The GNOME Configuration HOWTO

 

The GNOME Configuration HOWTO Content: 1. What is GNOME?2. Installing GNOME3. Configuring GNOME 1.  What is GNOME? The Project The GNOME project is a free software project dedicated to the development of GNOME, a Unix/Linux desktop suite and development platform. The GNOME Foundation coordinates the development and other aspects of the GNOME Project. The Software GNOME is a desktop environment and a development platform. This piece of free software is the desktop of choice for several industry leaders. It is interesting both for business users, home users as well as developers. The Community Like with any big free software project, GNOME has an extensive user- and development base. Footnotes contains GNOME Desktop news for users; GnomePlanet is for hackers/contributors and Developer.Gnome.Org is for the GNOME developers. 2.  Installing GNOME What do you need? Before you start installing GNOME, you might want to edit your USE variables. Make sure that X, gtk, and gnome are in your USE variable listed in /etc/make.conf. If you want support for hald, the hardware abstraction layer daemon add hal to your USE flags. The same goes for dbus, a system message bus Gnome uses extensively. The avahi USE flag brings DNS detection to GNOME (similiar to Rendezvous under Mac OS X). If you don't want KDE support (the other big desktop environment), remove qt3, qt4, arts, and kde. Code Listing 2.1: Example USE in /etc/make.conf USE="-qt3 -qt4 -arts -kde X dbus gtk gnome hal avahi" You can add the branding USE flag to get a lovely Gentoo-branded splashscreen instead of the default Gnome splashscreen: Code Listing 2.2: Enabling Gentoo branding # echo "gnome-base/gnome-session branding" >> /etc/portage/package.use Once done, start installing GNOME by emerging gnome: Code Listing 2.3: Installing GNOME # emerge gnome You can also opt for a minimal Gnome installation using gnome-light: Code Listing 2.4: Installing a minimal GNOME environment # emerge gnome-light This will take a while, so you might want to start reading all those books your mother bought you but you never opened. Done? Great, now update your environment variables: Code Listing 2.5: Updating environment variables # env-update && source /etc/profile If you paid attention to the output of your previous emerge command, you'll notice that it suggests using gamin to have nautilus and gnome-vfs monitor file changes: Code Listing 2.6: Installing gamin, a file alteration monitor # emerge gamin Important: If you are switching from fam (the old, deprecated file monitor) to gamin, you will need to remove famd from all runlevels and then unmerge it: Code Listing 2.7: Optional: switching to gamin from fam # rc-update del famd # emerge --unmerge app-admin/fam Next we'll clean up the remaining services. Code Listing 2.8: Adding hald and avahi-dnsconfd to the default runlevel # /etc/init.d/hald start # rc-update add hald default # /etc/init.d/dbus start # rc-update add dbus default # /etc/init.d/avahi-dnsconfd start # rc-update add avahi-dnsconfd default First Impressions Let us first take a look at what we just built. Exit your root shell and log on as a regular user. We will configure our session to run GNOME when we issue the startx command (see also Using startx in the X Server Configuration Howto): Code Listing 2.9: Having GNOME as default desktop environment $ echo "exec gnome-session" > ~/.xinitrc Now start your graphical environment by running startx: Code Listing 2.10: Starting GNOME $ startx If all goes well, you should be greeted by GNOME. Congratulations. Now let us take a look at how you can configure GNOME to suit your needs. 3.  Configuring GNOME GNOME's Graphical Login Manager If you want the GNOME Display Manager (GDM) to run automatically when you boot (so you can log on graphically), you must add the xdm init script to the default runlevel: Code Listing 3.1: Adding xdm to the default runlevel # rc-update add xdm default Now edit /etc/conf.d/xdm and alter the DISPLAYMANAGER variable. Code Listing 3.2: Editing /etc/conf.d/xdm DISPLAYMANAGER="gdm" If you reboot now, the GNOME Display Manager will prompt you for your username and password and will default to using GNOME as Desktop Environment (even though you will have the option of selecting a different one of course, choosing from those available in /usr/share/xsessions/). Thus, if you use GDM, you don't need to edit ~/.xinitrc. To use the functionality of hald just start gnome-volume-manager and edit its preferences. Also, you'll need to add your user to the plugdev group. The contents of this document are licensed under the Creative Commons - Attribution / Share Alike license. Print Updated November 13, 2007 Summary: A frequently used environment is GNOME. This HOWTO tries to describe all aspects of GNOME, including installation, configuration, usage, ... Sven Vermeulen Author Lars Strojny Editor Joshua Saddler Editor Donate to support our development efforts. Support OSL VR Hosted Tek Alchemy SevenL.net Global Netoptex Inc. Bytemark

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