For those of you who are bored with the default layout of Ubuntu 9.04 I've set up this guide that for me at least is the perfect setup.
So from this ugly duckling.
we're going to transform it into a nice swan with more features per square cm of screen space.
Article Index:
The theme
As you know Ubuntu 9.04 has some new extra Gnome themes that you can use (and which are nicer than the default one).
So we're going to use the nice Dust Theme and continue from there.
Some extra nice themes that you can install:
Shiki-Colors and Nodoka-Colors
The icons
The default icons from Ubuntu aren't that bad but I recently started to replace them with Erectus.
A nice alternative is the Gnome-Colors icon pack.
Conky
From the Conky website:
Conky is a free, light-weight system monitor for X, that displays any information on your desktop. Conky is licensed under the GPL and runs on Linux and BSD.
Well that certainly sounds bombastic doesn't it ?
Nothing to fear. It's actually very easy to install and there are a couple of preconfigured themes that you can use.
We're going to set up a more complex theme for Conky that requires some extra packages which provide email and weather functionality.
I'm using CONKY-colors as a base for my conky config.
We'll need two extra packages:
So let's install them, shall we ?
In order to use the Conky Weather Forecast Python Script you need to register on Weather.com
After that we can copy the config file to our home directory:
cp /usr/share/conkyforecast/conkyForecast.config ~/.conkyForecast.config
and edit it:
gedit ~/.conkyForecast.config
Replace XOAP_PARTNER_ID and XOAP_LICENCE_KEY with the ones provided by weather.com
Here's your Conky Theme Script. As I've said, it's based on CONKY-colors but with the extras included + added support for you guys and galls that have pppoe connections.
After the download is complete, copy it to your home directory and rename it to .conkyrc . You won't see it anymore. Press ctrl+h or View > Show hidden files .
Hidden files start with a dot (.)
Ok let's open that file with gedit.
Double click on it and choose "Display".
You'll see that for the Conky Weather Forecast Python Script you have a
conkyForecast --location=???
code in the conkyrc file.
You need to go to
http://xoap.weather.com/search/search?where=your_city_name_here to find the location code.
After replacing the city name if you don't see the code of your area directly with, press ctrl-u in Firefox to see the source code of the page
Bucharest, Romania
Look for your location and copy the corresponding code found in the id="" tag.
Then go back to the editor, select --location=??? and press ctrl-h. This will activate the search / replace function in Gedit. As an alternative, go to Search > Replace and paste --location=??? in the Search for box and in the Replace with box enter --location=YOUR_ID_CODE
Also at the bottom of the code you'll find the line for Gmail.
Replace the user / password with your own and you'll be set.
As a side-note. If your password contains " you must escape it by typing \" instead.
Ok let's test it. Press alt + F2 to open the run command in Gnome. Type conky and it should appear on your desktop.
If it doesn't work retrace the steps / ask questions in the comments.
If that's settled we'll make conky to start automatically at each login.
Go to System > Preferences > Startup Applications
Click the Add button
Complete the fields (Name: Conky, Command: conky (note the lowercase!)).
Now we're good to go.
Gnome Do
Do is an application launcher ala Quicksilver for OS X.
The twist is that it has a nice interface that makes it a perfect dock-bar.
You can install it by going to Add / Remove programs and search for GNOME Do.
Start it by going to Applications > Accessories > GNOME Do
Click the triangle > Preferences and then go to the Appearance tab. Select Docky as the theme and the dock-bar will appear on the bottom of the screen.
If you have trouble with it displaying you either don't have Visual Effects enabled (from System > Preferences > Appearance) or your card can't enable that setting.
Nothing to fear, you still have a chance of using docky.
Go to System > Preferences > Main Menu
Select the System Tools entry and check the Configuration Editor.
Now you have it under Applications > System Tools
Open the Configuration Editor and navigate to:
apps > metacity > general and click the compositing_manager checkbox.
You should now have a fancier desktop and a functional docky.
The End
You may ask why I don't recommend any extra applications to install since this is the "perfect" desktop.
Well here's my top 4:
1. Banshee (I like it more than Rhythmbox)
2. Gwibber (awesome twitter / identi.ca client)
3. VLC (for those movies that just don't play with totem)
4. Miro (started using this lately, pretty nice)
5. Inkscape (vector editing ftw!)
So here's the final result:
If you have any questions or you want to provide any feedback don't be shy and add your comment.
I've added some extra themes / icons proposed by Martin Lettner
