Go Gutsy Gibbon

On the day Ubuntu 7.10, aka Gutsy Gibbon was released, I decided to install it.

Immediately, a couple of changes from the previous version, were evident. Installing the proprietary nVidia driver, needed to support desktop effects, was much more straightforward. And the software required to write to an NTFS partition was already installed.

A further cause for celebration was being able to dispense with the somewhat complicated procedure that enabled me to bypass a keyring password every time I logged in and a wireless network connection was made. That keyring password prompt no longer bothers me.

Especially enheartening was the fact that Compiz was pre-installed. The rigmarole I went through to install either Beryl or Compiz in Feisty, was behind me. The first time I had to click the help icon was to look for a way to enable certain desktop effects that weren't enabled by default, like the rotating cube. I quickly found what I needed and through Synaptic Package Manager, installed compizconfig-settings-manager. Once that was up and running, I checked the boxes beside 'rotating cube' and 'cube cap' (the image that appears on top of the cube). I then right clicked on the current workspace indicator and increased the number of workspaces to 4. Hey presto - rotating cube.

That said, the transparency problem remained. That is - the title bars of my application windows weren't see-through, something which was available under Beryl from the word go. So I returned to the steps I followed with Compiz under Feisty:

In 'System/Preferences/Main Menu' I clicked on 'System Tools' under 'Applications', ticked 'Configuration Editor' and closed that window. I was now able to choose 'Configuration Editor' from the 'Applications' menu. I clicked 'apps' then 'gwd' then right clicked on 'metacity_theme_active_opacity' and changed it's value to .7, then adjusted the 'metacity_theme_opacity' to .5. Immediately, the transparency of the editor's title bar was evident.