Using Ubuntu Linux/Settings & How to Use Them

< Using Ubuntu Linux

Welcome to your new system, in this section we will talk about the settings you can change in your new operating system which you can access from the menu's at the top of your screen.

System

Ubuntu 11.04 or newer users

When you first logged in to your brand new system, you would have noticed that your applications are found on the left hand side of the screen at the launcher. It sort of resembles Windows 7, so if you just moved from Windows 7, congratulations! You don't have to learn a lot of new stuff.

When you have first logged in to your Ubuntu, you may be wondering where all your applications have went. Don't worry, they are just being stuffed into the applications directory. Simply click on the Ubuntu icon on your screen's top left corner or press the super key on your keyboard and do a quick search for your favourite programs.

On the top right hand corner, you would find a clock ticking, your username, a quit button and a few others. They are just there to allow you to do the different maintenance tasks that you would usually do (like turning off your computer after a session using the quit button).

Ubuntu 10.10 or older users

If you have downloaded an old release of Ubuntu (Ubuntu 10.10 or older), you would need to follow the following guide below.

The system menu and its submenus 'Preferences' and 'Administration' are where you will do most of your configuration.

First lets talk about the entries in this menu before we talk about the submenus.

This option loads a program called 'yelp' which is similar to windows' Help center. You can type in a keyword into the search box of this program to see useful information, or follow its useful links for common help questions.

This is just a dialog box which shows information about GNOME. GNOME is your Desktop Environment, it contains a suite of applications which include the panel bars you see and the games in the 'Applications' menu as well as many other applications

This loads the 'yelp' program at a page specific to information about Ubuntu.

This opens a window which allows you to shutdown, reboot, hibernate etc.

Preferences

This is the menu where you can change the majority of your settings. The features described in here are quite often user specific, this means that if another user logs in, features you've set here won't be in theirs. So consider these options superficial; you're much less likely to ruin your computer messing around with these, so I recommend having a play around with them to find out more about them. If you are using Ubuntu 11.04 or newer, most of the configuration settings are found in the Ubuntu Control Centre, do find the Control Centre in the applications directory.

Administration

This is where you will be able to find tools to adjust certain settings such as graphics card settings, partitions, printing, network settings etc. Modifications you make here are system wide, and sometimes potentially dangerous, I don't want to scare you away from here, but if you do want to change anything under the system menu, make sure you know what you're doing. If you are using Ubuntu 11.04 or newer, most of the configuration settings are found in the Ubuntu Control Centre, do find the Control Centre in the applications directory.

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