GDM2Setup / Ubuntu Tweak - Unable to change Xsplash Wallpaper

On a couple of fresh Lucid installs so far I've run into this same problem, whereby GDM2setup and/or Ubuntu Tweak are unable to change the wallpaper for Xsplash. This apparently stems from the fact that a directory both programs need to modify does not exist by default in 10.04.

A fix presented itself in the form of the reply from WobblyBob on launchpad here.

Essentially all you need to do is run this command in the terminal:

sudo mkdir /usr/share/images/xsplash

Then attempt to change the wallpaper once again. Hopefully that has fixed it!

Ensure Compiz starts with --loose-binding upon login with a handy script

Previously talked about was the massive perfomance enhancement systems using Nvidia cards and Compiz enjoy when Compiz is started with the '--loose-binding' option. To ensure that this happens properly upon every login i've found that deploying a quick little bash script is easiest.

To create the script:

gedit compiz-start.sh

Copy and pase the following into it

#!/bin/bash

compiz --replace --loose-binding
gtk-window-decorator --replace

Save and close gedit.

Make the script executable: 

 chmod 700 compiz-start.sh

At this point you can test the script using './compiz-start.sh' from your home directory.

To add this script to your list of startup applications: 

In Ubuntu, go to 'System > Preferences > Startup Applications' and add the line:

/home/yourusername/compiz-start.sh

So that it is one of the entries. At this stage, you're done, however, i've found the script works best when combined with the delay script mentioned previously.

So with that, the line to run the compiz script after five seconds would be:

 /home/yourusername/delay.sh 5 "/home/yourusername/compiz-start.sh"

Done!

Make Lucid less irritating - Change buttons from left to right and remove mail icon

Raar! Certain changes in Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx have brought on the rage, specifically the buttons being on the left, and that damned mail icon I never use (due to using a webmail client) in the new notification area that cannot be conventionally removed without also removing the volume icon.

So, some quick fixes to copy/paste into the terminal!

Remove the mail icon:

sudo apt-get remove indicator-messages 

Move the window controls to the right-hand side: 

gconftool-2 --set "/apps/metacity/general/button_layout" --type string "menu:minimize,maximize,close"

 That should hopefully soothe the irritation somewhat.

Conky problematic in Lucid? Battery bar appears empty.

After upgrading to 10.04 on my laptop I found that the battery monitor bar was returning an empty bar with no data. Inspection of errors returned by running it in the terminal showed that conky was trying to identify the battery by the wrong portion of the script, specifically:

${battery_bar 7,65 BAT0}

Where it should have been attempting to lookup 'BAT0', it was actually looking up '7,65'. After double checking that the script had been written correctly, I attempted a reinstall from the repositories, to no avail! The solution ended up being just to download the source, compile and install.

Conky source can be found here, download the tarball of the latest version.

To install:

Ensure dependencies have been met:

sudo apt-get install lua5.1 liblua5.1-0-dev libxml2-dev build-essential libcurl4-gnutls-dev libx11-dev libxt-dev libxext6-dbg libxext-dev libxdamage-dev libxft-dev libimlib2-dev libglib2.0-dev

Find the Conky tarball you have downloaded and extract the contents to a convenient location, then navigate to this folder in the terminal.

Then, while in this directory, in the terminal:

 ./configure
make
sudo make install

And you're done! For convenience you could use a program called checkinstall to autobuild a deb, so that it is easier to remove or upgrade conky at a later date.

To do this simply replace 'sudo make install' with 'sudo checkinstall'. Follow the steps and enjoy Conky!