12.04 LTS / Precise Classic (No effects) Tweaks and tricks

[acimi66]

I am having a problem with getting my "brightness setting" to stay where I previously set it. It seems strange that you are offered the setting but I have to adjust it every time I start up.
Any thoughts?

[ajgreeny]

Thanks for a superb tutorial, kansasnoob!

Re: Step #10

Is it also possible to display an icon for LibreOffice Writer on the Desktop?

It certainly is; I have done it.

I tried draging the launcher from the menu to the desktop as you could in gnome 2, but that didn't seem work, so I simply copied the /usr/share/applications/libreoffice-writer.desktop file to my desktop and it works great.

I edited the text from that file to shorten it and remove the many text lines related to foreign languages etc etc, but left the rest. You will need to make sure the file is executable for it to work, perhaps because the desktop file in /usr/share/applications for all libreoffice apps is just a link to the application's .desktop file at /usr/lib/libreoffice/share/xdg/writer.desktop etc, so I presume you could just copy the file from /usr/lib....writer instead of the link, but I didn't try that.

I have now tried doing that for my own information, and it works just as well, though the launcher on your desktop still needs to be executable.

[forkandles]

ajgreeny,

Thanks for the reply.

When I go to:

/usr/lib/libreoffice/share/xdg/writer.desktop

I get a message saying “ not marked as trusted” and I am unable to open it.

How do I make the launcher for LO Writer on my desktop executable?

[ajgreeny]

ajgreeny,

Thanks for the reply.

When I go to:

/usr/lib/libreoffice/share/xdg/writer.desktop

I get a message saying “ not marked as trusted” and I am unable to open it.

How do I make the launcher for LO Writer on my desktop executable?

That's because it is not executable.

Right click on it, go to Properties > Permissions tab and there is a tick-box you can click to enable execution.

Or for future reference you can use terminal. Find the file with command in terminal

ls Desktop

then use command

chmod +x libreoffice-writer.desktop

or whatever the file is called on your Desktop.

[forkandles]

Many thanks, ajgreeny.

That is just what I required!!

Cheers.

[kansasnoob]

I'm glad this worked out for forkandles but thought I'd add just a bit. In Oneiric (which also used gnome3) the behavior was still quite simple, that is you could drag and drop Libreoffice apps from the classic menu to the desktop and they worked just fine. Right-clicking on the desktop icon and selecting properties looked "normal":

libreoffice_oneiric.jpg

But in Precise things are totally convoluted just dragging libre-writer to the desktop:

libreoffice_precise.jpg

But other apps in Precise still behave "normally":

other_apps_precise.jpg

And going to "/usr/share/applications/libreoffice-writer.desktop" displays the more "normal" or expected outcome:

Screenshot from 2012-05-14 12:39:33.jpg

So my conclusion is that this is a bad development decision and possibly a bug!

Maybe one of the devs had too much or too little caffeine that day

[ajgreeny]

Thanks for that further info, kansasnoob.

It is a while now since I added those icons to ther desktop of my (classic gnome desktop) 12.04, and I can tell you and others that the situation is, not surprisingly, just the same in Xubuntu 12.04.

[kansasnoob]

Thanks for that further info, kansasnoob.

It is a while now since I added those icons to ther desktop of my (classic gnome desktop) 12.04, and I can tell you and others that the situation is, not surprisingly, just the same in Xubuntu 12.04.

In Xubuntu is it only the Libre-Office apps that require that procedure? Or all apps?

[ajgreeny]

In Xubuntu is it only the Libre-Office apps that require that procedure? Or all apps?

Just the libreoffice apps, all others do what I expected.

It would be really annoying for "older" users who like me want desktop launcher icons, but unlike me, do not know how to deal with it when the icon they have dragged to the desktop refuses to do anything.

[mystmaiden]

I havd been struggling with the issue of gnome vs unity but I thought I'd go ahead and give Precise a try but I've done something wrong because after doing most of the steps in the post (I didn't add the applets) I still have the side panel with the unity icons and restart didn't give me the option of choosing gnome classic. What would be the best way to go about fixing my error, a ny ideas?

thanks -

mystmaiden