Archive for the ‘Desktop Environments’ Category.
October 27, 2009, 7:18 am
Ubuntu 9.04 disabled the semi-crucial keyboard shortcut, Ctrl+Alt+Backspace, that used to force the X graphical server to restart, and made it wonky to re-enable. Luckily, Ubuntu 9.10, due out in nine days, has a single setting to restore it.
Go to System->Preferences->Keyboard settings, then head to the Layouts tab under Keyboard settings, click the “Key sequence to kill the X server” option to expand it, then check “Control + Alt + Backspace” to set it.
Also see: Ctrl+Alt+Backspace Disabled in Most Distributions [FIX]
October 16, 2009, 7:32 am
Lets say you installed a new window manager, Musca for instance. And upon installation, no GDM or KDM session was created so you cannot log into it. Solving this is rather simple.
cd over to /usr/share/xsessions/
if you ls the directory you’ll see several *.desktop files. Fluxbox’s looks like this:
[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Fluxbox
Comment=Highly configurable and low resource X11 Window manager
Exec=/usr/bin/startfluxbox
Terminal=False
TryExec=/usr/bin/startfluxbox
Type=Application
[Window Manager]
SessionManaged=true
All you really need to do is the following:
cp /usr/share/xsessions/fluxbox.desktop /usr/share/xsessions/musca.desktop
then modify musca.desktop in a text editor so it looks like the following:
[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Musca
Comment= Kickass tiling window manager
Exec=/usr/bin/musca
Terminal=False
TryExec=/usr/bin/musca
Type=Application
April 10, 2009, 8:17 am
One of many’s pet peeves is how slow the Gnome menus appear when you hover over them, which is a shame really because that’s something we can fix in five seconds flat – just put this text into the file .gtkrc-2.0 in your home directory:
gtk-menu-popup-delay = 0
April 10, 2009, 8:12 am
Running Ubuntu is great until you try to install Kubuntu (or vice versa), because your previously neatly organised menu system goes into overload meltdown with dozens of programs from both desktops fighting for your priority.
But there’s a fix: you can force individual shortcuts to appear only in Gnome or only in KDE as opposed to being in both. To do this, switch to root and browser to /usr/share/applications (for Gnome apps) or /usr/share/applications/kde (for KDE apps). Then open a shortcut file in your text editor, and add one of these two lines to the bottom:
OnlyShowIn=KDE
for KDE-only applications; or
OnlyShowIn=GNOME
for Gnome-only applications.
January 9, 2009, 11:06 am
Nautilus in Fedora/RHEL/CentOS come sby defaut with the “spatial mode” and i hate the fact it open another window for every click. After a quick search, i don’t find anything .. but today i discover this, and the scoop is to disable nautilus spatial: use gconf-editor and set /apps/nautilus/preferences/always_use_browser to true.
Now Nautilus will open in full browser mode each time and be much more managable.
December 20, 2008, 2:40 pm
Gnome does a pretty bad job at utilizing screen real estate. Desktop environments in Linux use up far too much screen real estate for just about everything. This problem is not exclusive to Ubuntu.. 8px font in Windows is hard to read, but an 8pt font in Linux is perfect, if not a little large for alot of things (icon text in nautilus, window manager text, panel bar text, etc..) But in Gnome icons are too large. Buttons and fonts are too large. The panels are too thick. The toolbar buttons in Nautilus are far too big. And apparently, I’m not the only one who thinks so.
Maybe it’s something Mark Shuttleworth should definitely pay attention to as he’s calling to be mailed screenshots of user’s desktops to judge how to best beautify Linux and wishes to outdo Apple in the looks department in the next year or two. While this posting is not about the beautification of the desktop, it is about efficiency and usability.
Continue reading ‘How to best utilize screen real estate in Gnome’ »
December 4, 2008, 9:36 am
Want an easy way to shred (delete and rewrite over the data with junk) files via right clicking in nautilus, see below.
Continue reading ‘Shred files from right-click in Nautilus’ »
September 4, 2008, 9:49 am
You must have Openbox (and possibly ObConf) already installed to use this guide.
To use Openbox with XFCE, log into your normal XFCE session. Then, run these commands in a terminal:
killall xfwm4 ; openbox & exit
Continue reading ‘Using Openbox window manager with Xfce’ »
July 14, 2008, 6:14 pm
GNOME Do (Do) is an intelligent launcher tool that makes performing common tasks on your computer simple and efficient. Do not only allows you to search for items in your desktop environment (e.g. applications, contacts, bookmarks, files, music), it also allows you to specify actions to perform on search results (e.g. run, open, email, chat, play). Want to send an email to mom? Simply type “email mom.” Want to listen to some music? Simply type “play beatles.” Do provides instantaneous, action-oriented desktop search results that adapt to reflect your habits and preferences. For example, if you use Firefox web browser often, typing “f” in Do will launch it. Or, if you visit The New York Times webpage often, Do will open it if you simply type “nyt.” Unlike other search tools that present search results as flat, homogeneous lists, Do provides familiar graphical depictions of search results that assure you that your intent is being realized correctly; searching for “mom” will show a picture of mom, and searching for “beatles” will show a Beatles album cover. Do has many more powerful and exciting capabilities that must be seen to be appreciated.
Continue reading ‘Installing & Using Gnome-Do’ »
July 13, 2008, 9:54 am
I prefer a clean desktop with no icons cluttering it up, but by default most Gnome based distros adds icons to the desktop for every single removable drive that you attach to your system.
Continue reading ‘Quick: How to Hide Mounted Drives on Gnome’s Desktop’ »
