Ubuntu Tutorials

I’ve been doing a lot of customization lately with my GNOME installation, trying out new layouts and trying to gain as much screen real estate as I can. I came across an issue this morning in regards to the GNOME panel that I wanted to write down / publish. In the short article below I will describe how to completely hide the GNOME panel, allowing your applications to use 100% of the screen.

Autoide.. not 100%

Some of you might be thinking “Just click ‘Autohide” on the panel properties. How hard can it be?” The problem is that the default autohide still displays a few pixels, meaning your applications won’t extend to the absolute edge of the screen. When I tried it initially my panel still took 6px across the top. While that isn’t a lot, it still left a gap and was something I wanted to remove.

I found the value for this change within the gconf-editor. To ensure that your Autohide doesn’t continue to show any pixels (0 pixels), use the following command:

gconftool-2 --set --type integer /apps/panel/toplevels/top_panel_screen0/auto_hide_size 0

You can also find this value in the graphical editor using the following instructions:

ALT-F2 > "gconf-editor" > apps > panel > toplevels > top_panel_screen0 > auto_hide_size > 0

I prefer the command, its much simpler.

There are quite a few more “hidden” settings within the gconf-editor that allow you to change values not held within the normal Properties menu. I’ll have more of these to post in mid-October, after my GNOME presentation is finished for the Utah Open Source Conference.

If this article has been helpful, please consider linking to it.

In less than a month I’ll be presenting at the Utah Open Source Conference regarding GNOME UI Customizations. This topic will cover usage of the graphical  gconf-editor as well as using command-line tools to track and implement UI changes. In preparation for this event I would like to ask for public feedback regarding common desktop customizations. Please comment or email me regarding UI changes that you make to your desktop.

To get started with some ideas, here are the most common changes that I make:

• Move bottom panel to top
• Shrink both panels to 19 pixels
• Update system font to Droid Sans (ttf-droid package), 8pt font
• Updated workspace switcher to four workspaces
• Activate GNOME-based compositing
• Set gnome-terminal to white-on-black, Droid Sans Mono, 8pt font. Disable scrollbar and menubar
• Set custom wallpaper, screensaver and GDM login screen
• etc..

I’d like to make sure that my presentation can cover the most interesting and popular changes to the UI. If you would like to share the changes you make, please comment. Feel free to include links to screenshots, GNOME-look.org references, etc.

Thank you!

Yesterday I blogged about changing the GDM login screen, which seems to be a very touchy and popular subject among readers. I don’t know that I’ve heard from but a very few people that actually like the default login screen in Ubuntu 9.04. It seems everyone has an opinion about changing it. I thought I would offer mine, in more detail. Presenting “My Ubuntu Look and Feel”

Desktop Background

There are so many really amazing desktop backgrounds to choose from it is hard to pick just one and publish it as my “favorite”. I guess what I will say is that I’ve grown accustomed to something darker (which fits with the theme, which we’ll see soon.) One of my recent selections is GNOME Smoke. Not too busy, and not too bright and shiny as to be distracting.

Theme

For my overall theme I have been using Shiki-Colors for months now. I’ve really grown accustomed to the look, and my desktop just “looks funny” to me if its on something else. I’ve blogged in the past about how to install Shiki-Colors. If you haven’t tried it, I’d recommend it.

Fonts

Another must-have in my book is the Droid Sans font. I update all my fonts system wide to use this (Droid Sans Mono within gnome-terminal). You might also check out my previous post about installing Droid Fonts. If you haven’t tried this font set check it out. Here are some quick instructions:

sudo aptitude install ttf-droid

System > Preferences > Appearance > Fonts

Select “Droid Sans” 10pt for everything. I also check “LCD” (I am on a laptop). You also may notice a difference if you click “Details” in the bottom right corner of the window and make sure that you’re resolution is set to “96″ dots per inch. I know that recent releases try to dynamically detect the best resolution, often times selecting something higher than 96. I’ve found that 96 still looks the best.

gnome-terminal

It might seem odd to include gnome-terminal is a list of graphical tweaks, but I always customize my terminal as well. Considering I spend the more part of my day within it, it should present me with the most comfortable surroundings.

First I right-click and select Profile > Profile Preferences. I then deselect “Show menubar by default in new terminals”. I then deselect “Use thy system fixed width font” and select Droid Sans Mono, 10pt. I then move to the “Colors” tab and deselect “Use colors from system theme”. I promptly change the color scheme to White on Black. For me, a black background is the only appropriate background for a console. After this I move to the “Scrolling” tab and select “Disable”. You might think this disables the ability to scroll. It does not. It disables the scrollbar within the window (pgup/pgdn still work as expected).

With that I Close the window and enjoy a white on black console with the additional space alloted from removing the scrollbar and menubar, plus a very clean readable font.

Conclusion

Looking back at this it sure doesn’t seem like I’m too particular when it comes to the look and feel of my Desktop, but I definitely have an opinion. I’ve grown to the point that I like/expect certain things a certain way, while not caring about others. It does sometimes feel like I’ve grown a bit more minimalist. Anything that allows me to focus more on my work and less on the “bling” and I’m good.

What are some of your favorite UI tweaks? Have a favorite wallpaper? GDM theme? font? Share the love!

A while back I blogged about the new GDM theme in Ubuntu 9.04 and I was surprised at the number of people that disliked it. Granted I don’t think its the best theme I’ve ever seen either, but is it *that* bad? In response (delayed, I know) to that feedback I thought a post on how to update that login theme to something more artistic would be in order.

Update Default GDM Theme

Updating the GDM theme is a fairly simple process. There is a utility called “gdmsetup” which allows you to customize a number of aspects of the login screen. You can usually find this application in your menu by navigating to:

System > Admin > Login Window

After entering your password you should be able to customize the login screen on the “Local” tab. The Style entry allows you to select Plain or Themed, or a variation with a Face Browser. What you want is Themed, and you can select a different graphic from the list below. You should find a few other default GNOME themes that you can select.

If you’d like to find more themes, go check out GNOME Look. You can easily install any of those GDM themes by selecting “Add” from the Login Window management tool.

For those of you that customize your theme, what are some of your favorite GDM graphics to use?

I only have just a minute for this post, but I’ve been thinking for the past few weeks that I’d really like a project to contribute to.  After putting some thought into it I realized I liked the idea of contributing to something upstream, vs to a distribution specifically.  I also really enjoy GNOME and think it could be something I’d like to work on.  If anyone can drop me a line and help plug me into the right area I’d really appreciate it.  Its always a little intimidating to show up to a new project and say “give me something to do”.  I’m sure you all (GNOME people) know where the needs are better than I do and hopefully one (or many!) of you can introduce me to the right people and give me some things to get started with.

I’m open for just about anything, although I’m not much of a programmer (outside of bash & perl)

I just wanted to add my two-cents regarding the new GNOME release, 2.26.  I have been a GNOME fan for nearly as long as I can remember and I’m really happy to see another solid and on-time release.  Remember, you can look forward to all the new GNOME features in the upcoming Ubuntu release, due out this next month!

I’ve been playing with Ubuntu 9.04 in VirtualBox and after installing the 9.04 Alpha 5 I noticed the new GDM Login screen. Things sure have come a long way since I started using Ubuntu in 5.04! Below is a screenshot of the new Login screen. Thoughts?

Ubuntu 9.04 GDM Login Screen

Some time ago I posted on how to simplify your dropbox URLs by using .htaccess files within Apache web server. Now that I’ve switched to Lighttpd I needed to find the equivalent. Here is what I came up with:


## dropbox redirection
server.modules += ( "mod_redirect" )


$HTTP["url"] =~ "^/dropbox/(.*)" {
url.redirect = (
"^/dropbox/(.*)" => "http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/123456/$1"
)
}


note: if you already have mod_redirect loaded elsewhere you won’t need to worry about that first line. Also note that you’ll need to update the dl.getdropbox.com URL with your unique string. Replace 123456 with your unique value. You can find this value within your Dropbox account.

Based on the comments from the previous post I wanted to offer an update. A much simpler solution is to simply activate the compositing within recent versions of Gnome.

gconftool-2 -s --type bool /apps/metacity/general/compositing_manager true


This does introduce a known bug which can break enabling compiz however. If you want to activate compiz after toggling this value, you’ll need to de-activate it first.

gconftool-2 -s --type bool /apps/metacity/general/compositing_manager false


Thanks to Christoph, Philip and Cory for this tip.

The recent release of Gnome-Do 0.8.0 has brought with it a number of interface changes and upgrades.  I won’t go into all the new “shiny” stuff in this post, but simply outline how to satisfy the new requirements.  Gnome-Do 0.8.x now requires some type of compositing support for its interface (unless you stick with “Classic”).

First of all, composite does not mean Compiz.  Let’s get that out of the way right from the start.  You do not need a flashy 3D desktop to run Gnome-Do.  You do need a basic compositing manager however, and these should work on nearly any modern system and can run with minimal resources in the background.

I am using a tool called ‘xcompmgr’ for my compositing support, but there are others available.  Ask around or leave some comments to find out what other compositing managers people use.  Here is how I got mine setup:

sudo aptitude install xcompmgr

You can then start compositing manually via the ‘xcompmgr‘ command, or you can automate the process via Sessions.

System > Preferences > Sessions : Add

• Name – Compositing Manager
• Command – xcompmgr
• Comment – Shiny!

With basic compositing enabled you should now be able to use the enhanced features of Gnome-Do 0.8.x, including the Mini Interface, Docky, Glass Interface and Nouveau.