Ceci est une ancienne révision du document !
As promised last month, we're going to now look at basics of Ubuntu's System Settings.
Every operating system I've ever used, including Linux, has default system settings that just make me scratch my head in puzzled bewilderment, but it's fair to observe that it probably all comes down to personal preference.
To get to the System Settings in Unity, click the 'Gear' icon on the upper right:
This will bring up a control menu that includes 'System Settings'. Click it and you'll get the screen shown right.
We'll go through the commonly used ones in order. First: Appearance.
The Appearance dialogue looks like the screen shown top right.
There are a number of attractive wallpapers built into Ubuntu, and I am always personally inclined to use any system’s default ones, a habit that dates from the days when hard-drive space was at a real premium, and disk space used on wallpapers could be better used for other things. There are a lot of attractive wallpapers online available to be downloaded, so you should certainly feel free to go find ones you consider appealing. You can click the down-arrow at the top to change from Wallpapers to Pictures or Colors and Gradients. To add other graphics to use as wallpapers, click the + button below and browse to the location where you have stored the desired picture.
Below the wallpaper display, you can pick a theme. Adding themes is surprisingly difficult in Unity, but can be done either by downloading and using the Unity Tweak tool, or by finding themes with self-installing routines, sometimes requiring the setup of specific repositories (check the previous Everyday Ubuntu column in issue #130 for more info on repositories). I think most users will find that the results are not really worth the effort, so we’ll leave it aside for brevity’s sake.
Below the Theme selection area, there is an option to change the icon size for icons on the Launcher. It will default to 40; I like to drop mine to around 34 so I can get more icons on the Launcher, which I use a good bit. The trade-off is that the larger icons are easier to see, but that becomes less of a problem as the icons become more familiar over time. The name of the application appears if you hover the mouse, so that also makes it easier when using the smaller icons.
At the top of the dialogue box are two tabs; the one we have been looking at so far, the default, is Look. Switch to the Behavior tab shown below.
Here you can decide if you want the Launcher to auto-hide, you can add a Show Desktop icon to the Launcher, and you can change how menus work. The Show Desktop amounts to minimizing all open windows at once and can be quite handy.
Show menus for a window defaults to ‘in the menu bar’, which is more like Mac OS, whereas ‘in the window’s title bar’ is more like Windows behavior. I prefer the second option because I find it more intuitive, and it’s more efficient to not always have to move the mouse pointer to the top of the screen rather than the top of the active window. If you come to Linux from Mac, you may prefer the default.
I’m personally not really sure why you wouldn’t want your menus always visible, but you can opt to have them hidden until your mouse hovers in the title bar. I choose ‘Always displayed’.
Click All Settings at the top to go back to the main System Settings, then try Brightness and Lock:
I usually go here first when setting up the system to turn off the screensaver (select Never) and turn screen lock off, at least until initial setup is complete. Having the screen lock or dim while you’re actively trying to set the system up is very annoying, in my opinion. You can always go back here and tweak things to your liking after setup has been completed.
Back in the System Settings, we’ll take a quick look at Online Accounts (shown below).
You can add Facebook, Flickr, or Google accounts here.
Your average user may not often use Security and Privacy settings, but there are still a few things to look at here:
I personally turn off ‘Require my password when waking from suspend’ because I’m not using my machine in an open environment where someone (with ill intent) could gain physical access. This is another of the first things I change when doing setup, since repeatedly inputting your password when you’re sitting at your own desk at home is pointless and inefficient. Most of the other settings here won’t affect home users.
Under the Hardware subsection, you’ll find Bluetooth. Here, you can turn Bluetooth off and on, and manage Bluetooth devices.
The Color management part of System Settings will usually only be important to professional graphics artists and the like, so we’ll skip that and look at Display (shown bottom right).
Here you can manage your displays, resolution, screen rotation, size of menu and title bars, the placement of the Launcher on all displays or a specific one, Sticky Edges, and scaling. Sticky Edges controls auto-sizing of windows when dragged to screen edges and is probably best left at default in most cases.
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