step by step desktop customization

[Legeril]

I am very new to desktop customization and looking at the monthly desktops threads has given me over to illusions of grandeur, I have tried this and that and have largely been unable to find much information that refers to the current gtk themes - which seem to be very bland.

I am looking for a kind soul that wouldn't mind helping me through some of the basics of customization, things like visual displays of chip and memory info on the desktop, colours and transparency etc. I allready have UbuntuTweak - I'm looking for more graphical customization.

Thank you

[roguebuck]

I started my customization learnings with the softpedia customization guides. they have one for each release.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Ubuntu-10-04-Desktop-Customization-Guide-146134.shtml

i think your looking for a program called conky (http://www.google.com/images?um=1&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.gnu.gnuzilla%3Aen-US%3Aunofficial&biw=1679&bih=928&tbs=isch%3A1&sa=1&q=conky&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=)?

try this (http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php/CONKY-colors?content=92328)

dont forget: the goal is to make it work for YOU, but starting where someone else had success isnt a bad start.

[Legeril]

This looks like a great place to start, thanks I will look around these links

one thing though, the latest version of conky is 1.8.1 and the last link you added says do not upgrade to this version. Is there anywhere I could download an older version or are the problems only in the upgrade process? Hence using the latest version of conky with all python scripts still functioning?