Ubuntu Tutorials

A few of us were discussing minimal desktop environments the other day and I was reminded of the olden days when I used XFCE.  I really liked the clean interface which did not display any desktop icons by default.  Looking back on that I was reminded that it is an option available in Gnome as well, so here is how to do it.

Disable Desktop Icons In Gnome

A lot of Gnome configuration is done via the gconf-editor.  I’ll outline how to do this manually and graphically, including a command you can use to activate it from the shell.  Give it a try and let me know what you think.  Do you prefer icons or not?  They always seem like clutter to me.

The graphical method of stopping icons from displaying on your desktop is as follows:

Alt-F2 "gconf-editor"

Navigate to “apps > nautilus > preferences” and on the right-side look for “show_desktop”.  Toggling this will toggle, in real-time, the icons from being displayed on your Desktop

This setting can also be achieved by entering the following command at your shell:

gconftool-2 --set /apps/nautilus/preferences/show_desktop --type bool 0


and to revert these changes set the bool to 1:

gconftool-2 --set /apps/nautilus/preferences/show_desktop --type bool 1

Activating Additional Icons

A second, similar setting is to disable mounts from being displayed, or adding the “Computer”, “Home” or “Trash” icons to the desktop.  The graphical method of displaying the additional icons is as follows:

Alt-F2 "gconf-editor"

Navigate to “apps > nautilus > desktop” and select the boxes “computer_icon_visible”, “home_icon_visible”, “trash_icon_visible”.

Disabling the display of mount points (CDs, USB drives, etc) is done by deselecting the “volumes_visible” option.

Again, these can also be toggled by way of the following commands:

Activate Computer Icon

gconftool-2 --set /apps/nautilus/desktop/computer_icon_visible --type bool 1

Activate Home Folder Icon

gconftool-2 --set /apps/nautilus/desktop/home_icon_visible --type bool 1

Activate Trash Icon

gconftool-2 --set /apps/nautilus/desktop/trash_icon_visible --type bool 1

De-Activate Volumes

gconftool-2 --set /apps/nautilus/desktop/volumes_visible --type bool 0

I know this isn’t particularly new, but seeing some news this morning about potentially more Google Apps coming to the Linux Desktop I thought I’d throw this together.

How to install Google Apps on your Ubuntu Desktop.

Currently the list of applications within the Google repository is Google Desktop and Picasa.  We could be seeing some more soon, but we’ll have to wait and see on more details.

Set up the repository

You’ll want to add the following to your sources.list. This can be done graphically via the System > Admin > Software Sources menu, or via manually editing your /etc/apt/sources.list file.

deb http://dl.google.com/linux/deb stable non-free

Once you’ve got that you’ll also need Googles package signing key.  This can also be done via the GUI or the command line.  Try this command to pull down the key file and then we’ll import it to the apt system:

wget -c https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub

If you still have the Software Sources window open switch tabs to  Authentication and click Import Key File…   Look for the file you just pulled down (probably in your home folder) and click OK.

Installing Google Desktop

We’re now ready to install the Google Desktop or Picasa tool.  From the command line enter:

sudo aptitude update

sudo aptitude install google-desktop-linux  picasa

You can also install these via your favorite package manager front-end like Synaptic or Adept if you prefer.  Simply search for the package name.

I should mention that just because these are available for Linux does not mean they are now Free Software or Open Source.  They are to be considered non-free so the choice is yours.  If you don’t like the non-free cooties on your system, don’t bother installing this.

Quick Tips

If you do install the Google Desktop there are a few things that you might want to be aware of.

1. ctrl-ctrl will open a desktop search applet allowing you to quick-search the web, your gmail or your desktop.
2. you can set your preferences by right-clicking on the Google Desktop icon in your notification tray.  This allows you to customize what is indexed and what is not.

Notes

More resources for configuring or installing the Google Desktop tools available here.

Today’s tutorial might be a bit quick, but that fits along with the tips included. Speed up your work by using keyboard shortcut keys. Below I’ve listed some of the shortcut keys I use within during my day-to-day. If you have any more to offer please drop in a comment or blog about them yourself and ping back here.

nautilus / gnome:

ctrl-h : show hidden files

ctrl-t : move to trash

f9 : toggle side-pane

alt-home : jump to home folder

alt-enter : file / folder properties

alt-f1 : launch applications menu

alt-f2 : launch "run application" dialogue

ctrl-alt - right/left arrow : move to the next virtual desktop

ctrl-alt-shift - right/left arrow : take current window to the next virtual desktop

firefox:

ctrl-k : firefox search field

ctrl-l : firefox address bar

ctrl-pgup : next tab (left to right)

ctrl-pgdn : previous tab (right to left)

ctrl-t : new tab

ctrl-r / f5: reload page

ctrl-u : view page source

If you see any that I’ve missed share them below. These are the main ones that I use on a fairly regular basis and I’m sure the list isn’t complete.  I know it isn’t an all-encompassing list of shortcut keys, just those that I have found the most helpful.  Anything you can add?