While the past year has been an exciting one for the Linux community, it almost pales in comparison to the flurry of activity that surrounded the recent LinuxWorld conference. New partnerships were announced and future products were promised. With the movements of the large commercial vendors grabbing most of the spotlight, the release of GNOME 1.0 nearly got lost in the shuffle. For the end user, however, GNOME's release was perhaps one of the most significant announcements of all ù at least in the short term, anyway.

The GNOME (GNU Network Object Model Environment) project has set a lofty goal for itself ù making Unix friendly for end users. Despite the seemingly impossible nature of the task, GNOME 1.0 delivers on its promise. While it's impossible to deny that the release is less robust than the Linux community might expect from a 1.0 release, GNOME is impressive nonetheless.

Technically, GNOME is just a specification for application developers to follow when writing GNOME-aware programs. These specifications range from simple GUI guidelines to more complex CORBA specifications that will eventually allow programs to embed individual programming elements in other programs. None of this will be immediately apparent when you download GNOME, however. Instead, what you will find is a series of applications that work together in a consistent and seamless manner.

From the user's perspective, the heart of GNOME is the panel. The panel serves as an application launcher for various GNOME applications ù similar to the Windows Start bar. In addition to launching programs, the panel can also house applets ù mini programs such as a clock or a small CD player that run inside the panel. The applets that ship with GNOME 1.0 range from useful utilities such as load monitors to "just plain cool" applets such as the SlashApp, which monitors the latest headlines from Slashdot (slashdot.org).

The true test of GNOME is the applications that ship with it, and they are impressive, although perhaps not as comprehensive as one might wish. Among the highlights is GMC ù the GNOME Midnight Commander. GMC acts as GNOME's file manager, and features a customisable user interface and seamless connectivity to the HTTP and FTP protocols. Equally impressive is the GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program). Calling the GIMP a Photoshop clone does it a disservice: while it supports most of Photoshop's features, it also includes many innovations that Adobe would do well to copy. Other applications include Gnumetric, the GNOME spreadsheet, multimedia programs, system monitoring tools and plenty more.

One of the most remarkable aspects of GNOME is its configurability. Gnome ships with Enlightenment as its default Window Manager. The philosophy of Enlightenment is that every aspect of the user interface should be customisable. If you don't like the look of the minimise button, just create a new image and replace the old one with it! Enlightenment also supports themes, so that you can change the entire look of your window manager with one click of the mouse. Along the same lines, the widget set (which is responsible for drawing the buttons, scroll bars and other various items in application windows) is also "themeable" using standard images. This means that after you select a new GTK theme, every GNOME-aware application will change its appearance accordingly. With the combination of Enlightenment and GTK themes, it is possible not only to configure, but even design every aspect of your desktop's appearance.

GNOME is not yet the panacea of desktop computing. The number of available applications is not yet as great as one might wish, and there are still some lingering bugs. However, the environment is very usable, and offers great promise of things to come. Further, the pace of GNOME development has been nothing short of remarkable, and it's safe to assume that we can expect many more features in the near future.

GNOME 1.0 can be located on any number of mirrors around the world. Check the homepage (www.gnome.org) for the mirror closest to you, or download the files from this month's PC World CD.