Mike's Tech Blog

I recently purchased a refurbished laptop, and installed Ubuntu 9.10 on to it. As much as I love Ubuntu, an annoyance is that there doesn't seem to be an easy way to tweak Ubuntu. Then I found Ubuntu Tweak!

It is designed to make configuring Ubuntu easier for everyone. It provides many useful desktop and system options that the default desktop environment doesn't provide. Presently, it only runs in the GNOME Desktop.

Here are some features of Ubuntu Tweak:

• View of Basic System Information(Distribution, Kernel, CPU, Memory, etc.)
•   GNOME Session Control
• Auto Start Program Control
• Quick install popular applications
• A lot of third-party sources to keep applications up-to-date
• Clean unneeded packages or cache to free disk space
• Show/Hide and Change Splash screen
• Show/Hide desktop icons or Mounted Volumes
• Show/Hide/Rename Computer, Home, Trash or Network icon
• Tweak Metacity Window Manager's style and behavior
• Compiz Fusion settings, Screen Edge Settings, Window Effect Settings, Menu Effect Settings
• Set the Shortcuts to archive quicker access your favorite applications
• GNOME Panel Settings
• Nautilus Settings
• Advanced Power Management Settings
• System Security Settings

Here is how to install Ubuntu Tweak:

First open the Terminal Window and add the PPA Repository that has the Ubuntu Tweak package with the following command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:tualatrix/ppa

Next, you need to import the key of the repository:

sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com FE85409EEAB40ECCB65740816AF0E1940624A22

Then edit /etc/apt/sources.list and add the following two lines:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/tualatrix/ppa/ubuntu karmic main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/tualatrix/ppa/ubuntu karmic main

NOTE: The above two lines are for Ubuntu 9.10. If you are using a different version of Ubuntu, you will have to make the appropriate changes.

Then update the package database with the next two commands:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Now you can finally install Ubuntu Tweak:

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-tweak

To start using Ubuntu Tweak, just go into Applications,  then System Tools, then Ubuntu Tweak.

Here is a screen shot of Ubuntu Tweak:

OK, now that you have Ubuntu Tweak installed, just tweak away!

-- Mike