Three easy Linux Desktop Customizations (Fedora 10)

Original date: June 7, 2009 4:22 PM by sonnik

If you've just installed Linux, you've probably seen some rather customized desktop interfaces. Part of the power of Linux is the customization abilities it offers, and the desktops are no different.

In the examples (and video) that follow, I'll show you three quick tricks to make your Gnome desktop (Fedora 10 is used for the content below) come to life in a manner that personalizes things just for you.

In the video below, I use three basic techniques. The first is to enable desktop effects. You can set these properties by typing the following...

desktop-effects

from a terminal window. This can also be opened by using System -> Look and Feel. Be sure the "Enable Desktop Effects" button is activated, so you're able to enable the "Wobble" and "Workspaces on a Cube" option. "Enable Desktop Effects" you'll notice will give you a shadow on windows, some smoother edges, and some other pieces of eye candy. "Wobble" will make the windows more "jelly-like", probably inspired by Mac operating systems. Linux desktops typically install with an option to give you four distinct desktops, so you can toggle from one set of applications to another (as opposed to the single desktop of Windows). The "cube" option will animate this toggle between sub-desktops in a cube-like manner.

The second option is to install Emerald. Emerald is one of many "theme managers" that Linux can use for customization above and beyond the typical Gnome or KDE desktops. For Gnome's options, check out GNOME-look.org for more options. Note that these theme managers may have different installation instructions (as well as installation of themes), so the instructions for Emerald may not apply to these other managers. To install emerald, using an account that has root-like privileges...

yum install emerald*

This will actually install Emerald (the manager) itself, some pre-packaged Emerald themes, and an Emerald development library. The emerald library is not really needed, but it will not hurt anything if it is installed. Once installed, you'll want to set your customizations with the following:

emerald-theme-manager

Be sure to check out the various other options to tweak your selected theme further. Once you've set everything to your liking, you can activate it with...

emerald --replace &

Which will replace Gnome's default theme manager and background the process. The CPU usage is negligible, much less than Aero's requirements on Windows. If you'd like this to automatically start each time you start your Linux desktop, set this via session properties.

gnome-session-properties

Select Add, and provide a descriptive name, like "Emerald Startup". For your command, you'll enter...

/usr/bin/emerald --replace &

Click Add on the child window once complete, and close out of gnome-session-properties.

The third and final technique is to customize your terminal preferences. This is accessed via Edit -> Preferences. On the "general" tab, check your font and font size. Be sure to stick with a monospace font, or else output that is meant to be displayed in columns many not make sense. I also like going with a slightly smaller font than the default, as this can allow for more information to be displayed. On the colors tab, you may want to switch to "green on black" as opposed to the default "black on white". On the "background" tab, you can select from having a specific solid color, a specific background image, or even a semi-transparent background. I personally don't like this option, but it may have some other functionality if you're using the command line to troubleshoot some other issue.

As mentioned these are only a few of the customization options available to Linux users, be sure to try out the other customizations that are out there.

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