Add more beauty to Ubuntu 9.10

By FahadTue, 11/17/2009 - 22:19

Although Ubuntu 9.10 comes with pretty themes and a new set of icons, you might want to add your personal touch to your desktop. I will try to give you some ideas to add more beauty to Ubuntu 9.10.

Screenlets

Screenlets are small widgets that represent things lying/standing around on your desk like ticknotes, clocks, rulers, slideshow, and more. They are similar to widgets in KDE4 and they give more beauty to your desktop.

To install screenlets, go to Ubuntu Software Center and install it .

To launch screenlets you will find it under Applications ▶ Accessories ▶ Screenlets

Sceenlets manager will appear offering different options and sceenlets:

To add a screenlet, just double click it; then move it to the place you like. Don't forget to tick the “Auto start on login” option. After messing around for an hour, I got this Desktop:

Add a Dock to your Desktop

There are many Docks for Gnome Desktop such as Avant Window Navigator, Cairo-Dock, and Docky. I prefer Cario-Dock because it doesn't require 3D support. Use Ubuntu Software Center to install them.

Avant Window Navigator

Cario-Dock

Docky

The result of my Desktop is the following.

Changing Themes

Ubuntu 9.10 comes with a set of new beautiful themes. You can choose among them from System▶ Preferences ▶ Appearance.

If you want more, you may want to visit gnome-look.org. Here are some screenshots for popular themes there:

MacOS-X Aqua Theme

T-ish Pack

Vista-Linux

So far so good; if you feel I have missed some important tips regarding this topic please share them with us!

17 Comments

Good article! Thank you for

Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 12/07/2009 - 13:08

Good article!
Thank you for showing it to us.

retain Screenlet when changing to another workspace

dulanja (not verified) on Thu, 12/03/2009 - 17:46

Thanks a lot for this article! I installed Screenlets without any problem on my Karmic box.

There's a small issue though. When I change my workspace (from workspace 1 -> workspace 2), some of the Screenlets do not appear in the new workspace. It seems they are workspace dependent.

Is there any option where I can change this behaviour?

thanks!

found the solution

dulanja (not verified) on Thu, 12/03/2009 - 18:04

it can be done from 'Stick to Desktop' option in screenlets :)

Avant Window Navigator and 3D Support

Mark Lee (not verified) on Sat, 11/21/2009 - 00:20

Hi,

I'm a developer for the Avant Window Navigator (Awn) project. I'd like to clear up a point you made about docks - Awn does not require 3D support in order to run. All that's needed is a compositing manager running. Please see our installation prerequisites wiki page for details. For our upcoming 0.4.0 release, compositing support has been made optional, as a non-composited mode has been written (although IMO, it's much less pretty than composited mode).

Thanks,
-malept (Awn/Awn Extras developer)

Its good to hear that!

Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 11/21/2009 - 13:32

Its good to hear that!

The usual response to my

Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 11/19/2009 - 07:44

The usual response to my ubuntu desktop:
Person:
@0@
WTF!!
are you running windows 7?

Me: No, im running ubuntu. Why?

Person: It looks AWESOME.

you can't make ubumtu

tony (not verified) on Thu, 11/19/2009 - 06:58

you can't make ubumtu beautiful. It's ugly, and runs as ugly as it looks.

OK use OpenSUSE 11.2 and

Fahad on Thu, 11/19/2009 - 12:54

OK use OpenSUSE 11.2 and KDE4.3

screenlets

casey (not verified) on Wed, 11/18/2009 - 09:53

This is, as far as I'm aware, a dead project. It's SO dead that when I upgraded to karmic, I removed it completely as there are orphaned applets out the wazzoo associated with the project, and many problems with quite a lot of the applets.

If I'm wrong about this, someone please point to the updated versions of this set applications.

I don't know but I am using

Fahad on Wed, 11/18/2009 - 17:09

I don't know but I am using Ubuntu 9.10 and screenlets (fresh install) without problems.

Google Gadgets

Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 11/18/2009 - 13:09

Last release of Screenlets seems to date back to June 2008, Google Gadgets on the other hand has had a bugfix release as recent as Sept. 2009.

not availbale

Hanadi on Tue, 11/17/2009 - 23:12

I am trying to install it , but i have this msg :
''Not available in the current data''

Is there is any missing update ?

I am using Ubuntu 9.10

Thanks Fahad