Things To Tweak / Fix After Installing Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal

A note before reading this post: before giving up on Unity without giving it a try... don't. Try Unity for a few days - yes, it's not a finished product but it's actually quite interesting - and if you don't like it then switch.

If you've just upgraded to Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, there are probably a few things you'll miss, so here is how to get them back as well as some other things you may find useful.

Install CompizConfig Settings Manager and Tweak Unity to better suit your needs:

sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager

Then search for CompizConfig Settings Manager in Dash and you'll find the Unity-related options under the "Unity" Compiz plugin. Some other options are under other plugins so check those out too.

Using CCSM, you'll be able to tweak the Unity launcher reveal mode, hide behavior, change some Unity-specific keyboard shortcuts, change the Unity launcher icon size, the top panel opacity, tweak various animations and more.

Another tool for configuring some hidden Unity settings is Dconf-editor.

To be able to use it you must firstly install dconf-tools:

sudo apt-get install dconf-tools

Then press ALT + F2, enter "dconf-editor" and look under desktop > unity.





Using an AMD (ATI) graphics card with the latest Catalyst 11.04 and experience bad performance / lag?

To get better performance, install CompizConfig Settings Manager (see the first tip in the post for installing it), then open it from Dash and go to the "OpenGL" plugin and uncheck the "Sync to VBlank" option.

(fix thanks to SarfzStrife)

Is Dash displaying your hidden / private files or your porn?

Until Zeitgeist Global Privacy is released, install Activity Journal (don't use the version in the official Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal repositories - that doesn't seem to work), go to its Preferences and on the Plugins tab, enable "Blacklist Manager" (seems you have to double click the checkbox to enable it) - now a new "Blacklist" tab should be displayed. Here, click the add button and enter the path to your private files (porn). If you want to block all files, use "*" for the path.

You can also clear the Zeitgeist history (this is the history of recent files that's display in Dash) by using the following commands:

rm ~/.local/share/zeitgeist/activity.sqlite
zeitgeist-daemon --replace

(via AskUbuntu)

Want to monitor the RAM / CPU usage?

Yes, the Unity top panel doesn't support any kind of applets, just AppIndicators. Luckily, there's an AppIndicator that displays the RAM and CPU usage. Install it using the commands below:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:alexeftimie/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install indicator-sysmonitor

Then, launch System Monitor Indicator from Dash.





Want the regular Firefox 4 menu like on Windows?

In Firefox, go to the Addons Manager and disable the Global Menu Bar Integration extension, restart Firefox, then right click the menu and deselect the Menu Bar.

Do you use Dropbox and the AppIndicator doesn't show up on the Unity panel?

Fix it using the following commands:

cd
wget http://webupd8.googlecode.com/files/fixdropbox
chmod +x fixdropbox
./fixdropbox

Dropbox will now start with a 20 seconds delay! That's so it always starts, without this most of the time it won't show up!

Ubuntu One is displayed on the Unity launcher and the Messaging Menu (why the...?) yet both entries are totally useless - none displays the current sync status.

If you use Ubuntu One, make it usable by installing the Ubuntu One AppIndicator:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:rye/ubuntuone-extras
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ubuntuone-indicator

Then launch it from the Dash.




Missing a quick way to access your Downloads / Pictures / Documents / Videos folders?

Sure, you can access them via Dash but for a quicker solution, add quicklists to the Nautilus Home folder launcher (which is displayed by default on top of the Unity launcher) by running the following command (copy all the text as a single command!) in a terminal:

echo "[Desktop Entry]

Name=Home Folder
Comment=Open your personal folder
TryExec=nautilus
Exec=nautilus --no-desktop
Icon=user-home
Terminal=false
StartupNotify=true
Type=Application
Categories=GNOME;GTK;Core;
OnlyShowIn=GNOME;Unity;
X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Bugzilla=GNOME
X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Product=nautilus
X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Component=general
X-Ubuntu-Gettext-Domain=nautilus

X-Ayatana-Desktop-Shortcuts=Videos;Documents;Music;Pictures;Downloads
[Videos Shortcut Group]
Name=Videos
Exec=nautilus Videos
TargetEnvironment=Unity


[Documents Shortcut Group]
Name=Documents
Exec=nautilus Documents
TargetEnvironment=Unity

[Music Shortcut Group]
Name=Music
Exec=nautilus Music
TargetEnvironment=Unity

[Pictures Shortcut Group]
Name=Pictures
Exec=nautilus Pictures
TargetEnvironment=Unity

[Downloads Shortcut Group]
Name=Downloads
Exec=nautilus Downloads
TargetEnvironment=Unity" | sudo tee /usr/share/applications/nautilus-home.desktop

If the quicklists don't show up, you may need to log out or restart Unity.

(tip via AskUbuntu)

Want to remove Unity Places Files / Applications shortcuts from the Unity Launcher?

Clicking the Ubuntu logo in the top left corner of the screen and then "More Apps" or "Find in Files" will let you access the Unity Places Files / Applications. You can also directly search in Dash for an application name. However, 2 more shortcuts are placed on the launcher that serve the same purpose: Unity Place Files / Applications:

Since vertical space is important even on a large monitor, if you can find your way without these 2 Unity places, you'll probably want to remove them. Here's how to do it:

- firstly make a backup of the original files (the following commands will back them up in the "backups" folder in your home directory):

mkdir ~/backups
cp /usr/share/unity/places/applications.place ~/backups/
cp /usr/share/unity/places/files.place ~/backups/

Now, to hide Unity Place Files icon, run this command:

sudo sed -i '14i ShowEntry=false' /usr/share/unity/places/files.place

And to hide the Unity Place Applications icon, run this:

sudo sed -i '12i ShowEntry=false' /usr/share/unity/places/applications.place

Only run the above 2 commands once! Then log out and log back in or run "unity --replace".

If you want to restore the icons, remove the first "ShowEntry=false" entry in these two files:

• /usr/share/unity/places/applications.place
• /usr/share/unity/places/files.place

Or restore your backup:

sudo cp $HOME/backups/*.place /usr/share/unity/places/

(tip thanks to Richard Arkless; via Ubuntuforums)

By default, LibreOffice doesn't uses the AppMenu (Global Menu) which makes it inconsistent with the rest of the desktop.

But you can manually install AppMenu support for LibreOffice:

sudo apt-get install lo-menubar

Note: it seems the LibreOffice AppMenu doesn't always work ok so if you're experiencing any issues with it, simply uninstall it (use "remove" instead of "install" in the above command).

Can't get the time indicator to display the weather?

That's because it doesn't support it. But you can get the weather in your panel by installing Weather Indicator which is available in the official Ubuntu 11.04 repositories:

sudo apt-get install indicator-weather

Once installed, run it from Dash.

Ubuntu Software Center doesn't let you install some application you really like, displaying the following error: "The package is of bad quality"? Install the .deb using DPKG, like so:

sudo dpkg -i PACKAGENAME.deb

Or use Gdebi to install .deb files instead of Ubuntu Software Center.





Dash takes the whole screen size? This happens for some smaller screen laptops or netbooks.

This won't work for any computer (like 10'' netbooks) but if you have a big enough resolution (like 1366x768), you can make Dash smaller (like in the screenshot above) by running the following command:

gsettings set com.canonical.Unity form-factor "Desktop"

In case you want to revert this change, use:

gsettings set com.canonical.Unity form-factor "Automatic"

By default, to access the Software Sources (where you can see and add repositories and PPAs) you must open Ubuntu Software Center and only then access Software Sources.

Fix this by searching for "Main Menu" in Dash, then enable "Software Sources" under System > Administration.

Do you miss an "show desktop" icon on the Unity Launcher?

Run the following commands in a terminal:

sudo apt-get install wmctrl
cd
wget http://webupd8.googlecode.com/files/showdesktop.tar.gz
tar -xvf showdesktop.tar.gz && rm showdesktop.tar.gz
sudo mv showdesktop /usr/local/bin/

Then navigate to your home folder and drag and drop the "showdesktop.desktop file on your Unity launcher. Or use SUPER + D keyboard shortcut to show/hide the desktop.

Want the systray (notification area) back?

Enable it for all applications using the following command:

gsettings set com.canonical.Unity.Panel systray-whitelist "['all']"

Then log out and log back in.

Important: if AppIndicators stop working or you can't enable the systray using the above command (it seems that sometimes changing this via command line fails), see: How To Re-Enable The Notification Area (Systray) In Ubuntu 11.04, For All Applications and try to only whitelist a few applications.

Don't like the AppMenu (GlobalMenu)?

Uninstall it:

sudo apt-get remove appmenu-gtk indicator-applet-appmenu indicator-appmenu

Then log out and log back in.

But this will probably remove the ubuntu-desktop meta package. If you want, you can also disable it, either for all applications or only some: Disable The AppMenu (Global Menu) In Ubuntu 11.04.

Are the external devices / mounted partitions cluttering your Unity launcher?

Hide them:

gsettings set com.canonical.Unity.Devices devices-option "Never"

Hate the new overlay scrollbars?

Remove them:

sudo apt-get remove overlay-scrollbar liboverlay-scrollbar-0.1-0

Just like with AppMenu, this may remove the ubuntu-desktop meta package. If that's the case, disable the overlay scrollbars instead of removing them: How To Disable The Overlay Scrollbars In Ubuntu 11.04 [Quick Tip]

Missing your favourite applet? Try finding an AppIndicator equivalent: there's a huge list on AskUbuntu and we've also posted more in-depth posts on most of them.

And of course, the "ultimate fix": don't like Unity but want to use Ubuntu 11.04? Unity doesn't work with your computer's hardware? You have 3 options:

- in the login screen, select the "Ubuntu Classic" session and everything will look like in Ubuntu 10.10 (except for updated packages and overlay scrollbars).

- use Unity 2D:

sudo apt-get install unity-2d

Then in the login screen, select Unity 2D instead of "Ubuntu" session.

- install GNOME 3 with GNOME Shell via GNOME 3 PPA (warning: you won't be able to use Unity after using this PPA) or if you want to use both Unity and GNOME Shell, compile it yourself (this will allow you to easily switch back to Unity if you want).

Do you know something else that needs tweaking / fixing in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal? Let us know in the comments!

Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal Released - See What`s New (Screenshots And Video)

After the usual 6 months of development, Ubuntu 11.04 has finally been released. I usually start these posts with "there haven't been any major or ground-breaking changes" but this time pretty much everything is new with the introduction of Unity as the default interface. Since we've been writing about the new features in Ubuntu 11.04 constantly, in this post we'll only talk about the major new features. Read on!

Here is a video demoing the most important new features in Ubuntu 11.04:


(for more videos, check out our YouTube channel and Facebook page)

Unity default

Ubuntu 11.04 doesn't come with GNOME 3 / GNOME Shell (in fact it's not even available in the repositories but only in a PPA) and instead it comes with an interface designed especially for Ubuntu called Unity (based on GNOME 2.x). Unity was already default in Ubuntu 10.10 netbook edition but besides being default for the desktop edition (the netbook edition doesn't exist anymore starting with 11.04), it was also completely re-written and now uses Compiz.

That means you can use Compiz with Unity / Ubuntu 11.04 and in fact Unity needs Compiz to run.

Unity consists on multiple parts - Dash, launcher and top panel:

- Dash - which is basically the menu and you can find it in three places: clicking the Ubuntu logo on the top left corner or clicking the Applications or Files & Folders icons on the Unity launcher and unlike a regular menu, it can be used to search for files too.

Right clicking the Applications icon:

- Launcher - the "dock" on the left on which the running applications are displayed:

- the top panel (which is not a regular GNOME panel).

To configure Unity you must use CompizConfig Settings Manager which is not installed by default (search for it in the Ubuntu Software Center). In CompizConfig Settings Manager you'll find a "Unity" plugin under which you can tweak the Unity launcher reveal mode screen corner to trigger it (the Unity launcher is set to "dodge windows" by default), change some various keyboard shortcuts as well as some experimental, more advanced features like panel opacity, launcher icon size and more:

In Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, the notification area (systray) only works for a few applications: Skype, Wine apps, Java and about 2 more. In the future, the notification area will be removed completely and replaced with appindicators - most applications that used to use the systray already have appindicator support. And for those that don't, you can re-enable the systray for all applications if you want.

AppMenu (Global Menu)

If you use Unity (this is not default for the classic Ubuntu desktop - see below), you'll find that AppMenu (global menu) is enabled by default. This means the menu is not displayed in the application window but on the top panel and also, it comes with autohide enabled by default. You can also reveal the menu by holding the ALT key.

For an unmaximized window, the window title is displayed on the panel and hovering the window title, the AppMenu is displayed:

For maximized windows, things are a bit different: the window titlebar is removed and the panel takes over its functions as well as the AppMenu: the minimize, maximize and close buttons are displayed on the panel and the same for the window title and when hovered, the menu is displayed:

Overlay scrollbars

A new addition to Ubuntu 11.04 (both Unity and the classic Ubuntu desktop) is the use of overlay scrollbars by default, but not for all applications (because not all apps support it yet).

The overlay scrollbars are partially hidden scrollbars that become visible when you move your mouse over the side where the scrollbar should be.

Ubuntu classic - fallback mode for computers not able to run Unity and for those who don't want to use Unity

Don't like Unity? Fear not! The classic GNOME desktop is still available as an option in the login screen - select "Classic Ubuntu":

Also, if your hardware cannot run Unity, you will see the classic Ubuntu desktop instead of Unity once you log in:

The Classic Ubuntu session in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal looks basically the same as in Ubuntu 10.10: two GNOME panels, the same menu, no AppMenu by default and so on (except for overlay scrollbars - these are default on the Classic Desktop too).

Default applications

Two default applications have been replaced in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal: Banshee is now the default music player, replacing Rhythmbox and LibreOffice has replaced OpenOffice.

Here are the versions in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal for the important applications / packages: Nautilus 2.32.2, Firefox 4.0, Shotwell 0.9.2, Empathy 2.34.0, Banshee 2.0, LibreOffice 3.3.2, Evolution 2.32.2, Gwibber 3.0.0.1, Totem 2.32.2, Compiz 0.9.4, GDM 2.32.1, GRUB 1.99 RC1, Linux Kernel 2.6.38 (yes, with the "wonder 200 lines" patch now included by default), X.org Server 1.10 and Mesa 7.10.1 - all on top of GNOME 2.32.1.

Other changes

There lots of other changes in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal. Here are a few more worth mentioning:

- You can now upgrade to Ubuntu 11.04 using the Live CD (and doing so, you can keep your settings):

- Ubuntu Software Center now supports ratings and reviews:

- Ubuntu One control panel has a brand new design:

And many many other changes that I could never cover in a single post. For more detailed insights to Ubuntu 11.04, see our previous posts: beta 2, beta 1, alpha 3, alpha 2, alpha 1.

Unity 2D (Qt)

This is not available in the default Ubuntu 11.04 installation, but it really deserves a mention: if you want to use Unity but your computer does not support it or simply want something lighter, there's a non-Compiz Unity available in the Ubuntu 11.04 repositories. This looks and behaves like the regular Unity (more or less) but it should work on any computer:

I didn't make a video with Unity 2D for the final Ubuntu 11.04 release but you can watch an Ubuntu 11.04 beta 2 video of Unity 2D below (recorded on my netbook):

If you want to install Unity 2D, simply search for it in Ubuntu Software Center and then select Unity 2D in the login screen session.

Download / upgrade to Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal

If you've installed Ubuntu 11.04 alpha or beta and kept upgrading using the Update Manager, you already have the final Ubuntu 11.04 version.

Starting with Ubuntu 11.04, it's very easy to upgrade even if you don't have an Internet connection, as long as you have an Ubuntu 11.04 CD - see the following for both upgrading using a LIVE cd or the regular upgrade: How To Upgrade To Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal (With Or Without An Internet Connection)

Download Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal | Direct Bittorrent download links: 32bit | 64bit.

Also check out the Ubuntu homepage for download links and some info on the new release (use CTRL + R / CTRL + F5 in your browser if you still see the old layout).

Are you using Ubuntu 11.04 already? What's your impression so far?

AMD (ATI) Catalyst 11.4 Released Just In Time For Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal

A quick update: AMD has released Catalyst 11.4 with support for X Server 1.10 so all of you who want to upgrade to Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal should now be able to use Unity.

I do not use an ATI graphics card so I can't really tell you how everything works so all I can do is give you a download link:

Download ATI Catalyst 11.04

If you have an ATI graphics card, please let us know your experience with the latest 11.04 in the comments!

Many thanks to WebUpd8 reader _artem_ for the screenshot!

Install Emesene 2 Stable (2.11.4) In Ubuntu Via PPA

After a long period of development, Emesene 2 (stable) has finally been released, this being a complete re-write of the initial Emesene in GTK / pygtk.

Starting with version 2, Emesene supports Gtalk and Facebook or any XMPP/Jabber network (along with MSN of course). Other changes in Emesene 2 include: support for adium-like themes, Ubuntu Messaging Menu (and MeMenu integration for Natty) support and lots more.

Also, Emesene 2 uses "papylib" which is also used by Empathy. This brings many advantages like:

Complete p2p support, msnp18, great address book and msn profile handling. Being so widespread allows you, the user, to get the latest 0day fixes from your favourite distro (if you're using GNU/Linux of course) and new features as soon as we plug them into Emesene.

[via Emesene 2 release announcement]

For more info on Emesene 2, check out the release announcement.

Install Emesene 2 (2.11.4) in Ubuntu 11.04 and 10.10 and 10.04

Important: the Ubuntu 10.04 packages have not been tested. Use this PPA at your own risk!

Emesene 2 will probably be available in Ubuntu 11.04 and Debian unstable soon but I'm really not sure when (it will probably be in Natty backports). If you can't wait, you can use our Backports / Unstable PPA. The PPA also provides packages for Ubuntu 10.10 and 10.04 - add it and install Emesene 2 - 2.11.4 (stable) using the commands below:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/unstable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install emesene
sudo apt-get upgrade #to also upgrade to the latest python-papyon version

Important: if you've previously installed "emesene2" from some other PPA (package name "emesene2" - that's how some PPAs distributed Emesene 2), remove it before installing the package in the Backports WebUpd8 PPA. Our PPA uses the usual "emesene" package name for the package and not "emesene2", just like in Debian unstable and Ubuntu 11.04.

For now I'm using the unstable PPA because I've only tested Emesene 2 for a few minutes and because it uses a newer python-papyon dependency (also available in the PPA) which I'm not sure if it breaks anything. We'll see if this package will be copied to the main WebUpd8 PPA or not.

How to get Facebook to work with Emesene2

For Facebook, you must not login using just your username, but: YOUR_USERNAME@chat.facebook.com, where YOUR_USERNAME is not your Facebook login email but your URL username - see here: http://www.facebook.com/username

ThemeSelector: GNOME Shell Extension To Change Themes (With Previews)

GNOME 3 (with GNOME Shell) is truly great and I especially like how easy it is to extend it through extensions like the new ThemeSelector extension.

ThemeSelector GNOME Shell extension is a new, unofficial GNOME Shell extension that adds a new tab in the Activities overview where all the GNOME Shell themes (not GTK themes!) installed under ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/themes show up. To change a theme, all you have to do is click it and you don't even have to reload GNOME Shell.

Here's a screenshot with the new ThemeSelector extension:

The theme previews aren't exactly great, probably because of my large screen too, but the ThemeSelector GNOME Shell extension is still in beta.

To use the ThemeSelector extension, you need to install GNOME Shell Extensions and the GNOME Shell User Theme extension. But don't worry, despite a first look on the installation steps below, installing all of these is actually quite easy. Read on!

Install GNOME Shell Extensions and the User Theme extension in Ubuntu / Fedora

If you've compiled GNOME Shell using JHBuild (tested in Ubuntu):

cd ~/gnome-shell/source
git clone http://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-shell-extensions
cd gnome-shell-extensions
./autogen.sh --prefix $HOME/gnome-shell/install/ --enable-extensions=user-theme
make && make install

If you use Fedora, you can probably find Gnome Shell Extensions and the User Theme extension in the repositories. If not, download the .rpm files from here (I'm new to Fedora so I'm unsure how the repositories work ... for now :D) : GNOME Shell Extensions Common and GNOME Shell Extension User Theme


If you've installed GNOME Shell from the GNOME 3 PPA in Ubuntu 11.04 (not tested):

A. Compile Gnome Shell Extensions:

cd
git clone http://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-shell-extensions
cd gnome-shell-extensions
./autogen.sh --prefix=/usr --enable-extensions=user-theme
make && sudo make install

B. Convert Fedora .rpm to .deb (again not tested - thanks to ycDref for the tip!).

This is an option for those who can't get GNOME Shell extensions to compile for some reason. Using alien is not recommended.


Download the .rpms from here: GNOME Shell Extensions Common and GNOME Shell Extension User Theme

Install alien:

sudo apt-get install alien

Then convert all downloaded .rpm files to .deb:

sudo alien -d --scripts *.rpm

And install the resulting .deb files (you can also directly install them using "-i" instead of "-d").

Install the Themeselector GNOME Shell extension

The ThemeSelector extension already comes with 5 great GNOME Shell themes by half-left: Atolm, Smooth Inset, Elementaty, Dark Glass and Deviant Art GNOME Shell themes. Here's how to install it.

Download the Themeselector Gnome Shell extension, extract it and place "extension.js" and metadata.json under the /.local/share/gnome-shell/themeselector@fpmurphy.com/ folder (if it doesn't exist, create it). Then copy all the folders you've extracted to the ~/.themes/ folder (it's a hidden folder in your home directory; if some of those folders exists, merge the data).

Now restart GNOME Shell and you should have a new Themes tab in the Activities overview.

Also see:

• Change GNOME 3 (GNOME Shell Or Classic) GTK / Mutter / Metacity Theme
• GNOME Shell Extensions: Additional Functionality For GNOME 3 (Dock Task-Switcher, Windows Navigator, User Theme, Etc.)

Post updated with a newer ThemeSelector version (0.9) - instructions for extracting the ThemeSelector changed!

GNOME Shell Themeselector info and the extension itself - thanks to blog.fpmurphy.com; Many thanks to Charles Bowman for the tip!

Basenji 0.8 (Tool To Index Your CDs/DVDs, USB Devices And Network Drives), Released

Basenji is a cross-platform tool you can use to index your CDs/DVDs and USB devices so you can later search the database without having plug the media into your computer.

Basenji is very useful for those with large movies / music collections but not only. You can also use it to easily search some backups you store on removable media or your photos, etc.

Basenji features:

• Audio CD Support
• Metadata Extraction (image dimensions or MP3 tags)
• Thumbnails
• Optional daemon that automatically scans a device you plug in and adds it to the Basenji database

Basenji 0.8 was released yesterday, getting lots of useful features. These were already available (some were already there for quite a long time actually) in the Basenji daily PPA - such as the daemon that automatically scans inserted drives, but these are finally stable enough for a wide audience. Here's the Basenji 0.8 changelog:

• Added support for network drives and mountpoints
• Added option to disable the iteminfo panel
• Added option to hide hidden files
• Added support for metadata searching
• Added debugging options
• Added daemon for automated drive scanning
• Many new translations
• Many optimizations and bugfixes

Install Basenji 0.8 in Ubuntu (stable PPA)

Add the Basenji stable PPA and install it in Ubuntu 11.04, 10.10 and 10.04 using the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:pulb/ppa 
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install basenji

Also install the Basenji daemon using the following command (but the daemon is not available for Ubuntu 10.04!):

sudo apt-get install volumedb-tools

To learn how to use the Basenji daemon, run the following command:

volumedb-scanner-daemon --help

More about setting up the Basenji daemon @ Basenji Gets A Scanner Daemon Which Automatically Adds Inserted Volumes To The Database

Download Basenji for other Linux distributions and Windows @ Launchpad.

How To Remove Mounted Drives From The Ubuntu Unity Launcher

All the mounted drives (this includes USB drives, NTFS and other partitions that you set to automount, etc. - basically everything that's in /media) show up in the Ubuntu 11.04 Unity launcher by default which is usually ok if you have a big monitor or if you don't have a lot of applications pinned to the Launcher. But if you use a netbook or just want more space on your Unity launcher, here's how to change the launcher behavior so that it doesn't display any mounted drives.


But firstly, here is how to unmount external devices.

How to unmount external devices

How will you unmount / safely remove mounted external media if you do this? You have at least 2 easy options:

A. Open Nautilus, right click on the mounted device and select "Eject" or "Safely remove drive".

B. Using "ejecter", an AppIndicator available in the official Ubuntu 11.04 repositories which you can install by clicking the button below:

If the above button doesn't work for your browser, open a terminal and copy/paste the following command to install Ejecter:

sudo apt-get install ejecter

Once installed, press ALT + F2 and enter "ejecter" to run it. To run it when your computer starts, open "Startup Applications", add a new startup item and add "ejecter" for both the name and command.

There is another appindicator called "indicator-usb" but unfortunately it doesn't seem to work anymore (when running it on my Natty installation, nothing happens).

By the way, for a huge list of AppIndicators, check out this AskUbuntu question.

Now that you know how to unmount external media easily, let's remove the mounted media icons from the Unity launcher.

How to remove mounted drives from the Ubuntu Unity launcher

1. Install dconf-tools by clicking the button below:

Or install it using a terminal:

sudo apt-get install dconf-tools

2. Press ALT + F2 and enter: "dconf-editor", then navigate to desktop > unity > devices and change the "devices-option" value from "OnlyMounted" to "Never".

That's all - the mounted usb drives (or any other mounted volumes) should now stop showing up on the Unity launcher.

Extra tip: also remove mounted drives from your desktop

If you decide to keep the default Ubuntu 11.04 Unity launcher behavior and display the mounted media icons on the launcher, there's really no reason to have the mounted volumes show up on the desktop too. Really now, why both on the launcher and desktop?

You probably already know how to do this, since this is an option in Ubuntu Tweak but if you don't want to install Ubuntu Tweak just for this, to remove mounted volumes from your dekstop, press ALT + F2 and enter: "gconf-editor", then navigate to apps > nautilus > desktop and disable (uncheck the box) "volumes_visible".