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146 CHAPTER 10 PERSONALIZING UBUNTU: GETTING EVERYTHING JUST RIGHT Configuring Input Devices Mouse and key repeat speeds are personal to each user, and you may find the default Ubuntu settings not to your taste, particularly if you have a high-resolution mouse such as a gaming model. Fortunately, changing each setting is easy. You ll find the relevant options under the System . Preferences menu. Configuring Mouse Options Select System . Preferences . Mouse to open the Mouse Preferences dialog box, which has three tabs: Buttons: This tab lets you set whether the mouse is to be used by a left-handed or right- handed person. Effectively, it swaps the functions of the right and left buttons. Beneath this is the double-click timeout setting. This is ideal for people who are less physically dexterous because the double-click speed can be slowed down. On the other hand, if you find yourself accidentally double-clicking items, you can speed it up. Cursors: On this tab, you can select from any mouse cursor themes that are installed. You can also activate the Locate Pointer option, which causes a box to appear around the mouse cursor when you press the Ctrl key. This can help you find the cursor on a busy desktop. Motion: This tab, shown in Figure 10-5, lets you alter the speed of the mouse pointer, as well as the drag-and-drop threshold. Changes are made as each setting is adjusted, so to test the new settings, simply move your mouse. Here s what the settings do: The Acceleration setting controls how fast the mouse moves. Whenever you move the mouse, the pointer on screen moves a corresponding amount. However, the cursor actually increases in speed the more you move your hand (otherwise, you would need to drag your hand across the desk to get from one side of the screen to the other). This is referred to as acceleration. If you set the acceleration too high, the pointer will fly around the screen, seemingly unable to stop. If you set it too slow, you ll need to ramp the mouse several times to make it go anywhere. The Sensitivity setting controls how quickly the acceleration kicks in when you first move the mouse. Choosing a higher setting means that you can move the mouse relatively quickly before it starts to accelerate and cover more screen space. A low setting means that acceleration will begin almost as soon as you move the mouse. Higher sensitivity settings give you more control over the mouse, which can be useful if you use image-editing programs, for example. The Threshold setting determines the amount of mouse movement allowed in a click- and-drag maneuver before the item under the cursor is moved. This setting is designed for people who have limited dexterity and who might be unable to keep the mouse perfectly still when clicking or double-clicking an icon. In such cases, a large threshold value may be preferred.

CHAPTER 10 PERSONALIZING UBUNTU: GETTING EVERYTHING JUST RIGHT Figure 10-4. You can alter the way fonts appear on screen by using the Fonts Preferences dialog box. BYTECODE HINTING Two font hinting subsystems are available under Ubuntu: Autohinting and Bytecode Interpreting. There s a lengthy debate about which produces the best results. Personally, I prefer to use the Bytecode Interpreter because I believe it leads to the cleaner fonts, but others say Autohinting is better in this regard. Unfortunately, the Bytecode Interpreter is protected by patents in the United States (for more information, see www.freetype.org/patents.html). This means that individuals in the United States can t use it without paying a license fee to the patent holder (in theory, at least). Those in the rest of world should be fine. It s easy to activate the Bytecode Interpreter. Follow these steps: 1. Open a GNOME Terminal window (Applications . Accessories . Terminal). 2. In the terminal window, type the following: sudo dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig 3. On the first screen of the configuration program, select Native to activate the Bytecode Interpreter. Alternatively, you can choose Autohinting or even None, which will turn off the hinting system. 4. On the next screen, you can select whether subpixel rendering is activated. This is useful only for TFT screens (including notebooks), so ether select Automatic or, if you use a TFT monitor and want to ensure the option is activated, select Always. 5. The third screen offers the option of using bitmap fonts. These are fonts that, unlike the TrueType fonts used within the rest of Ubuntu, don t scale beyond their original size. There s no harm in enabling them because they can sometimes be useful as system fonts. 6. Once the program has finished configuring the software, restart your X server by logging out and then back in again.

144 CHAPTER 10 PERSONALIZING UBUNTU: GETTING EVERYTHING JUST RIGHT In the Style drop-down list, you can select from the following choices: Centered: This option places the wallpaper in the center of the screen. If the wallpaper is not big enough to fill the screen, a border appears around the edge. If it s bigger than the screen, the edges of the wallpaper are cropped off. Fill Screen: This option forces the picture to fit the screen, including squashing or expanding it if necessary (known as altering its aspect ratio). If the wallpaper isn t in the same ratio as the screen, it will look distorted. Most digital camera shots should be okay, because they use the same 4:3 ratio as most monitors (although if you have a wide-screen monitor, a digital camera picture will be stretched horizontally). Scaled: Like the Fill Screen option, this option enlarges the image if it s too small or shrinks it if it s too big, but it maintains the aspect ratio, thus avoiding distortion. However, if the picture is in a different aspect ratio than the monitor, it may have borders at the edges. Tiled: If the picture is smaller than the desktop resolution, this option simply repeats the picture (starting from the top left) until the screen is filled. This option is primarily designed for patterned graphics. Don t forget that the GNOME Art web site (http://art.gnome.org) offers many wallpaper packages for download. Tip Looking for some good wallpaper? Visit Flickr (www.flickr.com). This is a community photography site where many people make their pictures publicly available. Setting Font Preferences Ubuntu lets you change the fonts that are used throughout Ubuntu (referred to as system fonts). You can also alter how they re displayed. To change a system font, select System . Preferences . Font. In the Font Preferences dialog box, shown in Figure 10-4, click the button next to the system font you want to change, and then choose from the list. You can also set the font point size so, for example, you can make the labels beneath icons easier to read. By clicking the entries under the Font Rendering heading in the Font Preferences dialog box, you can change how fonts look on your monitor. This will alter the antialiasing and hinting of the font. Antialiasing softens the edges of each letter to make them appear less jagged. Hinting affects the spacing and shaping of the letters. Used together, they can make the on-screen text look more pleasant. Try each Font Rendering setting in sequence to see which looks best to you (the text in the dialog box will update automatically to show the changes). Nearly everyone with a TFT-based screen, including notebook users, finds the Subpixel Smoothing option best.

CHAPTER 10 PERSONALIZING UBUNTU: GETTING EVERYTHING JUST RIGHT Figure 10-3. The GNOME Art site contains the latest themes, and you can use all of them with Ubuntu. Installing new theme components is easy. If you wish to install a new window border, for example, click the link to browse the examples and then, when you find one you like, click to download it. It will be contained in a .tar.gz archive, but you don t need to unpack it. Simply select System . Preferences . Theme and click the Install Theme button in the Theme Preferences dialog box. Then browse to the downloaded theme and click Open. You can delete the downloaded file when you re finished. Note The same principle of sharing that underlines the GPL software license is also usually applied to themes. This means that one person can take a theme created by someone else, tweak it, and then release it as a new theme. This ensures constant innovation and improvement. Changing the Wallpaper The default Ubuntu wallpaper, Lagoon, is a love-it-or-hate-it affair. Some find its emphasis on dark colors depressing; others appreciate its humanist metaphor. If you re one of those who prefer something different, it s easy to switch. Simply right-click the desktop and click Change Desktop Background. If you want to use a picture of your own as wallpaper, click the Add Wallpaper button, and then browse to its location.

142 CHAPTER 10 PERSONALIZING UBUNTU: GETTING EVERYTHING JUST RIGHT and, if you wish, a short description for future reference. If you don t save the theme, as soon as you select another one, the changes you made will be lost. Installing Additional Components If you get tired of the built-in possibilities, you can download additional theme components, such as window borders and controls, to enhance your desktop experience. You have two ways of getting new themes: Download themes from the official Ubuntu repositories. Visit the GNOME Art web site (http://art.gnome.org) and download items from there. Downloading from Ubuntu Repositories To get theme components from the Ubuntu software repositories, you use the Synaptic Package Manager. Setting up Synaptic Package Manager to use the online repositories is described in Chapter 8. Select System . Administration . Synaptic Package Manager, click the Search button, and enter gtk2-enginesas a search term (gtk2-engines is how Ubuntu refers to theme components). In the list of results will be those gtk2-engines already installed, indicated by a dark green check box, and several that are available for download. Icons rarely come in gtk2-engines packages, and instead are contained in their own packages. To find icons, use the Synaptic Package Manager to search for gnome icon theme (without any dashes). Although each theme component comes with a description, you won t really know what it looks like until you see it. The best policy is to download all of them and audition them one by one. However, be aware that themes can be large, so they may take some time to download on a slower connection. Caution Unless you ve already installed the KDE desktop, don t download gtk2-engines-gtk-qt. This is a piece of system software designed to give KDE applications the same look as GNOME applications. Selecting it will cause the entire KDE desktop subsystem to download, too. Don t forget that you re downloading theme components, rather than entire themes. To use your new theme components, select System . Preferences . Theme, click the Theme Details button, and choose from the various lists. Downloading from the GNOME Art Web Site Visiting the GNOME Art site (http://art.gnome.org), shown in Figure 10-3, gives you access to just about every theme ever created for GNOME. In fact, the site also contains wallpaper selections, icons, and much more besides. All of the offerings are free to use, and most of the packages are created by enthusiasts.