Newbie Transactions entry

[John R. Sowden]

I have tried several times over the recent years to use gnucash. The big 
hangup is transaction data entry.  I seems that the data entry user 
interface was made to be like one of the Intuit products.
I have seen several help programs discuss this issue, but I was only 
able to learn "do not press <enter> until the transaction is complete".
My OS is Ubuntu 13.04

Could someone give me a sequence of keystrokes to execute the below 
typical transactions.
Please note: our accounting method is cash accounting, not accrual.

tia,
John


Sample Transactions:
Pay a Bill:
01/01/2013   Check #6454   Local Garbage Company         Memo: Jan - Mar 
Service
CR Cash-Local Bank              Account No. 111.0        $   90.00
DR Utilities                    Account No. 644.0        $   90.00

Pay an employee:
01/02/2013    Check #6555     Harry Smith                Memo: Payroll
CR Cash-Local Bank              Account No. 111.0        $ 1200.00
DR Salaries-Field Workers       Account No. 601.1        $ 1500.00
DR Fed Income Tax With.         Account No. 211.0        $  100.00
DR State Income tax With.       Account No. 212.0        $   50.00
DR Social Security With.        Account No.: 213.0       $   50.00
DR Medicare With.               Account No. 214.0        $   50.00
DR State Disability With.       Account No. 215.0        $   50.00

Journal Entry:
03/30/2013    J0004                (no payee name)       Memo: Post 
Quarter's Vehicle Depreciation
CR  Depreciation-Vehicles       Account No. 602.3        $  300.00
DR  Vehicles-Accum Deprec.      Account No. 120.1        $  300.00
CR Depreciation-Office Eq.      Account No. 602.6        $  125.00
DR Office Equip-Accum Dep.      Account No. 121.1        $  125.00

Report:
List all transactions for a vendor (or all vendors)