GNU/Linux Desktop Survival Guide by Graham Williams
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Conventions used in the Book

Typography

L^ATEX is used as the source markup language.

What's In A Name

The phrase Microsoft Windows (and less informatively just Windows) usually refers to the whole of the popular operating system, irrespective of which version of Microsoft Windows is being run, unless the version is important. But Microsoft Windows is just one of many windowing systems available, and indeed, Microsoft Windows came on to the screen rather later than the pioneering Apple Macintosh windowing system and the Unix windowing systems. We will refer to MS/Windows version 10 as the last release of this Microsoft operating system, which going forward has snaptshot releases rather than new versions.

We use the phrase GNU/Linux to refer to the GNU environment and the GNU and other applications running in that environment on top of the Linux operating system kernel. Similarly, GNU/Hurd refers to the GNU environment and the GNU and other applications running in that environment on top of the GNU Hurd operating system kernel.

Ubuntu and its underlying base distribution Debian are complete repository based distributions which include many applications based around a particular choice of operating system kernel (usually either GNU/Linux or GNU/Hurd). Where the particular kernel is not important we will refer to whole system as Ubuntu.

The common windowing system used in Ubuntu is a separate, but integral, component that we will refer to as the X Window System.

Screen Shots

Throughout the book screen shots are presented using a variety of Gnome and KDE themes. As the book evolves the screen shots are generally using Gnome and the current standard theme. The theme specifies what things look like inside the windows that an application displays, as well as what the window frame looks like—that is, the area immediately surrounding the application's window. There is an large collection of themes available to suit different preferences. Refer to the discussion of themes in Chapter 84 for details, if interested.