My Ubuntu 8.10 “Intrepid Ibex” Set Up

After tricking out my Intrepid installation multiple times, I believe I’ve finally reached something with which I’m truly happy. I’ll start by saying that I have installed the latest version of Ubuntu 8.10 “Intrepid Ibex” from Ubuntu’s testing site, via auto updates.

First off, I use the xfce4-panel instead of the default gnome-panel because it is more customizable in ways that I want, and the spacing that it uses makes it look more pleasing to the eye than the gnome panel. Open up Synaptic and do a search for “xfce4″ to get a list of plugins for the panel. A few that I use are xfce4-showdesktop-plugin, xfce4-xfapplet-plugin, and xfce4-datetime-plugin.

The panel in the picture above (click for full screenshot) contains a show desktop icon, then an applet called Icon Box. My panel’s width is at about 42 pixels, to make it seem more like an actual dock. In Firefox (my default browser), I maximized the vertical page space.

Below, I use the XFapplet to run the gnome panel’s pager inside the xfce4 panel. I also have the Deskbar Applet running in the xfce panel in the same way. I alternate between that (Control + Space) and Gnome Do (Win + Space) to launch applications, or do whatever else the plugins provide. The last applet on the panel is the datetime plugin, which you can configure to display whatever font or format you want.

Other applications that I use include the Desktop Wall plugin that is a part of compizconfig-settings-manager. This allows me to right click on any screen edge to instamtly change to the respectful desktop. I moved the animation time to zero so that there is no lag or rendering involved.

I use Exaile for playing music. It is based off Amarok (KDE), but has has many built-in plugins for gnome. You can see the media icons in the system tray above, which is just one of Exaile’s plugins. The extensions that I use for firefox include Better Gmail 2, Drag & Drop Zones, Tab Mix Plus, Tree Style Tab, and TwitterBar.

If you have another questions, or want any details about what I have done, please feel free to ask.