A month back I opted for Ubuntu to evaluate as my primary desktop operating system for personal computing. So for that I freed some space, deleted a Windows partition and installed Ubuntu 11.04 on it. My transition was great. I never knew Ubuntu got such a polished UI and the other improved things like Software Center and good drivers support. I have Lenovo N200, and I got every thing worked on it. I use PTCL Evo 3G dongle, that also worked on Ubuntu. Few days back, Ubuntu users got a new release, that is Ubuntu 11.10.

Being a user, who is having his computing on Windows, I was very curious to find the alternate of every software. I sorted out all, but before you got towards your interest of softwares, you must do some thing for your desktop. Here you go…

Decrease the icon size at desktop

You will notice, the icon size and the spacing between them does not look cool. So I have reduced icon size. And I got more space over my desktop.

Open Computer or any folder. Go to top bar and click Edit > Preferences. Following window will be opened. Set zoom level to 66%.

Auto hide Unity bar

I like Unity bar, but I don’t want it to be there every time. To hide Unity bar you need CompizConfig Settings Manager (ccsm). Go to Software Center and install this item. Or try following command in the terminal.

sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager

Enter Unity in Filter. And open Unity settings. Set Autohide in Hide Launcher.

Get  a dock app – Cairo Dock

You have seen the dock of Mac OS X. Why not you have on your Ubuntu. In the available apps, I recommend you guys Cairo Dock. Because, it gives a strong control over its configuration. You can install Cairo Dock from Software Center or by the following command in terminal.

Install Adobe Air

Download Adobe Air form Adobe website. Open a terminal (applications > Accessories > Terminal) and navigate to your Downloads folder or the folder in which you saved the .bin file.

cd Download/

We need to let the .bin file have permissions to install so enter the following command carefully

chmod +x AdobeAIRInstaller.bin

Now lets install it:

./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin

Get more cool icons – Faenza icons

If you are not impressed with the default icons of Ubuntu, you should give a try to Faenza icons. And you will like them. In the screenshot given at the end of this post, I am using these icons.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:tiheum/equinox
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install faenza-icon-theme

Install Gnome Tweak Tool

For setting Faenza icons as your default icon set in Ubuntu 11.10, you need Gnome Tweak Tool. This tool is also available in Software Center. I am also giving you command line statement to download and install it

sudo apt-get install gnome-tweak-tool

My desktop screenshot

Hope you like it.

Edit log:

1. [2011-10-26] Added Faenza icons and Gnome Tweak Tool