How To Make Ubuntu Sexy

Most people come into the world of Ubuntu thinking it's a beautiful operating system with 3D cube effects, wobbly windows, sharp colors and beautiful wallpapers. I certainly did when I first put in the Live CD for Intrpid Ibex; and believe you me I was disappointed!

What I got when I booted up Ubuntu the first time was a flat, simple and brown wallpaper with a barely modern color scheme. It didn't look BAD, but it didn't look great; and for me to feel comfortable using an operating system it has to look good as well as run smoothly. First thing I noticed was that it was really simple, and being a complete newbie at Ubuntu, I was crestfallen. Many people are when they try Ubuntu, and that turns them off completely before they actually take the time to learn about it and realize the simplicity of it is in actuality the beauty of it.

Ubuntu is built upon the huge community (forums, blogs, videos) that it inspires; and the simpler it is, the easier it is for the community to find a way to modify it. Aesthetics are the one thing you can rely on the community for no matter which operating system you're using. With Ubuntu, though, it's so open and so simple that the possibilities seem endless. Of course, the community is more than willing to take advantage of those possibilities and to share them with others.

Some of us, however, are somewhat scared to dive into a gigantic community spread across the internet just to ask about something as simple as "how do I change the theme of my user interface?". Fortunately for those people, most of the effects you see on YouTube with Ubuntu (3D Desktop Cube, custom font selection, fading windows, custom animations) are available within the OS out of the box. They're just not turned on to avoid graphical issues for those with lower end graphics cards. They can all be turned on by simply going into the menus, and looking around and basically just playing with it. This is all assuming you're using the latest (and updated.
If not, just go to your Update Manager and update your software. It's just pointing and clicking.) stable release, Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex.

Once you build up enough courage to go to the community however, you open up a whole new universe of options. Granted, it becomes more complicated; but if you're patient and confident, then it won't be very difficult at all. There are a huge number of places you can go to for customization, but the most famous as of now is probably GNOME-Look.org. They have a huge list of things you can do with your Ubuntu GUI, and I think they may have a few tutorials to guide you along too.

There are also many, many, many ways to modify the GNOME user interface with third party software and modifications, but those tend to be more difficult and can potentially damage your computer if you're not careful. My favorite that I've seen so far is an exact replica of Mac OS X in Ubuntu down to the keyboard shortcuts. If you look around on the internet, chances are you'll be impressed with what you see people doing with Ubuntu; which is PROBABLY why you wanted to try it in the first place.

I really do like the GNOME interface. It's accessible, simple, and fast. It gets the job done, and it does it well. It's not ugly, but I did have my few issues with it. Especially with the default icons and fonts. Unfortunately, you need to have a little confidence in terminal usage before you can fix the badly rendered fonts; but once you do the difference will be extremely clear and if you're as picky about fonts as I am, it will probably make your jaw drop. I haven't considered changing the fonts once since I did that.

So what are you waiting for? If you've already got Ubuntu installed and want to make it look better, just do a Google search for it, and try the communities if you're brave enough! If you're not using Ubuntu however, why not try it? You can use a free Live CD without touching your hard drive at all so there's no reason not to. Unless, of course you don't have a CD burner... If you don't have a CD burner why are you even thinking about Ubuntu?

Anyway, I'm going to leave you today with a screen shot of my Intrepid Ibex Desktop.

Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex

Alright, so on Saturday I decided I was going to format the partition of my hard drive with Windows Vista on it just to clean it off and give Vista a new start. I figured why not at least try because the last time I had gotten a clean start was when I got this notebook on Christmas; and it was covered in useless HP software.

While looking around in my hard drive for some possible last minute data that I wanted to save, I noticed that windows was offering me a chance to go ahead and format my drive from a drop down menu. Formatting right then and there in the GUI seemed pretty convenient; but I was skeptical of the chances of that actually DOING what it said it was going to do. Predictably, an error window popped up telling me something about how I couldn't do that at that particular time. While I was exiting out, however, all the information under my drive disappeared. As you would PROBABLY suspect, I began to mentally freak out a little.

Thankfully, all I had to do was pop in the Vista recovery disc and it repaired everything while also formatting and re-installing Vista. I no longer wanted to USE Vista, obviously. So as soon as it was done formatting and doing a clean install I put in my Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex CD, and began my journey into the wonderful world of Linux!

...Unfortunately, it didn't FEEL that wonderful at first. The install went by smoothly and quickly; and most of my drivers worked out of the box. My wireless card however, did not. I spent anywhere between two and four hours sifting through the community, looking for past decisions. I FINALLY found a solution that worked though, and have not had an issue with it since.

After sorting my internet problems out, I started actually working on my system. It took me a day or two to get used to Ubuntu again; and despite what most people will say, you WILL get frustrated. If you come from the World of Windows like I did, terminals, package managers, and configuring your graphics will take a lot of time to get comfortable with. Nothing in life worth having comes easy, as they say. Once I became acquainted with the user interface it got easier and easier as I went, though.

As hard as it may seem using terminals and package managers over the simple point and click method of Mac and Windows, it's actually quite rewarding. Downloads are fast, simple, and safe. I don't feel nearly as vulnerable because whenever you install something or the system tries to open an important file, it asks for your password. Seemingly annoying, yes, but in reality it's all part of the excellent security of Ubuntu. I haven't even CONSIDERED finding a third party security software yet.

Aesthetically, in my opinion, Ubuntu out of the box is gorgeous. I had a problem only with the icons and the fonts without any modification. A lot of people really don't like the way Ubuntu looks. "Windows 98 with too much lipstick on" is a common titled I see placed upon the GUI; but that's the actual beauty of it. It's extremely, extremely simple out of the box. No special effects, no shiny and glassy themes, and no folders full of pre-designed desktops. In Windows, all of that is merely bloat software and effects that we rarely use or notice. All of the special effects are THERE, they're just turned off to save CPU power for those who don't need them; and the theme of EVERYTHING is customizable. Websites like Gnome-Look.org provide everything from themes, to cursors, to system sounds, and of course, screenlets.

Speaking of screenlets, Ubuntu has applications for EVERYTHING. If there was an app you loved on Windows or Mac, you can be almost completely assured that there will be one like it on Ubuntu. My personal favorite right now has to be Conky. It's a simple desktop moniter for your entire system. It's entirely customizable, and there's a huge amount of pre-made Conky scripts available.

In my opinion, that has to be the best thing about Ubuntu. Everything is completely driven by the community. Almost every bug gets noted, and gets looked at. There are apps for everything you could ever want; and there's an array of replacement software for almost everything from Mac and Windows. People are always working, commenting, reviewing, and posting tutorials for so many different things it's impossible for anything to be impossible on Ubuntu as long as you're patient. It's designed with the people in mind, and that's exactly how it works. It's made to work for people who have lower end systems, and it's got the eye candy and power to satisfy those with top of the line power user systems.

Speed is essential to my daily use on Compaq Presario (CQ50) notebook; and Vista most certainly wasn't working that way. Windows 7 was faster, yes; but Ubuntu takes the prize for speed. I've never felt like my OS was actually working faster than I was until now. It actually took me a while to get used to how fast it was compared to my previous OS experiences. I even have all of the graphics and eye candy turned all the way up without any sort of lag or speed issues. Firefox is as impressive for me as it was in Windows, if not more. It feels smoother, the gNOME GUI is very nice to look at.

Mozilla Thunderbird is wonderful, to me. I never liked using Outlook, so I had always been turned off to email clients for the desktop. To my discouragement, I had trouble setting up Evolution; so I decided I would download and try Thunderbird. Once I got it configured for my Gmail account (which only took only about two minutes), and once I used it for a while, I fell in love with it. It's very comfortable and easy to use, and it just feels natural to me.

There's actually a lot of Mac and Windows replacement software out of the box for Ubuntu. GIMP, Pidgin, and Rhythm Box are three of the programs I find myself using CONSTANTLY; and for me they're just as good, if not better, than they're famous counterparts.

So yes, I am completely happy with my switch from Windows. Do I plan to abandon Microsoft or Apple? No, not really. I don't see myself staying away from either permanently. I'm still beta-testing Windows 7 on this notebook on a small partition, and I still use it frequently. I don't see myself ever going back to Windows XP again though, and I DEFINITELY will never go back to Winodws Vista.

Tutorial: Windows Vista Ribbons Screensaver

Have you ever went to look at the screensavers in Windows Vista and been extremely disappointed like I was? Well, at first thought the best fix would be "Oh well, I'll just search Google for a new screensaver!". Sadly, Microsoft decided to take that little bit of freedom that you had in Windows XP. Sounds like something our dear friend Bill Gates would do.

Luckily, there's a fix for it! A combination of a tiny amount of courage with the Windows Registry Editor and the will to take five minutes to memorize some numbers, your screensavers will look infinitely better.

With this tutorial I'll cover only the Ribbons screensaver, but the same general hacks can be applied with any saver from Vista. This tutorial is all over the internet, but I've seen a lot that don't really explain it all that well; and for people with limited knowledge and courage, that can be quite foreboding.


<sub>Before.


After.</sub>

Go ahead and go to your desktop, open the start menu. In the search bar at the bottom, type in "Regedit" and hit enter.


_{New search tool actually works in the latest version of Windows.}

Now, once you have the Registry Editor open, find the software tab, and click it to open the drop down tabs. Skim through these to find Microsoft, and then Windows. Click on Current Version, and find the Screensavers tab near the bottom. Open it, and find the Ribbons tab. Once you find it, don't click the Screen 1 and Screen 2 tabs. You won't be needing those in this tutorial.


_{So many choices! It's the sixteenth tab under Current Version.}

This is where the fun starts. First, go to Edit (in the menu bar) and hover over New, and then click DWORD. This will simply bring up a new item in the screen. You can't name it just anything, however. Name it "Numribbons", without the quotes. Once you're finished with that, right click on Numribbons, and click "Modify". Once a pop up shows, click the "Decimal" orb under Hexadecimal. Typing in this increases, or if you want it to, decreases the amount of ribbons. Set it anywhere between 1 and 100. I like mine to be set at 100 just because I think it looks really cool.


<sub>The Windows 7 registry is pretty much the same as Windows Vista.


Ohhh! You hacker!</sub>

Repeat the process of creating the DWORD twice. Name the two new ones Blur and Ribbonwidth. It's relatively obvious what Ribbonwidth does: it determines the width of the ribbons. I set mine at 50 for a cool effect. Blur defines the amount the ribbons blur into one another (E.G. If you set this to 0, the ribbons simply pile on top of one another until the screen turns white.)


_{You can always delete the new DWORD files to reset the saver to it's default look.}

Now that you've finished everything, simply close the Registry Editor to save it and preview it by right clicking on your desktop and clicking personalization and clicking the Screensaver button.

Everything in this guide is easily reversible if you don't like the changes; and they're all completely editable.

I am not responsible for any mistakes you make, or damage done to you're computer.

Thanks for reading this tutorial! Don't hesitate to comment and follow if you liked it!

Note:I might do some on the other screensavers once I get around to messing with them. I am also completely aware that this is all over Google; but no one has pointed out that this registry hack works perfectly in Windows 7 Beta. Most lack screenshots and make it far more complicated than it really is.