Linux: The Ultimate Guide

part of the GNU Project and is a free software.
The GNOME 2.0.2 platform includes a complete library suite to support 
GNOME applications. It also includes all the essential utilities for your 
day-to-day computing, from a simple weather monitor to a powerful file 
manager. GNOME 2.0.2 is compatible with several platforms, including 
GNU/Linux, Solaris, HP-UX, Unix, and BSD.
The GNOME 2 development cycle allowed several features that 
improved performance and usability. It also includes a robust new frame-
work that developers can leverage.
Some features of GNOME 2 are:
• Improved fonts and graphics
• Usability
• Performance
• Keyboard navigation
• Accessibility
• Internationalization
• XML
Improved Font and Graphics
• Fonts can be anti-aliased (familiar graphics setting).
• There is no flicker in GTK apps.
• Images are composited onto backgrounds with the entire alpha 
channel, accelerated via MMX and the RENDER extension.
• There are new enhanced icons.
Usability
Streamlining, consistency, and coherence are having the primary focus of 
GNOME 2 Usability work.
• Streamlining: GNOME 2 has been simplified, and there is no need 
to add a pipeline. The interface clutter controlled a GNOME where 
you could almost literally “do less with more.” GNOME 2 removes 
many obscure or rarely used features. In exchange, you will find 

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GNOME Desktop Environment 
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that most of the features you care about are much easier to access, 
because a million other items do not obscure them.
• Consistency: Interfaces that behave according to uniform pat-
terns are easier to learn, faster to use, and less tending to error. The 
GNOME Interface Guidelines have helped make the GNOME 2 
interface more predictable, producing consistency between applica-
tions and promoting usable patterns within particular applications.
• Coherence: The GNOME 2 desktop fits nicely from “Login” to “Log 
Out”; countless brainstorming hours and tireless hacking have pro-
duced a desktop and more than a loose confederation of modules.
Specific User-Visible Improvements Include
1. Menus and panel
2. Dialogs
3. Icons and themes
4. Applications
Menus and Panel
• The windows can be dragged between workspaces with the 
Workspace Switcher applet.
• The menus can scroll when they get too big.
• More innovative menus accommodate diagonal mouse movements.
Dialogs
• The file selector doesn’t forget names when selecting a different 
folder.
• The updated color and font selectors.
• New dialog Run Program with command completion.
• The text fields include right-clicking menus for cutting, copying, and 
pasting text.
Icons and Themes
• The new stock icons and color palette.
• It supported theming of stock icons.

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• The CD Player and login screens are now themeable.
• An attractive default appearance.
Applications
• Everything is redesigned and easier to use Search Tool.
• The brand-new lightweight help application, Yelp.
• It can control center applications for managing GNOME 2 proper-
ties that have been greatly simplified and reduced in number.
• It has increasing compliance with freedesktop .o rg standards.
• Rewritten terminal application with tabs and profiles.
• A brand-new dynamic, centralized configuration system.
• Many applications have been renamed to suit their purposes better.
GNOME 3
It was released in 2011. While GNOME 1 and 2 interfaces followed the 
classic desktop analogy, the GNOME Shell assumed a more abstract meta-
phor with streamlined window management workflow unified header bar 
that replaces menu bar, taskbar, and toolbar and minimize and maximize 
buttons hidden by default.
GNOME 3 brought many enhancements to the core software. Many 
GNOME Core Applications went through redesigns to provide a more 
consistent user experience, and Mutter replaced Metacity as the default 
window manager. Adwaita substituted Clearlooks as the default theme.
Features of GNOME
GNOME has become one of the most efficient, stable, and reliable desktops 
available for the Linux operating system. Not only that, it remains incred-
ibly user-friendly. Most users have experienced this regardlessly and can 
get incredible speed with GNOME without applying any extra effort. So, 
let’s look at the details of GNOME and know about its great features.
Let’s Take a Look at Its Features
• Flatpak: It seems like one of the best things ever happened to Linux. 
It lets developers distribute an app on every Linux distribution 

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GNOME Desktop Environment 
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