Ubuntu is a free operating system or a Linux distribution ("distro") which currently receives the second highest hits after Linux Mint atDistroWatch.

If you have the Ubuntu system which comes with the default Gnome desktop environment installed in your PC, you might find these tips and tricks useful for working with the system.

Looking for a desktop interface with a start menu that looks closer to the Windows system? Then give Linux Mint a try and check out Tips and Tricks for Linux Mint after installation.

Note: The steps described in this article work with Ubuntu 11.04 (logged into Ubuntu Classic session), Ubuntu 10.10 and Ubuntu 10.04.

Ubuntu includes a top panel and a bottom panel by default. If you prefer to keep only one panel at the bottom just like the Windows Taskbar, then these are the steps to follow:

1. Delete the bottom panel: right-click over it and click "Delete This Panel".
2. Move the top panel to bottom: right-click over it, select "Properties" and change Orientation from "Top" to "Bottom".
3. Add running program buttons: right-click the panel, select "Add to Panel", scroll down and select "Window List", click "Add".
4. Replace the Menu Bar ("Applications-Places-System") with the "Main Menu" to save space in the panel:
   1. Right-click the "Menu Bar" and select "Remove From Panel".
   2. Right-click the panel, select "Add to Panel" and choose "Main Menu", click "Add".
   3. Right-click the items (Firefox, etc) and untick "Lock to Panel".
   4. Right-click the added "Main Menu", select "Move" to relocate it to the far left.

These are basic changes. The panels are much more flexible than the Windows Taskbar in that many items in the panels can be easily added, removed or configured.

   The Main Menu shows the "Lock Screen", "Log Out" and "Shut Down" items if you remove the "Indicator Applet Session" item (which shows your username and the shutdown button to the right of the panel). These three items are hidden from the Main Menu when the Indicator Applet Session item is on the panel.

   If you need to restore the panels to the original state, enter the following commands into the Terminal and re-start the system:

1. sudo gconftool-2 --shutdown
2. sudo rm -rf .gconf/apps/panel
3. sudo pkill gnome-panel

   At any point if your customized desktop settings caused a problem and you wish to reset all back to their defaults, then enter this command sudo rm -rf .gnome .gnome2 .gconf .gconfd .metacity in the Terminal, log out and log back in to the system.

Frequently used programs can be easily pinned to the panel.

1. Browse to the program from "Applications" or "Main Menu".
2. Drag and drop the program to an empty space in the panel, or right-click the program and select "Add this launcher to panel".
3. Right click the program icon, select "Move" and drop it to a new place in the panel.
4. Right click the program icon and select "Lock to Panel".

See also "Enable Superbar".

When you set the panel to be transparent in the default Ambiance theme in Ubuntu, you will find that some panel items' backgrounds are not transparent, but you can make them transparent and consistent with others, following these steps:

1. Go to Applications (or Main Menu) > Accessories > Terminal.
2. Enter cp -R /usr/share/themes/Ambiance ~/.themes/
3. Enter gedit ~/.themes/Ambiance/gtk-2.0/apps/gnome-panel.rc (for Ubuntu 11.04 or 10.10) OR gedit ~/.themes/Ambiance/gtk-2.0/gtkrc (for Ubuntu 10.04), to open the file with gedit.
4. Search for this line bg_pixmap[NORMAL] = "img/panel.png" (for Ubuntu 11.04 or 10.10) OR bg_pixmap[NORMAL] = "panel_bg.png" (for Ubuntu 10.04)
5. Comment out the line by placing a # at the beginning of the line, like this:#   bg_pixmap[NORMAL] = ...
6. Save the file.
7. Go to System > Preferences > Appearance, switch to the other theme and then back to the Ambiance theme.

   If you'd to change to the New Wave theme, then enter cp -R /usr/share/themes/"New Wave" ~/.themes/ in step 2, enter gedit ~/.themes/"New Wave"/gtk-2.0/gtkrc in step 3, search for and comment out this line bg_pixmap[NORMAL] = "Images/Panel/PanelBarLong.png" in steps 4 and 5 respectively.

In Windows 7, frequently used programs can be pinned to the taskbar (hence called Superbar). Likewise, DockBarX, a Gnome panel plugin, can be added to Ubuntu to achieve almost the same effect to pin and unpin or launch the applications from the panel.

1. Go to Ubuntu Software Center > Edit > Software Source.
2. Select "Other Software" and click "Add"
3. At APT line, enter ppa:dockbar-main/ppa, click "Add Source" and "Close"
4. At the left panel of Ubuntu Software Center, select "PPA for Dockbar Main Group", which is added after the above steps
5. At the right panel, select DockbarX and click "Install"
6. Wait for the cache to be updated, then right click the panel and click “Add to Panel”.
7. Select the DockBarX Applet and click "Add".

   A thumbnail preview of a running program is also available to DockBarX. To enable this feature, right-click the DockBarX item on the panel, select Properties, choose Window List and tick "Show Previews". Other preferences such as appearance, window item and group button can also be configured by users.

The font type and color of the panel clock follow the windows text in a theme by default. In particular, if the font color is black and shown on a dark background through a transparent panel, you can't read the clock clearly, but you can tweak it by changing the font color. And you can define the font type for your panel clock as well.

The code in Step 1 below sets the font color to white and applies DS-Digital font (See  below), bold and size 16.

1. Open up the text editor Gedit and paste the following code:
   style "my-panel-clock"
   {
   fg[NORMAL] = "#FFFFFF"
   font_name = "DS-Digital Bold 16"
   }
   widget "*.clock-applet-button.*" style "my-panel-clock"
2. Save the file as .gtkrc-2.0 (including the dot in front of the filename) inside your home directory /home/your_user_name.
3. Log out and log back in (OR enter killall gnome-panel into the Terminal) to see the change.

   The DS-Digital font can be downloaded here. After downloading, unzip the file and install the font into the system for use. See Install Extra Fonts.

   The filename leading by a dot represents it's a hidden file and visible by toggling the key Ctrl-H in the Nautilus file browser.

If your Ubuntu system sets the Minimize, Maximize and Close buttons to the left in a window and you prefer to change them to the right, then follow these simple steps:

1. Press Alt+F2 to bring up "Run Application" window.
2. Type gconf-editor into the box, click "Run" to bring up Configuration Editor.
3. Browse to apps > metacity > general, look for "button_layout" on the right panel.
4. Change the value in the "button_layout" from close,minimize,maximize: to menu:minimize,maximize,close and press the Enter key.

When running an application without maximized, Ubuntu always puts it in the left-top corner of the desktop by default, but you are allowed to set a program window to open up in the center of the desktop area.

1. Go to System > Preferences >CompizConfig Settings Manager
2. Select "Windows Management" from the left panel.
3. Click "Place Windows".
4. Change Placement Mode from "Smart" to "Centered", click "Back" and "Close".

Ideally, the window manager in Ubuntu should restore the last known position of an application window, but it does not do that unless an application remembers its own window position. (See reported bugs)

When you double-click the title bar of a window, the default setting is to maximize a window. Since there's already a maximize button you can use for this, I always like to change the default setting to rolling up (or 'shading') a window when I double-click on its title bar.

1. Go to System > Preferences > Windows
2. In "Titlebar Action", select "Roll up" (or "Shade" where applicable), from the drop-down list.

Now you can roll up a window when you double-click its title bar, and roll it down by double-clicking the title bar again. Simple as that.

Themes in Ubuntu can be customized to match the applications or suit your needs. I once tried the "New Wave" theme and the menu (File, Edit, View, etc) was hardly visible on the dark background in OpenOffice, but customizing the "New Wave" theme with "Ambiance" Controls solved the problem. These are easy steps to customize a theme, for example, allowing the "New Wave" theme to mix with the "Ambiance" Controls.

1. Go To System > Preferences > Appearance.
2. Under the "Theme" tab, click the "Customize" button while the "New Wave" theme is selected.
3. Under the "Controls" tab, click any other control item such as "Ambiance" and click the "Close" button.
4. Now it becomes your Custom theme and you can save it as a new theme, such as "New Wave with Ambiance Controls".

In Ubuntu you can set nearly the same aero glass effect to window borders with alpha transparency as available in Windows 7.

1. Press Alt+F2 to bring up "Run Application" window.
2. Type gconf-editor into the box, click "Run" to bring up Configuration Editor.
3. Browse to apps > gwd, look for "metacity_theme_active_opacity" on the right panel.
4. Change the value in "metacity_theme_active_opacity" from 1 to 0.75 (or smaller such as 0.5 for more transparency).
5. Then go to System > Preferences > CompizConfig Settings Manager
6. Select "Effects" from the left panel.
7. Tick "Blur Windows" and click the "Close" button. (Note: default values in Blur Windows can be applied.)

   If the aero glass effect doesn't work, check if you have updated your display driver. Go to System > Administration > Additional Drivers, activate the recommended graphics driver and restart the system.

In Windows 7, you can click and drag a window to the left or right edge of the desktop and it will fill half of the screen, or snap a window to the top edge of the desktop and it will be maximized.

In Ubuntu 11.04, you can click and drag a window to the left, right or top edge of the desktop to achieve the same result, but in Ubuntu 10.10 or 10.04, you need some tweaking as follows.

1. In addition to CompizConfig Settings Manager, install WmCtrl if not added.
   1. Go to Applications (or Main Menu) > Accessories > Terminal.
   2. Enter sudo apt-get install wmctrl
   3. Enter password when prompted.
2. Go To System > Preferences > CompizConfig Settings Manager.
3. Select "General" from the left panel and click "Commands".
4. In Command line 0, 1 and 2, paste the following codes:
   1. Command line 0, paste WIDTH=`xdpyinfo | grep 'dimensions:' | cut -f 2 -d ':' | cut -f 1 -d 'x'` && HALF=$(($WIDTH/2)) && wmctrl -r :ACTIVE: -b add,maximized_vert && wmctrl -r :ACTIVE: -e 0,0,0,$HALF,-1
   2. Command line 1, paste WIDTH=`xdpyinfo | grep 'dimensions:' | cut -f 2 -d ':' | cut -f 1 -d 'x'` && HALF=$(($WIDTH/2)) && wmctrl -r :ACTIVE: -b add,maximized_vert && wmctrl -r :ACTIVE: -e 0,$HALF,0,$HALF,-1
   3. Command line 2, paste wmctrl -r :ACTIVE: -b add,maximized_vert,maximized_horz
5. In the same window, click "Edge Bindings" tab.
6. Change Run Command 0, 1 and 2 from "None" to "Left", "Right" and "Top" respectively.
7. Click "Back" button and select "General Options", change "Edge Trigger Delay" to about 500.

Ubuntu adds an icon to the desktop for every removable drive that you attach to your system. The icons can be hidden by these steps:

1. Press Alt+F2 to bring up "Run Application" window.
2. Type gconf-editor into the box, click "Run" to bring up Configuration Editor.
3. Browse to apps > nautilus > desktop.
4. Untick "volumes_visible" and close the window.

The drive icons would then disappear from the desktop. Remember that you can always access the drives from "Places".

You can right click your desktop, select "Change Desktop Background" and choose any one of the wallpapers pre-installed, but you need to do it each time you want to change a wallpaper. What about changing a wallpaper automatically within a certain time interval? Try Wally.

1. Go to Applications (or Main Menu) > Ubuntu Software Center, enter wally into the Search box and click "Install". (See  below.)
2. Press Alt-F2, enter wally and click the "Run" button.
3. Right-click the Wally icon on the panel, select Settings.
4. Click "Folders" in the left column, then add/usr/share/backgrounds to the Folder box and tick "Include subfolders".
5. Click "Settings" in the left column, then tick "Play automatically on application starts".
6. Set the application to auto start, using this tip Auto Start Up an Application (as Wally's option to "Start automatically when system starts" being disabled).

Your wallpaper on the desktop will automatically change following these basic settings when you log back in the system (or right click the Wally icon on the panel and select "Play").

   If you like to get the latest version of Wally which has an option to disable splash screen and auto quit, go to developer's site to download. After which, right click the .deb file and select "Open with Ubuntu Software Center" to install, then follow Step 2 above.

Keyboard shortcuts are preset in the system, but you can add new ones or change them easily. For instance, change the default shortcut Ctrl+Alt+T (Run a Terminal) to Win+R (press R while holding down the Windows key, also known as Super key) by the following steps:

1. Go To System > Preferences > Keyboard Shortcuts
2. Browse to Desktop > "Run a terminal"
3. Click on the Shortcut, and it shows "New shortcut..."
4. Press Win+R, and it shows Mod4+R
5. Click the Close button and try the new shortcut.

   To disable a shortcut, press Backspace when it shows "New shortcut..." after the step 3 above.

   Shortcuts begin with XF86 refer to special keys available to some multimedia keyboards.

   Keyboard shortcuts can also be set by changing keybinding values with Configuration Editor. Press Alt+F2 and enter gconf-editor, then navigate to apps > gnome_settings_daemon > keybindings, or apps > metacity > global_keybindings and window_keybindings.

Xkill is part of the X11 utilities pre-installed in Ubuntu and a tool for terminating misbehaving X clients or unresponsive programs. You can easily add a shortcut key to launch xkill with the steps below.

1. Go to System > Preferences > Keyboard Shortcuts.
2. Click the Add button to create a custom shortcut.
3. Enter xkill to both the Name and Command boxes and click the Apply button.
4. Click on Disabled at the xkill row in the Keyboard Shortcuts window (Disabled is then changed to New shortcut...).
5. Press a new key combination, e.g. Ctrl+Alt+X (New shortcut... is then changed to Ctrl+Alt+X).
6. Click the Close button.

Xkill is ready for use. Press the above key combination to turn the cursor to an X-sign, move the X-sign and drop it into a program interface to terminate the unresponsive program, or cancel the X-sign with a right-click.