What is GNOME?

The GNOME Desktop is an attractive and useful desktop environment created by the GNU project. GNOME is both free (under the GPL) and is one of the most widely used desktop environments on the GNU/Linux operating system. The current release of GNOME is 2.12; however 2.8 is available under Debian stable/sarge, while 2.10 is available under testing/etch.

Installing GNOME

If you have not X installed on your box, to get a bare minimum base install of X, do using aptitude or apt-get:

 # aptitude install x-window-system-core

The current metapackage for installing a good set of GNOME tools in sid, etch and sarge Debian is gnome.

Standard

So, from the command line, run

 # aptitude install gnome

This will install additional software (gnome-office, evolution) that you may or may not want.

Custom

For a smaller set of apps, you can also do

 # aptitude install gnome-desktop-environment

A set of additional productivity apps will be installed by

 # aptitude install gnome-fifth-toe

Developers

If you need development packages, e.g. for compiling GNOME dependent packages from source, you should try

 # aptitude install gnome-core-devel

For a full set of developer tools, please do

 # aptitude install gnome-devel

Tasksel

You can use tasksel to install GNOME or other DesktopEnvironment.

Configuration

Most configuration of the GNOME desktop is done via its various GUI utilities. The location of these varies depending on version, but common utilities include networking, themes, sounds and much more. It is also possible to configure (read/write) settings using the command line with gconftool(2).