Lubuntu Autostart Programs

Lubuntu 11.04+

If you need an application or process to automatically start at login in Lubuntu, you simply need to copy and paste applications from your applications folder into your autostart folder.

In your file browser, navigate to the applications folder:

/usr/share/applications

Find your targeted autostart program and copy it by secondary-clicking or CNTRL-c.

Next, navigate your file manager to the autostart folder:

~/.config/autostart

Paste your application by secondary-clicking or CTRL-v.

That's it! This can be used to autostart Dropbox, Docky, etc.

If you want to autostart a process instead, you'll need to create a separate .desktop file that executes the process you want. A simple file that opens alsamixer looks like this:

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Type=Application
Name=Alsa Mixer
Exec=alsamixer

You can change the Name and Exec to whatever you want. Save it as filename.desktop.

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MSI-X370 Ubuntu USB Problems

Ubuntu (and derivatives) 11.10 and 12.04

I recently purchased the beautiful, lightweight MSI-X370. Besides some audio issues I had, I highly recommend this laptop for Lubuntu... that is, until Ubuntu 11.10 came out.

My USB drives won't work now. I'm sure this isn't a complete fix, but it does solve the problem.

In the terminal, copy-paste:

sudo leafpad /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

Note: if you are running Ubuntu, change leafpad to gedit, of course.

At the very bottom of the page, add the following line. Save. Reboot.

blacklist rts5139

I hope that helps...

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Lubuntu 12.04

Lubuntu 12.04 was released a few days ago. After some configuration changes, here is my desktop:

(1) Moved panel to the top. Semi-transparent. Added Faenza icons, but I liked the elementaryOS panel icons better. Elementary background. Docky.

(2) PCManFM and the "updated theme" -- looks the same to me.

(3) My favorite: Synapse.

(4) The new Lubuntu Software Center. Looking good.

As for stability? I had a few things crash in the days right after the release. I can't say I have much to complain about now, however. Solid release.

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Lubuntu Sound on MSI X370

I had trouble getting sound to work on my MSI X370 after loading both Lubuntu 11.10 and 12.04. If you're having similar issues, here's what I did to get it working.

First, I installed pulseaudio and alsamixer from the Synaptic Package Manager. Open Synaptic, and search for the two items.

Pulseaudio got sound working again, but I was still having trouble binding my audio keys to the sound card because it wasn't treated as the default card. To change the default card, I entered the following into the terminal

sudo leafpad /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

and added this line to the bottom of the file:

options snd_hda_intel index=1

Reboot and crank it loud!

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Lubuntu Hotkeys / Keybindings

Lubuntu 11.04 onwards.

There is no easy GUI shipped with Lubuntu for editing hotkeys. The easiest way to create key bindings for Lubuntu is by opening the terminal and pasting in the following code.

sudo leafpad ~/.config/openbox/lubuntu-rc.xml

This will open the hotkey configuration editor. At this point, you will need to search for the item you wish to edit. The following will help with some of the key codes:

C - Control Key
A - Alt Key
S - Shift Key
W - Super/Windows Key
Tab - Tab
Up - Up Arrow
Down - Down Arrow
Left - Left Arrow
Right - Right Arrow

Here's an example which binds Firefox to the key SUPER+f:

<keybind key="W-f">
    <action name="Execute">
        <command>firefox</command>
    </action>
</keybind>

Have fun...

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Docky + Lubuntu

Lubuntu 10.04, onward

There are a lot of dock options available: Cairo, wbar, etc. But my favorite is Docky.

To install docky, copy-and-paste into the terminal:

sudo apt-get install docky

Under Docky setting, click on the option to "Start when user logs in." Easy.

However, Docky will look very strange without composting. To enable composting, look here.

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DeaDBeeF Music Player

Lubuntu 10.04-11.10

I already posted about my all-time favorite music player, Pithos, but sometimes I'm in the mood for an entire album from my collection. Enter DeaDBeeF, an incredibly lightweight music player.

I prefer DeaDBeef over the default Audacious because it has a simpler, more intuitive interface while retaining Audacious' leanness.

When playing a tune on my small netbook, I don't need to worry about RAM or CPU usage:

Want it? You can grab it by opening LXTerminal and pasting in the following:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:alexey-smirnov/deadbeef
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install deadbeef

As a final point, I love the file browser plugin. You can snag that here. After you download the .zip, extract it to temporary folder and copy the .so file(s) to

~/.local/lib/deadbeef/.

Enjoy DeaDBeef.

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