GNOME Desktop for UD Sun Ray Terminals

• Introduction to GNOME Desktop for Sun Ray Terminals
• Your GNOME Desktop
• The GNOME Panels
• Applications Pull-down Menu
• Actions Menu
• Home and Terminal Buttons
• The GNOME Taskbar
• Nautilus File Manager
• USB Mass Storage Devices (USB Flash Drives)
• Ending Your Session
• Screen Savers
• Troubleshooting

Introduction to GNOME Desktop for Sun Ray Terminals

The GNOME desktop environment provides users with an intuitive, graphical user interface for using a variety of computing systems. It has a similar look-and-feel to MS Windows with its desktop work area, menus, icons, and taskbars. UD's standard configuration for Sun Rays includes pull-down menu items for common applications (mail, web browsing, programming, computational analysis); a graphically based file-manager with access to your central UNIX files; and six virtual workspaces.

This document is intended to be a quick-start guide. You can read complete details by double-clicking the GNOME Overview icon on the desktop. For more documentation see GNOME Documentation or GNOME Documentation for Developers.

Your GNOME Desktop

The desktop is represented by the large blue area, initially containing four icons.

GNOME Overview -- General GNOME documentation.

Start Here -- Documentation on using GNOME and Sun Rays at UD.

username's Home -- Nautilus File Manager to open your home directory.

Trash -- Nautilus File Manager to open your trash folders. See GNOME Trash.

The GNOME Panels

The GNOME panels consist of the bars above and below the blue desktop area. Use the top bar (menu panel) to select applications you want to run on the desktop. Use the bottom bar (taskbar panel) to see the currently running applications. Click a taskbar icon to minimize or restore an application's windows.

The GNOME Menu Panel

Applications Pull-down Menu

Some application software, such as viewers or web browsers, can be run on the special system called the Sun Ray server (local host). The local host primarily manages all the sessions of the Sun Rays logged into it. Applications can also be run on other computing systems (remote hosts) on which you have an account. For example, you can run many language compilers, mathematical and statistical packages on UD's central UNIX system named Strauss. Regardless of where the application software is run, the results are generally displayed on the Sun Ray's monitor and are viewed on the GNOME desktop.

You can add icons to the desktop by dragging an icon from the pull-down menus or by right-clicking the desktop, selecting an item and defining the item's properties. Use the submenu items' properties as prototypes for your new items. You can also add items to the Applications menu's submenus. For more details, double-click the GNOME Overview icon on the desktop.

Some of the most common applications you'll need are available from three submenus shown below: Internet, Programming, and Other. The mathematical and statistical applications will be launched on Strauss. You'll also see two sets of xterm menu items. Use the Programming > xterm choices for software development on the central UNIX systems. Use the Internet > xterm choices for general access to UD's central UNIX systems.

Some applications are not automatically available and need to be installed in your account such as StarOffice. See StarOffice on Sun Ray Terminals at UD for details.

Actions Menu

The Actions pull-down menu lets you perform several common actions quickly. Do not select Actions > Lock Screen in a public site unless you plan to return within a minute or two. Otherwise, IT staff or other users may terminate your session and allow another person to use your Sun Ray.

Home and Terminal Buttons

The menu panel (top bar) contains two buttons, home and terminal. Click the home button to open your home directory, and click the terminal button to open a terminal for typing commands on the Sun Ray server.

The GNOME Taskbar

The taskbar appears at the bottom of the screen and displays all running applications. The Workspace Switcher at the right end is for navigating among the six GNOME workspace desktops.

Nautilus File Manager

The Nautilus file manager is a point-and-click interface to your files. You can display files in your home directory on the central UNIX systems or on your removable drive connected to the Sun Ray Terminal.

Some files, such as audio files, may not be recognized by the file manager, so you may need to configure them to work properly. See GNOME Audio for UD Sun Ray Terminals for details.

Home Directory

Your home directory is your primary file folder on Copland, Strauss and other central UNIX systems. View its contents by double-clicking the username's Home icon on the GNOME desktop or clicking the home icon on the GNOME menu panel.

USB Mass Storage Device (USB Flash Drives)

A USB Mass Storage Device can be connected to a Sun Ray terminal via the USB port, and the most common device is a USB flash drive.  USB flash drives are small, convenient, personal storage devices, with capacities ranging to many gigabytes. They may store files created on any system which supports standard USB mass storage devices. This includes Windows PCs, Macs, and UNIX/Linux systems. Flash drives are also called keys, thumb drives, pen drives or keydrives.

A USB device is mounted and later unmounted by the Nautilus file manager. All operations using USB flash drives take a very long time. Please be patient. To mount the USB flash drive, insert it in the USB port (illustrated at right). After a few seconds, select  Applications > System Tools > Mount USB Mass Storage Device menu items. You should see the files and folders stored on your USB flash drive in a Nautilus file manager window. If you don't, press the Nautilus reload button repeatedly until you do see them.

You can add a button to the GNOME menu that mounts and opens the Nautilus window for the USB flash drive. Select  Applications > System Tools > mount USB Mass Storage Device menu items. Click the last menu item with the right mouse-button, and select Add this launcher to the panel. The new button will have a folder as its icon. You can also drag the folder icon to the GNOME desktop.

To remove the USB flash drive, first close the Nautilus window displaying the USB flash drive's files. Then select  Applications > System Tools > unmount USB Mass Storage Device menu items.  Wait until the (/opt/SUNWut/bin/uteject) application finishes running and is automatically removed from the GNOME taskbar.  

 Only then can you safely remove the USB flash drive from the Sun Ray's USB port.

Home Directory and Files on USB Flash drives

To allow an application on Strauss to use a file on your USB flash drive, you must first copy the file to your home directory. Dragging the file from your USB flash drive's Nautilus window to your home directory will copy, not delete, the file. Generally, you should only copy the needed files, not the the entire USB flash drive's contents. Otherwise, you risk exceeding your UNIX disk quota.

You can archive your Strauss files and directories by copying them to a USB flash drive. After dragging them from Strauss to the USB flash drive, you will need to delete them from Strauss if you want to reduce your Strauss file use. See important details on GNOME's Trash icon in GNOME Trash.

Ending Your Session

You can suspend or you can terminate your session and its associated current jobs. Suspending a session allows you to go to any Sun Ray terminal later, and continue right where you left off. (Applications that are running on a remote server, such as Strauss, will continue to run even when your Sun Ray session is suspended.) To suspend a session, you must be using a Sun Ray smart card, sold in the University Bookstore.

Terminating a session will close all the open windows and stop all processing (except for processes you have explicitly run as background jobs).

The GNOME desktop is designed to be configurable. Any changes you made to the GNOME desktop configuration will be automatically saved for your next session.

If You Are Using a Smart Card

• To suspend a session, remove the card from the smard card reader instead of logging out.
• To terminate a session, select Applications > Logout menu item. Do not check the Save current setup box in the logout dialog box. Remove your smard card after the logout process is done.

If You Are Not Using a Smart Card

• To terminate a session, select Applications > Logout menu item. Do not check the Save current setup box in the logout dialog box.
• At the current time, you must be using a smard card to suspend a session.

Screen Savers

Please do not run screen-saver programs when using Sun Ray terminals. Screen-savers are generally very graphics-intensive applications. They will create server congestion on the Sun Ray servers as well as unnecessary network congestion.

Troubleshooting

Can't get past the login screen or erratic behavior of menu items

The primary cause of this symptom is that you are near to or have exceeded your disk quota limit. Log onto Strauss from something other than a Sun Ray and type "quota -v". If this is your problem, you may request an increase in your quota limit after you have investigated the likely cause of your disk quota problem.

No sound from speakers or headphones

There are three volume-control keys in the upper-right part of the keyboard. From left to right are a mute (toggle) key, decrease-volume key, and an increase-volume key.

1. Press the mute key once.
2. If that fails to solve the problem, press the increase-volume key several times.
3. If that fails to solve the problem, click the sound icon on the upper-right panel and see if the volume is too low.
4. If that fails to solve the problem, press the Props key on the left side of the keyboard while holding the Shift key down. The Properties Panel will appear. It should have the settings shown below. Be sure that Mute is not checked and that Auto is checked.
   

You need to reset and terminate a hung session.

Simultaneously depress and hold the "Control" and "Alt" keys and press the Back Space key twice in quick succession. Within fifteen seconds, the session should be reset and the terminal ready for use. Note that if a smart card is inserted in the terminal, then its associated session is reset and the card may be used to start a new session.

You have a Firefox process which is not responding.

If the following message box is displayed on your screen

then you must close the existing Firefox process, but it does not tell you which machine the process is on. If you know the host on which you have Firefox running, you can force quit your Firefox processes by logging onto that host and typing the commmand:

  pkill -u $USER firefox

If you do not know the host, you can issue this pkill command in a for loop.

csh loop (These are the default tcsh shell prompts)

> foreach host (strauss vivaldi verdi haydn debussy schubert)
foreach? ssh $host pkill -u $USER firefox
foreach? end

sh loop (These are the default bash shell prompts)

$ for host in strauss vivaldi verdi haydn debussy schubert
> do ssh $host pkill -u $USER firefox
> done

You may be asked for your password on each of these 6 composer hosts. It is the same as your strauss password.

Your GNOME desktop configuration needs to be reset to its original state.

1. Terminate your session by selecting the Applications > Logout menu item.
2. Log in again, but this time choose the Session > Fail Safe item from the pull-down menu. You should get just one open window but no GNOME desktop display.
   
3. Type the command "gnome-cleanup" and log out. Any files you created to modify your desktop or GNOME configuration or desktop will be erased. Note: If you have saved files on your desktop, you may want to move them into a folder (subdirectory) first so they are not erased by the gnome-cleanup processing.
4. Log in again, but this time choose the Session > GNOME 2.0 Desktop item from the pull-down menu.

Your USB flash drive does not show on your desktop after it is inserted in the USB port.

Select Applications > System Tools > Mount USB Mass Storage Device from the pull-down menu to open a Nautilus file manager window displaying the contents of your USB flash drive. If you do not see the directories in this window, wait a few seconds and press the Reload button. If the contents of your USB flash drive are not available after repeated reloads, your USB flash drive may not be able to work on the Sun Ray servers. One possibility is that it is not formatted as a FAT32 disk.

You cannot find your files in the trash folder after you move them to the trash. 

The GNOME trash management system requires additional documentation when using the UD Sun Ray terminals.  See GNOME Trash.

Your disk quota usage does not go down after moving a file to the trash. 

Moving a file to the trash does not delete it from your home directory.  See GNOME Trash.

Press the Delete button to permanently delete the file and reduce your disk usage.