Building the default desktop

I'm charged with building the appearance for the default desktop when a
new user first logs into their machine.  I'm running Red Hat Linux 9.

I have a set of specs that I need to work with, and I think the things I
need to figure out are:

*) Setting the default backgrounds.

*) Setting the default icons that appear on the desktop.

*) Defining the default panels and their locations.

*) Defining the default launchers and applets that appear on the panels.

*) Configuring the default menu's, and their icons.

*) Changing the image that you click on to bring up the menu (the hat.)

I'm floundering a bit searching through docs and archives.  Though I'm
sure this information is out there, RTFG is not proving much help for me
at the moment.

Can you help me?

--Chris