Taming Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic on my new system

I recently upgraded my computer with a i5-750 processor, 8GB of ram, Nvidia graphics card and an Intel X25-M solid state disk. This however meant that I would be reinstalling my operating system.

There were some problems with faulty RAM, that prevented me from installing anything the first day, but I will not go into more detail than saying that 'debsums' and 'memtest86' saved the day!

The purpose of this post is to document the minor changes I make to make my operating system useful. This is not a rip on Ubuntu - I tweak everything (including Mac and Win).

The basics

Binary graphic drivers, media codecs and such is handled pretty good. You just click the file, Ubuntu offers to install the codecs and that's it. Those wanting a bit more control over their graphic drivers can try EnvyNG.

Indicator applet

As much as I respect the Ubuntu design team for their recent removal of 'project brown' - I do not like the indicator applet - it looks like a mail notification icon and it hides my IM dialog.

1. Right click the indicator applet, click 'remove'.
2. Modify the Empathy/Pidgin settings if you dislike the tray icon settings.

Browser

I like Firefox - I was very grateful when it saved me from the land of IE6 and even recommended it to my friends when it was called Phoenix, later Firebird. However, compared to Chromium it crashes a lot, is slow and what annoys me the most is that the UI can become unresponsive if you're loading a heavy javascript page.

Unfortunately, Chromium is not packaged for Ubuntu, so I use the daily-builds PPA. Follow the instructions, after the link.

Why not "Google Chrome" ? Well, it is just as good, but it has a tracking identifier built in that helps Google (and others) track your browser as a unique visitor. If that doesn't bother you; get it here.

Get rid of the color scheme

Brown is nice. I like it pies, muffins, coffee and chocolate - but I don't want a brown desktop!

System > Preferences > Appearance > Theme > New Wave (a bit dark, but better)

Install Dropbox

I cannot recommend this tool enough. Offers you free 2GB space on the Amazon cloud, that you can use for whatever you want. I keep stuff from my studies that I need on multiple computers there, it just works.

Get it here (full disclosure: this link will give me 250MB extra space if you sign up).

Get rid of the task-bar

Now, I use a lot of programs at the same time and it is just sad how fast the task-bar gets cluttered. Many people use Avant-Window-Navigator (AWN), but I think it is too heavy for my taste.

I use a program called 'dockbarx' that is a python based panel applet. It provides you with an offspring of dock and bar (hence, dockbar). Get it, and deploy it by right clicking the panel and adding it from the list. Note that you will have to restart gnome-panel before selecting it (hint: killall gnome-panel).

Fixing the 'thump' sound

Using the Intel P55 chipset, I wasn't really expecting sound to be a problem. But every time I wanted to listen to something, there was this annoying clicking sound in my speakers.

The cause is detailed in this bug report. But easily fixed by commenting out "load-module module-suspend-on-idle" in your /etc/pulse/default.pa

This annoying 'authenticate keyring' dialog

This little annoyance is just beyond me. Why do I have to login, just to insert my password for network shares or to check my email?

This guide details how you can get PAM (portable authentication modules) to do this for you.