Its open source, what did you do to make it your own

[aviedw]

Since linux is open source it leaves a lot of room for its users to tweak it to their hearts delight. I for one dont have a strong coding background. So i have decided to study more python or perl before i try to change or improve something. But for the stronger coders in our Ubuntu community, i wanted to ask you all a questions. What is it that you have done to make your version of Ubutnu quite unique?

I'm very basic as of yet lol. I sometimes mix and match icon sets to create my own, but i have not been able to create my own apps. And im a teacher so i figure that there must be a way to improve my ubuntu to suit me as a high school social studies teacher.

[Phrea]

Not a thing, I'm a user, not a tweaker or a hacker.
I just eagerly await new versions of Ubuntu.

[sudoer541]

Not a thing, I'm a user, not a tweaker or a hacker.
I just eagerly await new versions of Ubuntu.


+1
the only things I tweak are:
Delete bottom panel and replace it with AWN dock (ill give Docky a try as well in lucid)
Change wallpaper
Tweak compiz fusion
I think thats it.
AAAwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!! I cant wait for Lucid!!!

[subedistra7]

change the fonts. sans is too big.

[hessiess]

Strip out a lot of useless functionality out of my own version of DWM, before switching to XMonad anyway. I have my whole system set so that it can be controlled completely without a mouse;)

[subedistra7]

I have my whole system set so that it can be controlled completely without a mouse;)

seriously?

[_h_]

Not a thing, I'm a user, not a tweaker or a hacker.
I just eagerly await new versions of Ubuntu.

This, with some minor desktop environment adjustments.

[aviedw]

Strip out a lot of useless functionality out of my own version of DWM, before switching to XMonad anyway. I have my whole system set so that it can be controlled completely without a mouse;)

:shock: How please explain

What is XMonad?

what functions did you feel were useless?

[tjwoosta]

Strip out a lot of useless functionality out of my own version of DWM, before switching to XMonad anyway. I have my whole system set so that it can be controlled completely without a mouse;)

I didnt actually do any WM hacking aside from the usual customizing that goes into tiling wm's, but I have have the same with wmii. Not only is everything keyboard oriented, but with vi keys at that. Its like I never leave vim ;)

[MichealH]

I have Tweaked the software center, Synaptic and I have Tweaked Grub2 See my sig for Grub2 one.

[falconindy]

Strip out a lot of useless functionality out of my own version of DWM, before switching to XMonad anyway. I have my whole system set so that it can be controlled completely without a mouse;)
I find it somewhat counterintutive that you managed to find bloat in DWM, but then switched to XMonad. "To each their own," said the man who kissed the cow.

+1 for the mouseless setup. +1000000 for DWM.

See GitHub link in sig for configs.

[souleke]

tweak everthing you see,
icons collours, boot and themes, i builded them myself
must of all just to learn about ubuntu and the config files :)

[insane_alien]

i've wrote some documentation and how-tos, proof-read and corrected spelling errors in some more, little things.

my programming skills are limited to making some python scripts for data analysis that aren't really useful outside of their specific application

[hessiess]

How please explain

What is XMonad?

what functions did you feel were useless?

Creating a mouse free environment actually isn't that difficult, you just need to be careful about the software you use and think outside the box. While almost all ``modern'' software is mouse oriented, if you look towards older, command line applications, they are always keyboard driven, Vim for example. For inherently graphical things like web browsing, add-ons such as Vimperator for Firefox can be used. The last problem that remains is window management, which can be solved neatly using a tiling window manager such as DWM or XMonad.


I find it somewhat counterintutive that you managed to find bloat in DWM, but then switched to XMonad. "To each their own," said the man who kissed the cow.
Moistly I was just messing around with window manager development and improving my C programming. I was just stripping the surplus features such as the panel and floating management out of DWM in order to make it easier to work out how the core of the WM worked. DWM is almost completely comment free which didn't help.

I switched to XMonad mainly because DWM kept on crashing during resuming from suspend, which is something that I make extensive use of to reduce boot time on my laptop. The unedited source also had this problem, though it may have bean fixed now (was a year or so ago).

[earthpigg]

did some playing with packaging. getting mint menu in ubuntu (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1284760) and learning how to get a 32-bit only game to install as a normal .deb on a 64-bit system (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1070885) without any --force-install flags or other awkward things.

maintain a small one-man ubuntu respin, Masonux (http://sites.google.com/site/masonux/). ubuntuforums.org thread here (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1248322).
i have no idea how many people use it, but the website gets about two dozen hits a day and the thread has 14k views.

i don't know how to code aside from some very very basic stuff, so that limits what i can play with and how in-depth my playing can be.

it's mostly me learning to do something in order to serve myself, and posting the results for others to use if they wish.

[MooPi]

Regardless of what each individual has done in there own setup, their contribution is in the help and network of casual knowledge that floats through the forum. I write small scripts for encoding music and video, scripting for desktop icons and messing with start up scripts and xml menus. All part of what makes Linux so fun, the eternal tweak>>>. I believe the conglomerate of all this knowledge will amount to something useful. I've used Linux for several years but have learned the most within the last year from the forum and local contacts sharing knowledge.

[Chris_cur]

I have just messed around with the basics since I am still new and have no programming knowledge.

Themes, custom panel bar, CCSM stuffs...

[mkendall]

I browse the forums making pointless, off topic comments that help no one and contribute nothing of value for anyone else. That's how I've made Ubuntu my own.

[ZarathustraDK]

Mostly just theming. I get caught up in a nice anime wallpaper, then I have to adjust the rest of the system towards it.

Once I wanted to make the desktop into a media-center-like interface. Programs would autostart on each side of the compiz-cube, each side would have a relevant background etc. Looked awesome while it worked, but updates kept borking it. Then I discovered XBMC :)

Next up, I'm moving to a new apartment, and I get the chance to paint the walls first, the desktop will have to reflect that as it'll be hanging on the wall. I'm thinking something like oxblood-red and light yellow.

[aviedw]

Mostly just theming. I get caught up in a nice anime wallpaper, then I have to adjust the rest of the system towards it.

I've heavy into themeing to mask my lack of programming knowledge lol, but for some reason some of the themes dont fully apply themselves. It changes the look of icons and even offers a wallpaper with some of them but when i open my file system it still looks the same. I must be doing something wrong. My new project is to figure this out.

Other than that, i would like to figure out how to change the start up sound and icon, they give us the Ubuntu sign i would like to have Tux there or some other picture. I was also wondering if it was possible to change the way Grub looks like background images or any kind of effects.

[Chris_cur]

Other than that, i would like to figure out how to change the start up sound and icon, they give us the Ubuntu sign i would like to have Tux there or some other picture. I was also wondering if it was possible to change the way Grub looks like background images or any kind of effects.

There is a way to do this, you can add a background image. http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php?content=29962

Some theme packages change the sound and icon for the booting. Have you checked out... the bamboo-zen theme or the Gnome-Infinity themes?

[aviedw]

Thanks for that suggestions. I haven't tried the link but i did fool around with my themes until i got it to work the way that i wanted it to. Now on to figuring out how to change the start up sound. I changed the start up background. And i was thinking... it wouldn't make much sense to change grub because i dont really use the boot loader. It usually just boots right into the Ubuntu. So giving that a theme might be a waist of time.

[AllRadioisDead]

I applied a lot of patches to dwm, and played with the config a bit, but that's about it on my end.

[Chris_cur]

Thanks for that suggestions. I haven't tried the link but i did fool around with my themes until i got it to work the way that i wanted it to. Now on to figuring out how to change the start up sound. I changed the start up background. And i was thinking... it wouldn't make much sense to change grub because i dont really use the boot loader. It usually just boots right into the Ubuntu. So giving that a theme might be a waist of time.

Cool, as for your sound dealings check out : http://ubuntu-art.org/index.php?xcontentmode=25&PHPSESSID=13d45fa4aa50bdd537fa177372bc995c

maybe you can find something there that tickles your fancy. :D