Ubuntu Netbook Remix Tweaks
Here are few tweaks that can make Ubuntu Netbook Edition more usable
Mouse
- Right click by holding down for 1 second: under system > mouse, enable the option "Trigger secondary click by holding primary button" and set delay to the minimum. This will require a logout, see point about entering passwords below.
- To make the touch screen much more usable- especially to open application and scroll
- set "acceleration", "drag and drop threshold", "double click timeout" sliders to max
- set "sensitivity" to one or two notches above low
Keyboard
- set the keyboard to uk layout in system > keyboard
- In System > Assistive Technologies > Preferred Applications, set the Mobility option to "onBoard" and select "Run at start".
- for onboard to work and not be full screen all the time, add "onboard" and "onBoard" without quotes to (alt-f2) gconf-editor > Apps > Maximus > Exclude_Class.
- right click on the onboard icon and the change settings to
- show/hide by clicking the icon
- start minimized
Power management
- set the battery icon to "never show" in system > power management
- set the screen to sleep after e.g. 5 minutes in system > power management
Password entry
- To enable the "onboard" on screen keyboard for the login screen - click on the small man (A) at the bottom of the login screen
- So you can enter sudo passwords using an on screen keyboard, set "password dialogues as normal windows" in system > "Assistive Technologies"
Weather
- To get a small weather icon in the task bar, set your location by clicking on the time and edit, next to locations
Appearance
- change the background to a dark one e.g. cherries in system > appearance. A dark background really shows of the screen/interface and is more interesting than the default yellow/orange gradient
- set a screen saver in system > appearance
Installing XBMC
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:team-xbmc
sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 91E7EE5E 318C7509
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install xbmc
Disabling admin prompts
Quoted direct from this thread
This will be useful to people without a keyboard and will cellwriter as you can't type in admin prompts..
This will disable admin prompt - I do not advise this unless absolutely necessary. there is an alternative (see Password entry, above)
Open the terminal window from Applications --> accessories --> terminal, run the command:
sudo visudo
Find the line that says
%admin ALL=(ALL) ALL
and change it to
%admin ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL
Save and exit the file
Note: Shift and x then enter to confirm to save and exit. I did it with cellwriter to test.
Tip: (Use keys option) I find using the tip of my thumb very accurate for cellwriter.
fstab changes for a speedup
Change the line that says:
"UUID=90923afb-d687-47b4-a001-3d2d4ec755ed / ext3 errors=remount-ro 0 0"
to:
"UUID=90923afb-d687-47b4-a001-3d2d4ec755ed / ext2 noatime,errors=remount-ro 0 0"
Note the change in filesystem type from ext3 to ext2 as well.
Installing Chrome
Google Chrome can be installed directly from its regular website. Browse to it in Firefox, download the .deb version, and just run it via the GUI. There's a graphical installer for .deb packages which will get it installed.
Adobe Flash can be installed in much the same way too.
The Chrome Touch extension works well, once you put it into "Full touch" mode.
Do not put Chrome into Full Screen, unless you have some way to press F11 to get it out of full screen again. If you have some apps that work better in 'almost' full screen, then use the Chrome "Make Application shortcut" feature. This will put a direct link (with an icon) into your launcher's Internet section which will start Chrome without full screen mode, but without the URL bar and so on.
The BBC iPlayer (full website version) works great this way, so long as you don't then try to make the flash player go full-screen itself, which much slower due to the scaling.
Wide Scrollbars
If you have difficulty using scrollbars because your touchscreen doesn't work well at the edges of the screen (or you just have fat fingers!), put the following in ~/.gtkrc-2.0
style "wide-scrollbars" { GtkRange ::slider_width = 23 GtkRange ::stepper_size = 23 } class "GtkRange" style "wide-scrollbars"
Installing x2x
x2x will let you use your mouse/keyboard from another linux device via ssh to your joggler. It means, for instance, if you have the joggler to the right of your pc screen, you can move the mouse to the far right and itll appear on the joggler! Saves the need for a usb hub and second keyboard.
Run the following command on your joggler:
sudo apt-get install x2x
then, from your linux based pc, open a terminal and type:
ssh -X joggler@<your jogglers ip> "x2x -east -to :0"
password is joggler by default. you can change -east to be -west if you have the joggler to your left like me.
Control the backlight
You can turn the backlight off completely
do this -
apt-get install xutils
in
etc/environment
add
DISPLAY=:0.0
as a new line
To turn the backlight off
xset dpms force off
If you touch the screen/move the mouse it comes on again
turn it on by script
xset dpms force on
Type xset alone to see the other options
Some more tricks here - http://www.sunspot.co.uk/Projects/Joggler/bright_on_mouse.html