If everything was installed as described in the previous section, &opie; should now start up and present a screen to calibrate the touchscreen. Using the stylus, press firmly in the middle of the cross-hairs as they appear on the screen. This usually needs to be done only once, however the screen can be re-calibrated at any time, if needed, by choosing the Calibrate application on the Settings tab. Once the screen has been calibrated, &opie; will now start up. If the opie-login package is installed (which is installed with the default installation), a screen will appear requiring a person to log in before any applications can be accessed. The standard &opie; installation currently requires the user to log in as the 'root' user in order for all functions to work correctly. Refer to the Familiar website (http://familiar.handhelds.org) for the default password for the version installed. Once the correct password has been entered, &opie; should now be running. When rebooted however, &opie; will start automatically. To install and remove applications, the "Packages" application (located on the Settings tab) or the command line ipkg application can be used. There are several task-opie packages which allow the installation of whole categories (e.g. games, PIM, settings, etc.) of software at once. It also might be helpful to install either opie-embeddedkonsole or opie-console first to allow access a command line from within &opie;.

Now that &opie; is installed and running, it is time to start using it. When &opie; is started (after logging in), the following will be visible: the "Launcher" from which all of the applications can be started, and the "Taskbar" along the bottom, where all running applications can be accessed, select an input method, and interact with the installed applets. Getting around in &opie; is very easy. Using the stylus, simply click on whatever icon, button or control desired. The main difference between using the stylus and using a mouse is that there is not an intuitive way to "right click" with the stylus. However in &opie;, by pressing and holding the stylus down on the screen for approximately one second (i.e. commonly referred to as "click and hold") a right mouse button click is generated. This allows the user to perform common actions such as display context sensitive menus. Also included in several &opie; applications is context sensitive help. If there is a icon with a question mark on the left side of the application's title bar, then this option is available. Clicking on this icon will display instructions on using this feature. Click and hold the icon, until the window title changes to "What's this..." and then click on a part of the application window to display the context sensitive help.

The Launcher is where applications can be started, and is similar in concept to the desktop found in most computer graphical user interfaces. When no other applications are running, it is visible, occupying most of the screen. Along the top of the Launcher is a series of tabs which function as categories for all installed applications. By default, there are the following tabs: PIM, Applications and Settings. If any games are installed, there will also appear a Games tab. To launch an application, click once on the application icon or name. The icon will darken and an hour glass will appear on the taskbar at the bottom of the screen to indicate that the application is launching. Most applications take 1 or 2 seconds to start. There is also a tab to the far right named Documents. It contains a listing of the documents found on the handheld device, allowing easy access. Documents are organized by document type and category. At the bottom of the Document tab are 2 selection boxes which allow the list of docuemnts to be filtered by these criteria. For instructions on adding and removing documents from this tab, see the . The Launcher Settings application on the Settings tab allows each tab's appearance to be customized. Items that can be configured include background color/image, font, icon size and more. See the Launcher Settings section for more information.

The Taskbar is the small, horizontal section which appears at the bottom of the screen, below the Launcher. It is almost always visible while applications are running. The Taskbar provides the following functions (from left to right): 1. "O" menu - provides a listing of all installed applications, allowing them to be started if Launcher is not visible. It also provides an options to display Launcher if there are applications running, power off the handheld device and log out of &opie;. 2. Input methods - allows the selection of an input method. Each input method has its own, unique icon, and the current one selected is shown on the Taskbar. Click on the icon to display or hide the input method. If more than one method is installed, a small upward pointing arrow is shown to the right of the icon. Click on this arrow to select a different input method. 3. Running applications - if any applications are running, their icon will appear immediately to the right of the input method icon. Clicking on an icon will bring that application to the front so it can be viewed. When the application is exited, the icon will disappear from this area. 4. Applets - applets are "mini" applications which appear on the right side of the Taskbar. Some applets provide quick access to information (e.g. PC cards installed, wireless nework, etc.), while others provide frequently used functions (e.g. notepad, voice memo recorder). Clicking on an applet's icon usually provides a menu or window to access its features. 5. Clock - in reality just another applet, displays the current time. Clicking on the clock displays a dialog box which allows the time to be manually updated or syncronized over the Internet using the NTP protocol.

In &opie;, dialogs, as well as some applications, have a button labeled "Ok" on the right side of the window title bar, in addition to the normal "x". For dialogs, the "Ok" button will apply your changes and close the window, while the "x" will cancel them before closing the window (for people used to most desktop GUI's the "Ok" and "x" behave like the "Ok" and "Cancel" buttons you would normally see in the bottom right of the dialog window). For applications that have an "Ok" button as well as the "x" button that all applications have, the "Ok" button will usually save the current file and then close the application, while the "x" button will close the application without saving.