Experienced Windows® and Mac OS® X users are normally accustomed to certain functions and/or concepts which are often treated differently in GNU/Linux.
In Windows®, most applications and system tools are accessed through the so-called Start Menu; this concept remains more or less the same, except it's now called the Main Menu: you open it by clicking on the yellow star in the panel.
For users coming from Mac OS® X, Mandriva Linux's Main Menu can be considered as a replacement for functions from both the Apple Menu, located at the far left of the menu bar, and the Applications folder available in the Finder.
The wide variety of
applications is a large differentiator between GNU/Linux and
Windows®. Mandriva Linux installs many more applications
onto your system, and clicking on the main menu gives you a wide
range of choices depending on what you would like to do. Most
standard file formats can be handled: PNG pictures, Rich Text
Format texts, PostScript
printouts, etc. These file
formats should always be preferred as they facilitate exchange
of data between applications, while ensuring your freedom to
change to another application and/or operating system at any
time.
You may also have many files in proprietary formats such as Microsoft® Excel or Microsoft® Word documents. OpenOffice.org is just one application which can handle most popular formats for office applications (see Seção 1, “Word Processor” and Seção 2, “Spreadsheet”).
![]() | Nota |
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We specifically mention office documents because they are widely used. Due to space constraints we cannot cover every single Windows® application and its GNU/Linux equivalent. However, there is a high probability that you will find GNU/Linux equivalents for all the programs you used under Windows® or Mac OS® X. To get an idea of GNU/Linux equivalents of Windows® applications, you can consult this table of equivalents. |
Mac OS® X users may find similarities between Mac OS® X and GNU/Linux applications, because Mac OS® X is based on BSD®, a UNIX®-like system on which GNU/Linux is also based. Moreover, other applications designed for the desktop have been ported to, or are available under, the X11 implementation available for Mac OS® X.
You may also install a large number of applications through the RpmDrake utility (please refer to Capítulo 13, Gerenciamento de Pacotes através do Rpmdrake).
The Control Panel in Windows® and the System Preferences utility in Mac OS® X are replaced by the Mandriva Linux Control Center under Mandriva Linux. It can be accessed by choosing + → in the main menu. With this interface, you have the ability to modify most of your system's settings with graphical tools.
GNU/Linux is still very fond of shell environments. Unlike Windows® the popularity of the shell is not fading away as is evident by the availability of the shell in Mac OS® X. By default, Mandriva Linux installs bash, a truly powerful shell environment. You can access it by opening the main menu and choosing + → .
GNU/Linux uses TCP/IP by default, not SMB (the Windows® network protocol), so there's nothing like a network neighborhood icon to give you a view of the network you're in. However, you may use the LinNeighborhood application to give you similar functionality.
Konqueror can also accomplish
the same tasks. Just type smb:/
in the location bar, and all of the shared Windows®
resources on the network will appear.
See Seção 3.5, “Compartilhamento de Arquivo” for more information.
The “lettered
drive” is a concept exclusive to Windows®. On
UNIX® systems, the drive notion (C:
,
D:
, ..., Z:
) is replaced by
“mount points”. From a user
perspective, you're always accessing directories. Your system
is configured to
“load” all relevant disks, disk partitions and
remote systems, and then assign them to a specified directory,
generally under the /mnt
directory. While
this concept is similar to that found in Mac OS® X, it is
slightly different. What is mounted under
/mnt
with GNU/Linux is mounted under
/Volumes
in Mac OS® X but is made
available as a “root file system” in the
Finder.
The same concept as for
C:
applies here. CD-ROMs are mounted in
/mnt/cdrom
. To access the CD-ROM, just click
on the desktop icon and the CD-ROM's contents appear in a new
window.
![]() | Nota |
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Things are a bit different for audio and data CDs: upon inserting an audio CD in the drive, the CD player is automatically loaded and starts playing. Please see Seção 1, “Audio Applications”. |
Like CD-ROMs and
disk partitions, floppy disks, USB keys, and other removable
media are mounted and will appear under the
/mnt
directory. Icons are displayed on your
desktop to access some media directly; all media is accessible
through the media icon on the
desktop.
Under
Mandriva Linux every user has a directory called the user's
home directory: that is the place to store the user's
documents. For example, Peter should store
documents in
/home/peter
. A My Documents
directory could be created inside the user's
home to “mimic” Windows® behaviour.
The home
directory concept is analogous to the
C:\Winnt\Profiles\user_name\
or
C:\Documents and Settings\user_name\
directories in
Windows NT®, Windows® 2000 and Windows® XP and is explained in
Capítulo 7, Using KDE.
Under Mac OS® X this
is very similar. The home directory's equivalent is
/Users/user_name
which contains a directory
called Documents
.