|
|
Article Index
(click the  )
 Introduction
Switching from the GNOME to the K Desktop
Making Red Hat's K-Desktop More MS-Windows-Like
Modify the K Panel & Taskbar
Change the Desktop Background Color
Tweak the Icons Look
Working on Your Own
Conclusion
Resources & Links
|
|
|
|
|
|
Linux for Microsoft Windows Users: #3 -- Making an MS Windows-Like Desktop for Red Hat Linux
page - 2 -
Making Red Hat's K-Desktop More MS-Windows-Like
The K desktop is not inherently an MS-Windows desktop clone. Figure 4 shows that restarting the X sever into the K desktop results in the same blue-background theme that the GNOME desktop had before we switched desktops, the Taskbar Panel still looks more like the K Panel, and so forth. (Taskbar Panel is our name for the MS Windows Start Button, Quick Launch Toolbar, Taskbar, and System Tray panel combination.)
As you might recall from Linux for Microsoft Windows Users: #2 - Getting Started with The Linux MS Windows-Like Desktop, we used the KDE Wizard in Caldera's OpenLinux eDesktop 2.4 to make the Linux, K desktop look and feel pretty much like the Microsoft Windows desktop. That KDE Wizard includes a pre-configured MS Windows theme.
However, the Red Hat folks did not include a KDE Wizard with their implementation of the KDE packages that are installed by default with Red Hat Linux 7. Nevertheless, we manually can use a set of KDE configuration tools to give our Red Hat K desktop a more MS-Windows-like look and feel.
|
|
|
Figure 4 Opening the KPanel.Configuration Box. This is the default K desktop theme.
|
|
(Note: for the most part the following K desktop discussion is based upon using KDE version 1.1.2 as implemented in the Red Hat Linux 7 distribution and running the 2.2.17-14 Linux kernel. However, you should be able to use this tutorial with KDE pre-2.0 versions installed into other Linux distributions. What actually happens for you might vary some depending upon what Linux distribution and what KDE version you are using.)
|
Modifying the K Panel & Taskbar
Let's start making Red Hat's K desktop implementation look and feel more like the MS Windows desktop by making the K Panel more MS-Windows-like. First, let's make the Taskbar visible.
To make the Taskbar visible, please click on the K Menu icon on the K Panel. Next, click on Settings > Applications > Panel. Then in the K Panel Configuration pop-up box, please move the dot under Taskbar from Hidden to Bottom by clicking on Bottom. Please see Figure 4 (above) and Figure 5 (below).
|
|
|
Figure 5. Using the KPanel.Configuration Box to make the Taskbar visible just above the K Panel.
|
Next, let's merge the K Taskbar into the K Panel in order to make a more MS-Windows-like Taskbar Panel (the MS Windows Start Button, Quick Launch Toolbar, System Tray, and Taskbar combination). To do that, simply click on the arrow immediately to the left of the K Menu icon on the K Panel. Please see Figure 6. You can toggle the appearance of the K Panel and Taskbar by clicking on that arrow to the left of the K Menu icon.
|
|
