Here I've got two choices. I could
choose Help if I want to learn how to do something in the Gnome desktop environment or I can view
the Red Hat Enterprise Linux7: 7.1 Release Notes where I can get more detailed documentation
related to things like configuring storage or a VPN. I'll begin by clicking Help. It's labeled as
GNOME Help. And there are a number of links that are categorized such as Desktop, apps &
windows, Networking, web, email & chat, Sound, video & pictures, Hardware & drivers, and so
on. But I can also click in the address bar and search for what I need help with. For example, if I want
to change the screen lock settings, I might type in lock screen and press Enter. Here I can see Search
results in this help system related to my criteria. So maybe what I'll do is I'll choose the link that says
The screen locks itself too quickly. And, from here, I'm given the step-by-step instructions on what I
need to do to change that. For example, it tells me to click up on my name in the upper right and then
to choose Settings after which I would click Privacy. And there I can see the Screen Lock options
where I might turn it off or change the timing settings.

But what if we need to learn how to configure a VPN or the storage subsystem? That help won't be
found within the Gnome Help system. Instead, I would go to Applications - Documentation. And I
would choose the Red Hat Enterprise Linux7: 7.1 Release Notes link. This is going to start the
Firefox Web Browser from where I can then view my local help. Notice it's a local path. If I want to
go online to make sure I'm looking at the most recent help documentation, I could click the
Documentation bookmark link. That's placed there automatically here in Red Hat Enterprise
Linux. So I'll go ahead and click that to make sure I've got the most up-to-date information. Then I'll
choose Red Hat Enterprise Linux. And, from here, I can see the categories of help that I might be
interested in such as Common administrative commands or Networking Guide. I'll click
Networking Guide.
The Gnome desktop is open. In the Applications menu, the presenter clicks the "Red Hat Enterprise
Linux7: 7.1 Release Notes" option from the Documentation submenu option. The Firefox web browser
appears, and in the web browser, the "7.1 Release Notes" tabbed page is open by default. The top of
the page includes an address bar. Below the address bar, there are several links such as
Documentation and Red Hat Network. The address in the address bar reads as
"file:///usr/share/doc/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux-Release_Notes-7-en-US-1.0/index.html." The
presenter clicks the Documentation link. The Product Documentation tabbed page opens. The page
includes different sections such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat Storage. Each section
further includes different links. In the Red Hat Enterprise Linux section, he clicks the Red Hat
Enterprise Linux link, and the Red Hat Enterprise Linux tabbed page opens. The page includes
different links such as Common administrative commands and Networking Guide.

In the navigation panel on the left, I then see all of the options that I need related to configuring
network settings. But sometimes I need help with the Linux command even though I'm in the GUI
environment. Well, if I go back in my browsing history, I do have Common administrative
commands in the online documentation. But, at the same time, I can also go to my address bar in my
web browser and I could type man:. Man is short for manual or help page. Here I need to learn more
about the ls or the list command in the file system. So what I'm typing in the address bar is man:ls.
When I press Enter, it opens up a window where it explains the ls command along with all of its
command line switches and what they do. In this video, we discussed how to get built-in and online
help.

Exploring with the File Manager

In this video, I'll demonstrate how to explore the file system using the Gnome file manager. When
users log in to the Gnome desktop environment, in the upper left they'll see a folder labeled as home.
And, if they double-click it, it will show them the contents of their home directory. Here we'll see files
and folders. In the upper left, we have a number of control icons to control the display. If I click the
icon that looks like a down-pointing arrow, I can choose to Show Hidden Files. In Linux, hidden files
begin with a period. I can also choose the icon that looks like three lines of text to view the file system
items as a list. In the left-hand navigator, I can also view Recent places that were visited in the file
system. I can also view the Downloads folder, Music, Pictures, Videos, Trash, and so on. I can also
click on Computer in the left-hand navigator to go to the root of the file system.

The root of the file system is expressed as a front slash. Every Linux installation will have many
subdirectories on the root that are similar. For example, the dev folder stands for devices. Here we've
got files and folders that are used to access hardware devices on our Linux system. Most pieces of
hardware are treated as files. For example, there is a file here in the dev folder called sda. That
represents the first SCSI disk in our Linux system. It's then followed by two files – sda1 and sda2,
sda1 references partition one on SCSI disk A whereas sda2 references the second disk partition on
SCSI disk A. I'm going to click the back arrow to go back one level in the hierarchy. Most
configuration files in Linux are text files and they exist somewhere under the /etc folder.

The home folder is where we'll see any user home directories. Here I've got a home directory for a
user whose account name is cblackwell. The proc subdirectory stands for processes. Here I'm going to
have subdirectories within it, each which is named based on a numeric value. Now these numeric
values are process IDs or PIDs. Whenever we launch a process or an application of some kind in
Linux, the operating system kernel assigns it a unique PID, or process identifier. It then creates a
folder structure in here to track that as it's running. We've also got a var subdirectory down in the var
– var stands for variable. One of the important items about this location is we can go under var, then
we can go under log.

The system log file is actually called messages. And, if I double-click to open it up, it's really just a
text file but very important. Notice that all items that are logged are date and time stamped. I'm going
to make a link to the messages log file on my desktop for ease of access. I can accomplish this by
right-clicking on the file and choosing Make Link. I can see it's made a file here called Link to
messages. What I'm going to do is drag that onto the desktop so that in the future, I can simply
double-click the link on my desktop to quickly and easily get to the system log file. When we're
viewing files in the file system, we also have the option of customizing the column display. For
example, I'm going to click in the upper right the down-pointing triangle and I'm going to choose
Visible Columns. Here I'm going to turn on the Permissions column header. And I'll click Close. We
can now see the permission set that applies to each listed file system entry. Finally, we can also search
the file system using graphical tools. In the left-hand navigator, I'll click Computer. Then what I'm
going to do in the upper right is click the magnifying glass. The magnifying glass opens up a search
bar. Here I want to look for any references of the word project. It automatically searches the file
system recursively – that means in all subdirectories – and then it shows me the results. In this video,
we learned how to explore the file system using the Gnome file manager.

Manipulating Files and Directories

In this video, I'll demonstrate how to manipulate files and directories. Using the Gnome desktop
environment, if we want to delete a file or a folder, we can simply select it and right-click on it and
choose to Move to Trash. When we do that, the Trash bin now is the only place where we have a
second chance to get the file back. We can see the file that was deleted here in the trash. I can select it
and Restore it to its original location or I can Empty everything in the trash. Here I'll select the file
that was deleted and I'll Restore it. I'm going to go to the Home directory for the currently logged in
user by clicking Home in the left-hand navigator. I'll then maximize this window. In the Documents
folder, I've got a file called Project1.txt. What I want to do is create an organized subdirectory
structure on the Linux root file system and this is going to be one of the files that I place there so I do
right-click and Copy the file. In the left-hand navigator then I'll click Computer. That places me on
the root of the file system. So what I'll do here is right-click in the blank area on the right and choose
New Folder.
The Gnome desktop is open. The desktop contains two icons, home and Trash, and Link to messages
link. To move the "Link to messages" link to Trash, the presenter right-clicks the "Link to messages"
link and selects the Move to Trash option from the flyout. The presenter then opens the Trash, and the
Trash is divided into two sections. The left section contains three navigation panes: Places, Devices,
and Network. Each navigation pane includes different options. The right section includes the content
of the selected option in the navigation pane. In the Places navigation pane, the Trash option is
selected by default. The top of the Trash page, in the right section, contains two buttons, Restore and
Empty. The presenter further selects the Home option in the Places navigation pane. The different
files and folders are shown in the right section. He double-clicks the Documents folder. The
Project1.txt file is shown in the right section.

I'm going to call this UserFils. Although notice, I've mistyped it. So I can right click and I can choose
Rename to rename a file or a folder. It's the same process. I'm then going to double-click to open
UserFiles. Then on the right, I'll right-click and choose New Folder. I want to make a folder here
called Projects and I'd like to make another one called Security. I'm going to open up the Projects
folder by double-clicking. Then I'll right-click and Paste. There is the Project file that we had copied
earlier. So I've placed it in an organized location. Then what I'm going to do on the left-hand navigator
is click Home again and go to Downloads where I've downloaded a security-related PDF file. I'm
going to right-click and I'm going to Cut or Move that file. Then I'll click Computer in the left
navigator. And on the root of the file system, I'll go under UserFiles, under Security where I will
Paste that document. Now, if I go back to that location where I copied that PDF file...so that's back to
Home - Downloads. Notice, because when I right-clicked, I chose Cut. It's no longer here. So cutting
is moving. In this video, we learned how to manipulate files and directories.
The presenter selects the Computer option in the Devices navigation pane, and the different folders
are shown in the right section. He creates a new folder named as UserFils and then renames the
folder to UserFiles. Now the presenter again selects the Home option in the Places navigation pane
and then opens the Downloads folder in the right section. The CSIsurvey2010.pdf file is shown in the
right section.

Creating and Editing Files

In this video, I'll demonstrate how to create and edit text files from the desktop environment. In
Linux, there are many commands that we can use to create and manipulate text files. But we can also
work with text files in the graphical environment. Here in the Gnome desktop environment in the
upper left, I'll click the Applications menu. Then I'll choose Accessories, and I'll then click gedit.
Gedit is the GNOME editor. It allows us to work with text files here in the GNOME environment. The
first thing I'll do is I'll click Open to open up an existing text file. I have a list of Recently Used files.
So one of them is the messages log file. I'm going to go ahead and select that file to open it up. When
we open up a file, and in this case the log file is rather large, we might find it useful to search for
items. So I'll click the Search menu, and I'll choose Find. What I'll look for is the name blackwell.
And we can see it has gone ahead and highlighted all the occurrences of the text blackwell within this
file. I can then use the up and down arrows to proceed through the file to the next or previous
occurrence of that search criteria. When I finished, I can go to the Search menu and I can choose
Clear Highlight. But I can also build new files. I'm going to click the File menu, and then I'll choose
New.
The Gnome desktop is open. In the Applications menu, the presenter selects the gedit option from the
Accessories submenu option. The gedit window appears. The top of the window contains six menus:
File, Edit, View, Search, Tools, and Documents. The toolbar below the menu bar includes several
buttons such as Open, Save, Cut, and Paste. The Unsaved Document 1 tabbed page is open by default.
To open the Open Files dialog box, the presenter clicks the Open button. The Open Files dialog box
contains two sections. The left section includes different options such as Search, Recently Used, and
root. The right section shows the content of the selected option in the left section. The Recently Used
option is selected by default in the left section. The right section includes different files such as
messages, profile, and Project1.txt. The presenter clicks the messages file and the messages tabbed
page opens in the gedit window. In the Search menu, he clicks the Find option and a search text field
appears in the rightmost corner of the messages tabbed page. The up arrow and down arrow buttons
are associated with the search text field. He types "backwell" in the search text field, and all the
occurrences of the backwell are highlighted in the messages tabbed page.

Here I'm going to create some information related to sales person activity. Once I've entered the data
in the text file, I can save it. To do that, I'll click the Save button. I want to save this off of the root of
the file system in a folder; I've already created called UserFiles. Under that, I want to store it in a
folder called Sales. And what I actually want to name the file is 2014Sales. I'm going to go ahead and
Save it. It tells me there is already a file by that name. Well, I want to overwrite it. So I'll click
Replace. At this point, I've got something down at the bottom that says, "Last update." What I can do
here in gedit is under the Edit menu, I can insert the current date and time. I'll choose the appropriate
format and click Insert. So sometimes we need to have something date and time stamped, and this is
a convenient way to do it. I'm going to go ahead and Save that change. Now, if I ever make a change
to the file that I will regret, for example, if I delete a couple of lines and realize I didn't mean to do it,
I can use the Undo button to get that data back or to reverse my last change. Of course, I've also got
options to Cut, Copy, and Paste information from this file. In this video, we discussed how to create
and edit text files from the desktop environment.
By clicking the New option in the File menu, the presenter opens a new tabbed page, Unsaved
Document 1, in the gedit window. In the tabbed page, he enters the information of the Salesperson
and clicks the Save button in the toolbar. The Save As dialog box appears. The top of the dialog box
includes the Name text field. Below the Name text field, there are three buttons: File System, var, and
log. Each button denotes the location where a file can be saved. The dialog box is further divided into
two sections. The left section includes different options such as root, Desktop, and File System. The
right section includes the content of the selected option. The bottom of the dialog box contains two
buttons, Cancel and Save. The presenter clicks the File System button and different files and folders
appear in the right section. He clicks the UserFiles folder and three folders – Projects, Sales, and
Security – appear in the right section. He opens the Sales folder and types "2014Sales" in the Name
text field. He clicks the Save button, and a message box appears, which includes Cancel and Replace
button. He clicks the Replace button.

Performing Login, Logoff, and Power Operations

In this video, I'll demonstrate how to perform login, logoff, and power operations in Linux. If our
Linux system has a graphical interface installed, then when we boot up the system, we're going to
have a graphical login screen as we see here. Here I will see usernames listed such as, in our case,
Codey Blackwell. But I also have an option here where I can click Not listed? I might do that if I
wanted to log in directly as root. But here I'm going to click Codey Blackwell to log in as that user.
And I'll supply the correct password to begin the login process. After I've successfully supplied the
login credentials, the Gnome desktop environment begins. From here I can see in the upper right in
the panel that I'm logged in as Codey Blackwell. I could click that and from here I have a number of
options such as the option to Log Out, to Lock the screen, or Power Off the system. I'm going to
begin by choosing Log Out. Then I'll click the Log Out button on the confirmation screen. When I get
back to my graphical login screen, this time I'm going to choose Not listed? where I'm asked to
supply the Username. Here I'll type in root and then I'll put in the root password.

Logging in directly as root isn't recommended. We should be logged in with a regular user account.
And then when we need to run elevated commands or do something that requires elevated
permissions, we can just temporarily switch over to user root. But here I've logged in directly as root.
I'm going to click root in the upper right in the panel. And from here I can choose to Lock the screen.
This is a good idea if I'm going to be stepping away for a few minutes after which when I try to log
back in the system again, it's asking me for my password. So I'll go ahead and put that in. And now
I'm authenticated once again to the Gnome desktop environment. I'm going to click root in the upper
right of the panel again. And this time I'm going to choose Power Off. When I choose Power Off, I
have the option of either restarting or powering off the system. In this case, I'll choose Power Off. In
this video, we discussed how to perform login, logoff, and power operations.

Configuring Email Clients

In this video, I'll demonstrate how to configure e-mail clients. When using the Gnome desktop
environment, there are two standard mail clients that get used – Evolution and Thunderbird. We're
going to take a look at how to configure each of them to connect to a mail server so that we can send
and receive e-mail. I'll begin in the upper-left by clicking the Applications menu. Then I'm going to
go to Office and then I'll choose Evolution. The first time you start the Evolution mail client, it will
ask you a number of questions to configure how it behaves and which servers it should connect to. I'll
click Continue on the first page of the wizard. On the second page of the wizard, it asks me about
restoring all of my personal data. But because this is the first time I'm configuring Evolution, it
doesn't apply. So I'll just go ahead and click Continue again. For my Full Name, I'll type in Codey
Blackwell. For the Email Address, I'll type [email protected]. I'll then click Continue.
In the Applications menu, the presenter selects the Evolution option from the Office submenu option.
The "Evolution Account Assistant" wizard appears. The wizard is divided into two areas. The left area
contains different steps such as Welcome, Restore From Backup, Identity, Receiving Email, Sending
Email, Account Summary, and Done. The right area shows the page containing the details of the
highlighted step. The bottom of the wizard has two buttons, Cancel and Continue. In the first step, the
Welcome step is highlighted in the left area. The right area shows the Welcome page. The presenter
clicks the Continue button, and the second page of the wizard appears. Now in the left area, the
Restore from Backup step is highlighted, and the right area shows the "Restore from Backup" page.
Now the bottom of the wizard has three buttons: Cancel, Go Back, and Continue. He clicks the
Continue button, and the third page of the wizard appears. Now in the left area, the Identity step is
highlighted, and Identity page in the right area includes "Required Information" section. The section
has two text fields, Full Name and Email Address. The presenter types "Codey Blackwell" in the Full
Name text field and "[email protected]" in the Email Address text field. He clicks the
Continue button, and the fourth page of the wizard appears. In the left area, the Receiving Email step
is highlighted. The Receiving Email page is shown in the right area, and the page includes two
sections. The top section includes a Server Type drop-down list box, and the value set in the drop-
down list box is POP. The bottom section further includes Configuration subsection. The subsection
includes two text fields, Server and Username. He types "pop3.silversides.local" in the Server text
field and "cblackwell" in the Username text field. He clicks the Continue button. The Receiving
Options step is added below the Receiving Email step in the left section and is highlighted. The right
area shows the Receiving Options page.

On the Server Type screen, I'm going to choose POP – Post Office Protocol. This is the server that we
will connect to for downloading mail. For the server name, I'll type pop3.silversides.local. This is
the DNS name of my POP3 server. For the Username, I'll type in cblackwell. There is No encryption
on this POP3 server so I'll go ahead and click Continue. It says it's going to check for new mail once
every 60 minutes. I could configure some of these settings, but I'll leave them as they are and I'll click
Continue. For outgoing mail, I need an SMTP server. So for the server name, I'll type in
smtp.silversides.local. Again, that name has to exist in DNS. And this machine must be able to
resolve it to the correct IP address of the SMTP mail host. I'll then click Continue. I now have a
summary of my Receiving mail server information as well as my Sending mail server information.
I'm okay with this. So I'm going to click Continue. Finally, on the last page of the wizard, I'll click
Apply.
The presenter clicks the Continue button, and the next page of the wizard appears. In the left area, the
Sending Email step is highlighted. The Sending Email page is shown in the right area, and the page
includes two sections. The top section includes a Server Type drop-down list box, and the value set in
the drop-down list box is SMTP. The bottom section further includes Configuration subsection. The
subsection includes Server text field. He types "smtp.silversides.local" in the Server text field and
clicks the Continue button. The next page of the wizard appears. In the left area, the Account
Summary step is highlighted. The right area shows the account information. The presenter clicks the
Continue button, and the last page of the wizard appears. In the left area, the Done step is
highlighted. In the right section, the following standard text is shown:
Congratulations, your mail configuration is complete.
You are now ready to send and receive email using Evolution.
Click "Apply" to save your settings.

The bottom of the wizard now has three buttons: Cancel, Go Back, and Apply. He clicks the Apply
button.
Now it's starting the Evolution mail client and trying to authenticate to the mail system. So it's asking
for the Password for user cblackwell. So I'll go ahead, put in the account password, and I'll click
Continue. At this point, I'm in the Evolution mail client and I'm ready to send and receive e-mail.
Let's configure the Thunderbird mail client. To do that, I'll go to the Applications menu in the upper-
left and I'll choose Internet. And then I'll select Thunderbird. Now there is really no need in a
production environment to have both mail clients configured on the same machine for the same user.
On the first page of the wizard, I don't want it to look for an account or to create an account anywhere.
So on the bottom-left, I'll choose the button that says Skip this and use my existing email. For my
name, I'll type in Codey Blackwell, once again. And for the Email address, it will be
[email protected]. Of course, I'll put in the Password for that account and I'll click
Continue.
In the Applications menu, the presenter selects the Thunderbird option from the Internet submenu
option. The "Welcome to Thunderbird" page of the wizard appears. The bottom of the page includes
"Skip this and use my existing email" button. The presenter clicks the button and the "Mail Account
Setup" page of the wizard appears. The page contains three text fields: Your_name, Email_Address,
and Password. The bottom of the page has three buttons: Get a new account, Cancel, and Continue.
He clicks the Continue button and two new buttons, Manual config and Stop, appears at the bottom of
the page along with other buttons.

Now at this point, it's looking up a configuration online to see if I have an account. However, what I'm
going to do is click Manual config because this is a local mail environment. For the Incoming server,
it's currently set to IMAP, but I'm going to switch it to POP3. And for the Server hostname, I'm going
to type pop3.silversides.local. For the SMTP Outgoing mail server, I'll type in a Server hostname
of smtp.silversides.local. Those of course, must be resolvable to the correct IP addresses where
those mail services are running. For SSL – Secure Sockets Layer – I'm going to choose None. There
is no security configured on those mail servers, which means that any transmissions over the network
will be sent in clear text. I'm going to click the Re-test button to make sure it can make the connection
to the POP3 and the SMTP host. It looks good because the Done button is now lit up. So I'll click
Done. Here I get a warning message that tells me that my incoming POP3 server doesn't use
encryption nor does my outgoing SMTP server. For this configuration, that's okay. So I'm going to
click the check box that says I understand the risks and I'll click Done. At this point, I'm now into
Thunderbird mail client where I'm ready to send and receive e-mail. In this video, we learned how to
configure e-mail clients.
The presenter clicks the Manual config button. The page now also includes the Incoming, Outgoing,
and Username settings, and the bottom of the page contains five buttons: Get a new account,
Advanced config, Cancel, Re-test, and Done. The Incoming settings include a drop-down list box, the
Server hostname, and SSL drop-down list box. The Outgoing settings include a drop-down list box,
the Server hostname text field, and SSL drop-down list box. In the Incoming settings, the value set in
the drop-down list box is POP3, the value set in the Server hostname text field is
pop3.silversides.local, and the value set in the SSL drop-down list box is None. In the Outgoing
settings, the value set in the drop-down list box is SMTP, the value set in the Server hostname text
field is smtp.silversides.local, and the value set in the SSL drop-down list box is None. He clicks the
Re-test button and then clicks the Done button.
Using Network tools
In this video, I'll demonstrate how to use network tools in the Gnome desktop environment. If we
need to see our network interfaces and how they have been configured, we can do that by clicking
Applications in the upper left; then choosing System Tools; and then choosing Settings. In the
Settings dialog box, in the Hardware section there will be an icon called Network, that's where I'm
going to click once. Here, in the left-hand part of this dialog box, I can see all of the network
interfaces on this host. One of them on our machine is called Wired. And, if I select it on the right, I
get a brief summary of things like it's IPv4 Address, it's IPv6 Address, and so on. I also have a slider
where I can turn that network connection ON or OFF. In the bottom right, I'm going to click the
configuration icon to configure the Wired network interface. In the left-hand navigator, for the new
dialog box that's opened up, I could click Security and I could turn ON 802.1x Security for this
network connection. I could also click Identity on the left, so I could change the Name of this
networked interface. I could also choose IPv4 on the left, where we can see on the right we've got a
Manual or Static IP configuration where the IPv4 address, subnet mask, and default gateway were
manually entered, as was the DNS Server entry for name resolution.
The Network settings dialog box is shown. The dialog box includes two sections. The left section
includes different network interfaces such as Wired, Bridge (vibr0), and Unknown(vibr0-nic). The
right section includes the content of the selected network interface. The Wired network interface is
selected by default. The bottom of the right section contains the Settings icon. The presenter clicks the
Settings icon and the different setting options of the network interface are shown.

If we need to configure IPv6, we have options to do that as well. Once we've got a valid network
connection, we can then browse the network through our file explorer. On the desktop, I'm going to
open up the home folder which we can use to browse the local file system. But we can also, in the
bottom left, browse Network resources. So, in the bottom left, if I were to click Browse Network, on
the right I see an icon that I could click to view items on the Windows Network. I could also clicked
Connect to Server in the bottom left. Here we can enter an address to a specific Windows host. Here
I've typed in smb – for server message block – ://, and then I've followed that with the IP address of a
Windows host. So I'm going to actually connect to it by clicking the Connect button. I've already
specified a username and password, so that's why it didn't ask. At this point, I'm viewing shared
folders on that Windows host. In this video, we learned how to use network tools in the Gnome
desktop environment.
The presenter opens the home folder from the Gnome desktop, and the Home window appears. The
window is divided into two sections. The left section contains three navigation panes: Places, Devices,
and Network. Each navigation pane includes different options. The right section includes the content
of the selected option in the navigation pane. In the Network navigation pane, the presenter selects
the Connect to Server option. The Connect to Server dialog box appears. The dialog box includes
Server Address text field. The bottom of the dialog box has three buttons: Browse, Cancel, and
Connect. The value set in the Server Address text field is smb://192.168.1.200/. He clicks the Connect
button.

Recognizing the Link between Xwindows and Gnome

In this video, I'll describe the relationship between Xwindows and Gnome. A Linux system can be
installed with or without a graphical user interface. The Xwindow System can be added or removed at
any time. X is a client server-based architecture. The X server runs user applications and the X client
only needs to know how to render that visually. XDMCP is the original protocol that is used for
remote rendering. It stands for Display Manager Control Protocol. So not only can we run Xwindows
graphical type of applications locally on a Linux host, but they can also be rendered over a network
connection. Some Window managers provide only basic interfaces and graphics. And there are many
Windows managers available. Most Linux distributions will let you determine which ones you would
like to install. Some Window managers include TWM, fluxbox, afterstep, and enlightenment.

Full-featured Window managers over time eventually became known as desktop environments.
Desktop environments still run on the Xwindow System. Some examples include Gnome, KDE,
XFCE, MATE, and many others. So you could say then the Xwindow System provides the framework
for a graphical user interface. It handles basic input and output primitives. But bear in mind that the
Xwindow System does not provide a user interface by itself. That's where our desktop environment
such as Gnome comes in. Minimally, only a Window manager is required. However, there is not much
you can really do under graphical environment if that's all you've got. So using KDE or Gnome as a
desktop environment is definitely recommended. In this video we described the relationship between
Xwindows and Gnome.

Configuring System Settings from Gnome

In this video, I'll demonstrate how to configure system settings from the Gnome desktop environment.
In the upper-left of the screen, I'm going to start by clicking the Applications menu. Down below, I'll
then choose System Tools and then I'll choose Settings. Here we have all of our settings centralized
and organized for us to use. For example, under the Personal section what I'll do is click the Privacy
icon. And perhaps, what I'll configure is the Purge Trash & Temporary Files option, so I'll click
that. I'm going to turn the option to automatically empty the trash ON. It's set to automatically purge
after 30 days. I'm going to go ahead and choose that drop-down list and change that to 7 days. Then
I'll click Close. I'll then click the back arrow to go back to my Settings. Under the Hardware section,
I'm going to click Displays where I can control my various screen displays as well as their video
resolution. I'm going to click the back button. Under the Hardware section, I can also configure my
printers. Here I'll click Printers. I see a number of printers that have been selected including one
that's set as the default printer which is indicated with the check mark. From here, I could print a test
page to that printing device. I could even click the Show Jobs button to show any jobs that have been
queued up to that printer. I'll click the back button.
In the Applications menu, the presenter clicks the Settings option from the System Tools submenu
option. The Settings dialog box appears. The dialog box is divided into three sections: Personal,
Hardware, and System. The Personal section includes different icons such as Privacy. The Hardware
section includes several icons such as Displays and Printers. The System section also contains
different icons such as Date & Time, Details, Sharing, Universal Access, and Users. The presenter
clicks the Privacy icon and the Privacy page appears in the Settings dialog box. The page includes
different options. He clicks the "Purge Trash & Temporary Files" option and the "Purge Trash &
Temporary Files" dialog box appears. The dialog box includes "Automatically Empty Trash" toggle
button, "Purge After" drop-down list box, and three buttons: Empty Trash, Purge Temporary Files,
and Close button. The value set in the toggle button is "ON," and the value set in the Purge After
drop-down list box is "7 days." The presenter closes the "Purge Trash & Temporary Files" dialog box
and returns to the Privacy page.

Down under the System section, I can also configure the Date & Time. I can see the current Region
and City which I could choose from the drop-down list if I wanted to change my time zone. I can also
turn Network Time ON or OFF. And I can also determine whether the time is displayed in 24-hour
format or AM/PM format. I'll go ahead and go back to my Settings. Under the System category, I
have an icon called Details. I'll go ahead and click that. Here I can see an overview of my Linux
system including the name of the device, the amount of RAM, the processor type, the operating
system type – in this case 64-bit – how much disk space we have, and so on. In the left-hand
navigator, I could click Default Applications and choose the default web browser, default mail client,
default calendar client, and so on.
Now in the Settings dialog box, the presenter clicks the Details icon in the System section, and the
Details page opens in the Settings dialog box. The Details page is divided into two sections. The left
section contains three options: Overview, Default Applications, and Removable Media. The right
section includes the content of the selected option in the left section. By default, the Overview option
is selected. The right section shows the details of redhat such as Memory, Processor, and OS Type.

I can also click Removable Media on the left and determine what happens when we insert removable
media. For example, for a DVD video, it's set currently to Ask what to do, but we could tell it to
Open folder to expose the files on that removable media. I'm going to click the back arrow. We also
have the option of clicking Sharing, down in the System settings area. From here, I can turn On
Screen Sharing to allow remote control over VNC from other network hosts. I can also choose the
Remote Login option to allow SSH access to this Linux machine. Notice that by default, SSH access
is ON. I'll click the back arrow. We also have an icon in the System settings section called Users
where we can build additional local user accounts. We can see the current user account for Codey
Blackwell. Even though the root user account is not listed, the Linux system will always have a root
account as well. In this video, we learned how to configure system settings from the Gnome desktop
environment.
The presenter clicks the Removable Media option, and the right section shows different drop-down list
boxes such as CD audio, DVD video, and Music player. The presenter modifies the entry of DVD
video drop-down list box to Open folder.

Switching Users and/or Desktops

In this video, I'll demonstrate how to switch between users and desktops in Linux. Here in the Gnome
desktop environment, I can click the panel in the upper right to see who I am currently logged in as.
Here we can see that I'm logged in currently as root. Notice also that the root user has the Calculator
application open. From this menu, I'm going to choose Switch User. So I want to keep the root
session running here in the graphical environment, but I want to spawn another graphical session as a
different user. So I'll go ahead and click Switch User. This is going to give me a graphical login
screen where I can select another user account to log in as. From here, I'll choose Codey Blackwell
and I'll supply that user's password. So now, I have two graphical sessions running simultaneously on
the same host – one as root and one, as we can see now, as Codey Blackwell.

I'm going to go to the Applications menu in the upper left and I'm going to start the Terminal
application. This gives me a command shell as user cblackwell. Well, another way to switch between
users in Linux is at the command line. We can use the su or switch user command to switch between
different user accounts. So I'm going to type su and press Enter. Because I haven't specified a
username, it's assumed that I'm switching to user root. So it's asking for the root password which I
will supply. And we can see now that we logged in as cblackwell in the GUI, but from the terminal
session, we switched over to root. We might do this as an administrator so we could perform tasks that
require elevated privileges. I can end that root session by typing exit. To log out of this graphical
session as Codey Blackwell, I'll click Codey Blackwell on the panel in the upper right and I'll choose
Log Out. At this point, that user will be logged out and I can then log in as a different user such as
root. So I'm going to log in once again as root and notice it still has the Calculator app running. So
everything that was running in that first root session remains. But we can also allow user connectivity
to a Linux host remotely through SSH.
The presenter clicks the "Codey Blackwell" user option in the rightmost corner of the panel and a
drop-down menu is shown. From the drop-down menu, he clicks the Log Out button, and the "Log Out
Codey Blackwell" dialog box appears. The bottom of the dialog box has two buttons, Cancel and Log
Out. He clicks the Log Out button to log out the user, Codey Blackwell.

From a Windows host, I'm going to run the PuTTY command line tool, which is a free download.
Here I've already set up a connection to my Red Hat Enterprise Linux server, so I'm going to Open
this SSH connection to my Linux server from this Windows host. It starts by asking me who I want to
log in as? Here I'll type in cblackwell and I'll supply that user's password. At this point, I'm now
logged in as user cblackwell. So we can have multiple users logged in simultaneously. If I use the who
command to display that I will see that root is logged in on terminal :0 which is locally at the GUI on
the Linux server. But that user cblackwell, the current login session that we're using, is logged in
through a pseudo terminal over the network from the host name that is listed. In this case, the host
name is danslaptop.silversides.local. So we can see then that with Linux, it allows multiple user
connectivity both locally and remotely over the network to a single Linux host. In this video, we
discussed how to switch users and desktops in Linux.
The PuTTY Configuration dialog box is open. The dialog box is divided into two sections. The left
section contains expandable nodes and subnodes. The right section includes two subsections, "Specify
the destination you want to content to" and "Load, save or delete a stored session." The "Specify the
destination you want to content to" section includes the "Host Name (or IP address)" text field. The
"Load, save or delete a stored session" section includes a list of saved sessions such as RHEL. This
section also contains three buttons: Load, Save, and Delete. The presenter selects the RHEL session
and clicks the Load button. By default, the value set in the Host Name (or IP address) text field is
"192.168.1.240."