If you tried Gnome Shell, you probably noticed how cool it is to quickly add / delete workspaces using the + / - buttons.

Compiz reached version 0.8.6 a while back - version which brings bug fixes as well as support for KDE 4.4 - but the version in Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx is still 0.8.4 so if you want to upgrade to Compiz 0.8.6, you can a

Ever since we wrote about the very simple Pidgin/Empathy script to focus the conversation window using a keyboard shortcut, I've been trying (together with WebUpd8 reader RKV) to create a similar script using xdotool for switching between the same windows of the currently focused (active) application: kind of l

Gstyle is a new full Gnome theme manager with some really great features which I am sure you will love if you like to customize your Desktop look constantly. [...] Gstyle can show you how a theme (any kind of theme: icons, Emerald, Metacity, etc.) actually looks, not just a preview. You will see what I mean in the screenshots below.

You can set the Gnome panel transparency through it's settings but:

1. That's not true transparency.

If you ever used Google Chrome - and you must have -, then you might have noticed how much vertical space you can gain by removing the window title bar. Yes Google Chrome has a titlebar, but as an extent of the tabs, so that's not conventional titlebar.

If you don't know how to install Emerald themes, visit our Ubuntu Newbie Guide, Part 6 which covers this subject.

If you don't know what Emerald is and how to install these themes, see here.

Docky, the new GNOME Do interface in the form of a dock, is getting more and more used and causes sensation among GNU / Linux users.

In today's Ubuntu Newbie Guide part I'm going to tell you about running the Metacity Compositing Manager instead of Compiz Fusion. Why you would want to do that? Because it uses less resources and it may run better for old or incompatible video cards (including Intel). You don’t even need accelerated graphics to run Metacity with compositing and it even works well inside VirtualBox.

As you may know, there were some issues with Intel Graphic Card drivers (965: x3000 or x3100) in Ubuntu after the upgrade to Jaunty - desktop effects could not be enabled - so you could not use Compiz and other applications that needed it.

In the new Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope, Intel graphic (video) drivers 965 (x3000 or x3100) are blacklisted so you cannot run Compiz thus your desktop effects cannot be enabled. There is a way to enable desktop effects, though this is not recommended because [...]

Before installing Ubuntu, almost everyone has seen the spinning cube or the classy MacOSX-like dock bar and many other effects (4 desktops with 2 caps) in some videos, but some didn't figure out how to enable/install/use them.

To understand better, this is the dock (look at the bottom of the image):

I’ve been using Firefox’s fullscreen mode on my Eee PC to get the maximum amount of vertical screen space possible. I noticed that the screen flickers black briefly whenever a tooltip or right click menu is displayed. All fullscreen applications seem to be affected.

While running Compiz-Fusion, You wouldn’t be able to see any video play while either moving the window, viewing desktops in expo, 3d cube, or any other cool effect for that matter; instead you would see a blue screen, including when viewing in full screen.