Some Ubuntu Customizations

Hi All,

I recently purchased a Dell Studio 15 which came preinstalled with vista and recenly got upgraded to win 7.

I have to keep windows as my firm needs me to access exchange server.

no offense intended by i think there are few features which i like a lot in vista / win 7 which i needed to replicate in ubuntu to get a home like feeling when i switch between two O.S.

for all the other work i was trying to setup ubuntu as i like. till now my customization efforts have reached

USP installed <- missed the quick search of Vista/win 7

Trying to find a simple no frill replacement for dell dock that comes pre installed with any dell laptop on windows.

My efforts till now on this is

opened a new gnome panel on top with auto hide and non expanding, and use of solid color with 50% transparence. giving me some feel of dell dock

now enough of self brag.

support that i need is as follows.

1. how to have transparency enabled in gnome panel for any drawer. / application menu item's

1. howto place icons is application menu of a panel in vertical mode.

1. howto have a zoom in effect on the icon's

besides these few more points which i looked a lot on net but was unable to find any solution.

1. how to hide the two stubs that are displayed at both ends of gnome panel in case its not expanded.

1. how to remove compiz from my default windows manager and replace it with metaity.

my distro is 9.10 ubuntu.

i tried desktop effects :- none

but this step i have to do every time.

please help me on this if you can,

in case i missed some threads where simmilar solutions are already discussed or under discussion please provide link for them.

hoping to get some help soon.

Remove Compiz--And you like Windows 7?

Be aware that transparency requires desktop effects (compiz). That said, you can uninstall Compiz in Synaptic.

You might try wbar or AWN (slows things down on a few systems) for a Dell Dock replacement; try looking here I would suggest that you post/look in Absolute Beginner Talk if you have only added one program. I can't tell how far you've gotten with Ubuntu, so I apologize if this is for a diffferent level of user. Hope this helps, Ibidem

that's totally within my range buddy, and thanks for responding.

I had a long stride with debian so i know my ways around.

with ubuntu i was expecting more easy ways.

as for compiz is concerned, i tried uninstalling that and then was stuck with no default wm then reinstalled it to get back compiz as my default wm.

for this i tried changeing desktop effects to none from appearance option. as well as checked and double checked default wm in gconf-editor. but all shows metacity but then again i get compiz as my default.

so curently i have add "metacity --replace &" as my startup option.

AWN i am not able to move on top of the screen.

and wbar tries starting opengl and gives very poor performance atlest to me.

my current menu gives me all the features / shortcuts i want just wanted to organize them a bit more, and add few effects.

and ya checking your reference dock link, that might help me solve my problem.

also i used to be but not now a die hard fan of free softwares only and the whole FSF / GNU system. for me its about workablility.

some softwares in my win 7 boot are my favourite and rest are loaded in my Ubuntu boot. so i use both and i appreciate the sheer software intellegence built in them.

note: last time i tested transparency i remember atleast for taskbar transparency it doesnot require compiz.