What is GNOME?
The GNOME Desktop is an attractive and useful desktop environment. GNOME is both free and one of the most widely used desktop environments on the GNU/Linux operating system. Debian 4.0 Etch includes GNOME 2.14.3.
Installing GNOME
If you do not have X installed, you can get a bare minimum base install of X, using Aptitude or apt-get:
aptitude install x-window-system-core
The current method for installing a good set of GNOME tools in Debian sid and etch is using gnome.
Standard
So, from the command line, run
aptitude install gnome
This will install additional software (rhythmbox, abiword, inkscape...) that you may or may not want.
Other metapackages
A smaller set of apps, comprising the official GNOME desktop release: gnome-desktop-environment.
For a bare minimum installation of GNOME: gnome-core.
A set of additional productivity applications: gnome-fifth-toe.
The development packages to compile GNOME dependent packages from source: gnome-core-devel.
A full development suite for developing GNOME-based applications: gnome-devel.
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).
See also :
http://www.gnome.org The GNOME Website
http://gpe.handhelds.org/ The mini version: GNOME Palmtop Environmnet (GPE).
http://www.gnome.org/start/getstable.html : apt-get install gnome
http://www.gnome.org/learn/users-guide/latest/ : GNOME User Guide.
http://www.gnomefiles.com Categorized list of gnome programs.
About GNOME for Debian:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-gtk-gnome/ Debian / Gnome Mailing list
http://survivor.sarovar.org/ Debian GNOME Survival Guide.
IRC channel #gnome-debian on GimpNET ;
Contributors: MattKirchhoff, Colin Watson, Ray Dassen, Pedro Macanás Valverde <addyournamehere.>