The desktop is the background area of your screen. By default, on your GNOME system, Nautilus draws the desktop. The desktop on your computer can look like your physical desktop - it can be full of folders, icons, and works in progress, or it can be cleared off. Nautilus lets you organize it the way you want.
Initially, the desktop contains two items: a house icon that represents your Home location, and a Trash icon.
You can create folders on the desktop, or drag additional files and folders from the Nautilus window to the desktop. For instance, you can create a folder that contains your current projects, and keep it on the desktop for easy access. You also mount disks (such as floppies or CD-ROM disks) on the desktop.
To see the options for using your desktop space, point and right-click anywhere on the desktop (outside of a window).