This is Andrew Gee with the sixth screencast from the
Ubuntu Month of Screencasts.
All the screencasts in this month are available for free
at our website, which is screencasts.ubuntu.com
When you load up your Ubuntu operating system for the first time,
you may be confused as it does not look like your previous
operating system.
But it is really quite simple to get the hang of
and has some great features, of which I am going to show you.
The first part of the desktop you should notice is the desktop itself.
Like most other operating systems there is a background
upon which you can arrange icons or files,
so that you are able to quickly access them.
If you have a CD or other hard drive connected to the computer
you may also see an icon allowing you to open them.
At the top and the bottom of the screen you should see two bars.
These are known as panels and are totally customisable.
On the left of the top panel you can find the main menus,
these are Applications, Places and System.
The Applications menu houses all of the applications on the system,
for your computer to load up.
The Places menu allows you to access some of the places on your system,
such as your home directory, external devices and network.
The system menu allows you to change the settings of your Ubuntu computer,
access the help system and turn off your computer.
Next along on the panel is a blank area,
here is a good place to make shortcuts for your applications
to quickly access them.
As you can see, there are already three icons in the panel for you.
To add a new button to the panel, simply right-click in a blank area,
choose Add to panel.
From the window shows click the Application Launcher... button
From here you are able to go through the categories just as
you were going through the applications menu.
You can choose the application you want to add to a button.
In this case I will choose calculator.
Select it and then press the Add button.
Now you can see that your button has shown up on the panel.
You can right-click on it
and choose to move it to whatever place on the panel you would like.
Next on the top panel is the Fast User Switcher.
Here you can see which user is currently logged in to the desktop.
If you are to click on it,
you can see the other users that are on this computer,
which you are able to switch to instantly.
Here I have two user accounts under the same name.
Clicking on it will instantly swap me over to that user.
Next on the panel is the search tool.
This is a powerful search, allowing you to access
and search for what you want on your computer.
Just type in the search box and the results will show up.
You can find the system tray next
This is where some applications like to hide when they are open.
You may also find network and sound icons to adjust both settings quickly.
The date and is displayed next
and clicking on it will show a calendar,
so you are able to quickly flip through the days.
The final button on the top panel
is the one you would use to shut down, restart, log off, hibernate
or standby your computer with.
Clicking on it will bring up the following window,
giving you the choice of what you would like to do.
The bottom panel also has a range of items on.
The first button gives you quick access to your desktop.
If you have many windows open,
you may want to minimise them quickly, so that you are
able to see your desktop.
Clicking the button again will bring your windows back to where they were,
before you minimised them with the button.
Next along is the window list,
this is where all the windows that are open are put for easy access.
This is pretty similar to the windows task bar that you may have used.
As you can see I have loaded up the calculator
and the calculator is shown up as an item on the window list.
Right-clicking will do the same as you would expect,
being able to do things, such as close.
Next is the Workspace feature.
This is a really great feature that I will come back to in a second.
The last button is the waste basket.
This is the Trash or Recycle Bin of Ubuntu.
You are able to drag files here that you do not want to have.
Clicking on it will launch this window.
You can rescue items by dragging back out
or you can empty the deleted items by clicking
on Empty Deleted Items.
Now back to workspaces,
When you are using your computer, you may find that your windows
become somewhat cluttered on the desktop,
This is the perfect time to use workspaces.
Workspaces can be used to split up different windows
on to different work spaces.
Now here is a pretty cluttered desktop.
The best way to use workspaces is to split the different tasks
you have got running.
For instance, I have my emails running in the background.
Which are getting in the way a bit.
So what I can do is move this on to a separate workspace.
To do this I hold the Ctrl + Alt + Shift and press the right arrow key.
From the bottom right, where the workspace switcher is,
I can now see that the window is in the second workspace, from there.
But all of the original windows are on the first workspace.
Switching back, by clicking on the different workspaces in the bottom right corner
I can see that my original workspace is still there,
with the email client missing in the background.
Now you may want even more workspaces.
In this case, you go to the workspace switcher
right-click on it and go to preferences.
Here you can see the number of workspaces.
You can change this to a different number.
A well known number that is used is four.
Now you can see in the bottom-right, there are four workspaces.
So now I can use that to split up more.
Now you can see I am using three different workspaces.
Workspace three, which is this one, has two windows on it.
and the original two workspaces are still there.
This keeps things much more tidier and easier to manage on your system.
You can switch easily by clicking in the bottom
or simply by holding Ctrl + Alt and the left or right keys to navigate.
Thanks for watching, I am Andrew Gee.
To see more screencast from the Ubuntu Month of Screencasts,
visit screencasts.ubuntu.com