Managing your Photos and Camera with Lubuntu

First, install the lightweight photo manager called gThumb. You can install it by pasting the following code into your terminal. sudo apt-get install gthumb Second, you will need to connect your camera to the computer. There are a few ways to do this, depending on your camera. The easiest is to insert the SD card into your computer SD port (if it has one). The alternate way is to connect your entire camera to the computer via a USB cable. You should see a pop-up that appears after you complete the connection...

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Ubuntu WebApps: Where does that leave Lubuntu?

By now, I'm sure you've heard of Ubuntu's new WebApps. If not, here's a movie that fills you in. In my opinion, WebApps is a brilliant first step to integrate the web and the desktop in a seamless fashion. However, this integration is specifically designed for the Unity desktop environment. In other words, Lubuntu users can't use it. So what are our options? First, I suggest creating bookmark apps. With a few steps, you can create your own Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, and other bookmark launchers. Now,...

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Lubuntu 12.10: Alpha 3 Release

The new Lubuntu 12.10 Alpha 3 has been released. Lubuntu had a 100% pass rate. Well done, team. The official word: The A3 is pretty much as the final will be, there is still some art work to come in and some further minor 'tweaks'. If you install the A3, then just keeping it updated will take you all the way to final release without a fresh install. The usual cavaet, it is not a final release and could get broken during the remainder of the development cycle. So what is it like? How is different? As mentioned...

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Lubuntu Login Screen: Changing the LightDM Background

When Ubuntu changed to the LightDM display manager, the desktop background was configured to change based on the user's configurations. However, this never made it into Lubuntu 12.04. So if you want a seamless look between your desktop and your login screen, or if you have some atrocious image you want all users to view before logging in, read on... The first thing is to locate your background image and place it in the root directory. (Obviously, if it's in your home folder, this is inaccessible once you...

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Notification Pop-ups in Lubuntu

One of the things I loathe most about Lubuntu 12.04 is the dreaded notification system. Primarily, I don't like that I must clear old notifications from the panel before other notifications come through. I also don't like how big the notifications are. Below, I'll give you a method to remove the Lubuntu default notify system, but I will also end with a worthy alternative. Remove Default Lubuntu Notifications To remove the notifications simply remove the culprit: the notification-daemon. Open the terminal...

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Best Lubuntu Apps

Before I get started, those who are new to Lubuntu need to know that there is virtually no application that can be installed on Ubuntu that is not also not available for Lubuntu. The exception to that are small apps that integrate into a specific desktop environment. So, of course you are not going to be able to install a Unity lens because the default Lubuntu DE does not use Unity. That being said, there are a few characteristics that rule out certain software. Lubuntu software should be both (a) lightweight...

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Moving Close, Maximize, and Minimize Buttons in Lubuntu

Those who come to Lubuntu from Mac OSX may like their window buttons on the left side of the title bar rather than the default settings (right). To accomplish this, you need to open the lubuntu configuration file and edit one line. In the terminal, copy-paste in the following line: leafpad ~/.config/openbox/lubuntu-rc.xml The file will open in the text editor. At this point, search for the following line of code (it will be about 45-50 lines from the top): <titleLayout>NLIMC</titleLayout> The...

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