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Quick overview of the Ubuntu desktop for Windows migrants

You've installed Ubuntu — now make yourself at home! Ubuntu desktop is blissfully simple. On the bar along the top, you will see three words:

• Applications: provides access to your software packages organised by category
• Places: gives you quick access to local and network locations through a file manager (like Windows Explorer) called 'Nautilus'
• System: opens preferences and administration menus. From here, you can play with the appearance of your desktop and manage everything from menubars to software, printers, networking etc through GUI (visual point-and-click) interfaces

Here are some other familiar features:

• Help is reached by clicking the blue ? icon on the bottom bar
• Your taskbar and system tray are pretty much where you'd expect
• You have a 'show the desktop' icon and a wastebin — again much like Windows

The Ubuntu desktop is highly configurable. One of the great things about Linux is the design of menus — everything you want is usually no more than 3 clicks deep and all your options will usually drop down in a single tree so that you can set all your preferences in one place rather than fiddling with endless tabs under different (and often highly improbable) menu headings. This makes Ubuntu very quick and intuitive to learn.

• The desktop toolbars (called panels in Ubuntu) are configurable — you can put them where you want and add/remove anything from them, including the system tray and taskbar, change their colour, dimensions etc. But this isn't done the same way as in Windows. Right click on the panel you want to change and follow your nose — a reasonably experienced Windows user will find it easy to pick up.
• Right-click on the desktop (or use the menu -> System -> Themes) to change the appearance of your desktop. Themes are much more flexible as you can mix and match features from different standard themes as well as importing new ones.
• Important tip for Windows users: Linux applications usually have their 'options' or 'preference' interfaces under the 'edit' menu rather than the 'tools' menu as is usual on Windows

Ubuntu can be used and managed entirely through point-and-click GUIs, but if you want more control, you might also want to learn about using the Linux commandline.

Ubuntu's file structure

You can find out more about Ubuntu's file structure here.