Recently in Ubuntu Category

A few days ago I bitched and moaned about Karmic coming with notification tray icons that make my computer look like a 1995 cell phone.  (Notification Tray Rant)

Shortly after I posted that, I found a fix.  You know, fix is kind of a funny word.  It can mean a whole swarm of things besides just "repairing something that was broken."  It can be a bad situation ("I'm in a real fix now"), cheating ("That race was fixed"), revenge ("She fixed him good"), a drug dose ("Just one fix, pleeeeeeaze"), or even a reference to castration ("Chip's been fixed, poor dog").

In this case, I think almost all of those definitions apply.  I fixed it.

I found the steps below on some guys blog.  I have no idea what the search terms ended up being that yielded this page, but I know it was a bit circuitous.  I'd love to give the guy credit, but I can't find the page again.

Anyhow, here are the steps.  This is basically just installing different desktop themes.


Once them themes are in place, open up your Appearances dialog (System ⇒ Preferences ⇒ Appearances) and choose one.

This works both with and without Compiz Fusion.

Huzzah!  Take THAT Karmic!

For the first time in many years, the latest and greatest version of Ubuntu is actually worse than it's predecessor.  I installed Karmic onto my Dell laptop over New Years weekend, and I was very disappointed.

I have a long list of complaints about the beast, but today I just want to rant about the butt-ugly notification tray icons.  I'm talking about these guys over on the right.

Now, to set the stage a bit, my laptop is a modest old Dell Inspiron 1525.  It's actually a hand-me-down from my wife.  It was not top of the line even when we bought it a little over 2 years ago.  But even this antiquated beast is capable of displaying at least 16-bit color depth at 1280x800 WXGA resolution.