Normally, the Workbench screen (shown above) is the first screen the user
sees upon booting the Amiga.  Workbench is a special program supplied with
every Amiga that gives the user a friendly and consistent graphic
interface to the file system.  It's the default environment the user
starts out with.

In Workbench, disks, directories, files and other objects are symbolized
by small pictures called icons which can be manipulated with the mouse.
For instance, a program file can be executed by pointing to its icon with
the mouse and double-clicking the left mouse button.  The Workbench screen
is automatically set up by Intuition and can be easily shared, so many
application programs use it too.

User control of the OS is also supported through Preferences.  Preferences
is a family of editors and associated configuration files that allow the
user to control the basic set up of the operating system.  For example
Printer Preferences sets up all the printer options.

Workbench, together with Preferences, gives the user an easy way to
control the OS and launch applications.  These programs are built with the
same Intuition tools available to application programmers giving the whole
Amiga system an integrated look and feel.  Workbench and Preferences are
important components of the Amiga graphic user interface system and are
discussed in greater detail in later chapters.