# Knowing Knoppix/The K Desktop Environment

!KDE 3.4 running in Slax, another Live Linux
distro{width="370"}

## The K Desktop Environment

!Konqi: the KDE
mascot The
*K Desktop Environment* is a modern, powerful and free graphical user
interface environment for UNIX
compatible systems. Its name is a play on the *Common Desktop
Environment* created by Sun Microsystems in the 1980s. This section
explains what KDE has to offer.

**`Web link`**\
`The home page of the K Desktop Environment:`\
`http://www.kde.org/`

### Single click, not double-click

KDE looks familiar to Windows and Macintosh users because it takes some
of the best elements from each. There is an important difference:
everything is single click. Nothing needs a double-click to make it
work. If you double-click, you\'ll end up with a program running twice,
or something else you don\'t need. Just single
click. To revert this to what you may be
used to, there is an appropriate setting under Peripherals -\> Mouse in
the Control Center.

**`Tip`**\
`To ``select a file`` instead of opening it, hold down the Ctrl key and click the left mouse button.`\
`The icon will be selected, rather than opened.`\
`It is then safe to let go of the Ctrl key.`

### Context menus everywhere

Most icons have a context menu. To get the
context menu for an icon, right-click on the icon. You\'ll get a little
pop-up menu of common actions for that icon. This also works on window
edges, toolbars, and just about everything else.

**`Tip`**\
`Right-click to see the context menu for an item.`

### Hover the mouse for help

Like Macintosh and Windows, most icons have a tooltip. Hover the mouse
pointer over an icon. A little yellow label will tell you what that icon
does. Tooltips only work in the current active window. This means that
if you have two windows open, you will only get tooltips in the window
that is at the front. To get tooltips in the
other window, you must click it to bring it to the front.

**`Tip`**\
`Not sure what an icon does? Hover the mouse pointer over it.`

### The Desktop

The main part of the screen is called the
*Desktop*. This is where the application windows
appear. There are also icons for each *disk device* in the system.

Here are device icons for two CD-ROM drives, a 1.44 Mb floppy drive, and
a hard disk partition. Notice that the "hard disk partition" icon has
the name "hda1". Knoppix has its own way of naming disks and partitions.
For details, see the section "Knoppix essentials". These icons are
actually hyperlinks. In other words, they are just pointers to the place
in the system where the files appear. You can\'t drag and drop files and
folders onto Desktop device icons, as you can on the Apple Macintosh.

**`Note`**\
`Desktop icons are shortcuts. There are no files inside Desktop icons.`\
`Instead, Desktop icons are just pointers to the places where the files actually appear.`

If you plug in a hot-pluggable disk device, such as a USB external hard
drive, a new icon for it will appear on the Desktop. This behaviour will
be familiar to Apple Macintosh users.

### The Panel

At the bottom of the screen is the *Panel*. The
Panel is always visible. It contains various utilities and status
information.

#### K Menu

In the far left corner of the Panel is the *K
Menu* which is just like the Windows "Start" menu.
Click for a list of programs that are available on the system.

#### Quick launch

Next to the K Menu are *Quick Launch*
icons. These icons represent frequently used programs. Hover the mouse
pointer over the program icon for a description of what it does.
Single-click on the icon to start that program. Be aware that the
*OpenOffice* program may take several minutes to start, especially if
you have a slower computer.

#### Desktop Guide

The *Desktop Guide* consists of four
squares. Each square represents one desktop. You start off in the first
desktop. Click in the Desktop Guide to switch between the four available
desktops. To move open windows between Desktops, click the Window
Control Box at the top left corner of the window. Point at "To desktop",
then choose the Desktop that you would like to send the window to.

#### Taskbar

A button is shown in the *Taskbar* for each open
window. This example shows three open windows; *Konsole*, the
*Konqueror* web browser, and the *GIMP* graphics editor.

#### System Tray

The *System Tray* contains an icon for the
current keyboard layout. To view the available keyboard layouts,
right-click on the keyboard layout icon.

#### Clock

The clock shows the time and date.

#### Hide Panel

At each end of the Panel is a *Hide Panel* button. Click the Hide Panel
button to make the Panel shrink to that side of the screen. Click the
button again to unhide the Panel. Drag the Hide Panel button to move the
entire Panel from one side of the screen to another.

### Left mouse button selects text, middle button pastes

To copy and paste text using a three
button mouse:

1.  Select the text that you want to copy and paste with the left mouse
    button, so that the text is highlighted.
2.  Point to the place where you want the text to go.
3.  Click the middle mouse button. The last selected text will be pasted
    from the X Window System\'s *copy buffer* into the place where you
    clicked.

This also works in other window managers that run in X. If this method
doesn\'t work, you can use the Ctrl+C \> Ctrl+V or the Ctrl+Insert \>
Shift+Insert combination. The latter key combination is slightly older,
but is supported in apps that don\'t support the former combinations.

## Alternatives to KDE

:   *See also: Alternatives to
    KDE*

For whatever reason, you may you might want to try something other than
KDE. Several alternatives exist, such as GNOME,
Xfce, and WindowMaker. GNOME, being an entirely separate desktop
environment rather than a window manager, is distributed within
Gnoppix. For more info, see Alternatives to
KDE. Once knoppix has
loaded you can switch between the various alternatives.

In newer versions of Knoppix,
Beryl "wikilink") may be supported (this
depends on your hardware). Although using Beryl is almost identical to
using KDE it must be specified at boot time with:

`knoppix desktop=beryl`

