Applications - The Applications menu contains a variety of icons that start software applications. The icons are ordered by category. It is similar to the Microsoft Windows Start menu.
Places - The Places menu contains a customizable list of directories, mounted volumes, recent documents, and a Search function. Volumes that are mounted may be external USB drives (flash, hard disk, CD, etc.), directories shared across a network, or other media devices such as a portable music player. Read more about this in Chapter 4, Using Media.
System - The System menu contains a variety of items. Log Out, About, and Help are self-explanatory. Lock Screen starts the screen saver or blanks the screen and prevents the desktop from being used until a password is entered. Preferences contains tools for configuring peripherals and the desktop. System Settings also contains configuration tools that are for administrative purposes and usually require root access; that is, when those applications are started, the root password must be entered to continue.
In addition to the menus, the menu panel contains a number of icons for common software.
 | Mozilla Firefox web browser. |
 | Evolution mail client and personal information manager. |
 | OpenOffice.org Writer is a word processing program. |
 | OpenOffice.org Impress is for creating and giving presentations. |
 | OpenOffice.org Calc is a spreadsheet tool. |
Table 3.1. Some Desktop Icons
![[Note]](./stylesheet-images/note.png) | Office and Productivity Tools |
|---|---|
Writer, Impress, and Calc are displayed only if Office and Productivity Tools was selected during installation. The Add/Remove program application, Pirut, can be used to install these office tools at any time. |
You can add program icons that start an application to the menu panel. These icons are called launchers. Right-click on the panel, and select Add to Panel.
![[Tip]](./stylesheet-images/tip.png) | Alternative |
|---|---|
There is another way to add an application launcher to the menu panel if the application is already listed in the Applications menu. Navigate to the application in the Applications menu, right-click on the application, and select Add this launcher to panel. |
The appearance of the panel can also be customized. Right-click on the panel and select Properties.