Tweaking Ubuntu with bTweaker, Unsettings, and Unity Tweak Tool

Unity Tweak Tool

Unity Tweak Tool [3] offers a smorgasbord of tools that let you customize virtually every aspect of the desktop environment. To install Unity Tweak Tool (UTT), you have to add the project's PPA and then install the unity-tweak-tool package. All of this can be done by running the following commands in the terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:freyja-dev/unity-tweak-tool-daily
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install unity-tweak-tool

Similar to Unsettings, the tools in UTT are organized into groups: Unity , Window Manager , Appearance , and System . Many of the available tools are self-explanatory, so I won't cover them all. Instead, I'll take a look at a few tools that you might find particularly useful.

The Search tool in the Unity section, for example, lets you configure the search options (Figure 5). Here, you can disable the Search online sources option to prevent Internet results from appearing in search queries. By default, when you're trying to locate an application installed on your machine, the Dash also displays related applications available for download. This feature can be a good way to discover new software, or it can be a nuisance. In this case, you can turn off this feature by disabling the Show "More Suggestions" option.

Figure 5: Configuring search settings in Unity Tweak Tool.

The Hotcorners tool in the Window Manager group lets you enable so-called hot corners and specify actions for them (Figure 6). Hot corners are areas around the edges of the screen that trigger certain actions when the mouse enters these areas. For example, you can configure the bottom-left corner of the screen as a hot corner that displays all workspaces side by side. To do this, make sure the Hotcorners option is enabled and select the Show Workspaces action from the drop-down list next to the lower left corner of the screen image.

Figure 6: The Hotcorners tab lets you specify hot corners and assign actions to them.

Do you want to configure system font preferences? Head to Appearance | Fonts . Here, you can specify a custom system font and tweak its settings, such as anti-aliasing and hinting.

If you use a notebook or netbook with a touchpad, you can modify scrolling behavior using the Scrolling tool in the System group (Figure 7). In the Touch scrolling subsection, you can switch to two-finger scrolling and enable horizontal scrolling. If you prefer the old style scrollbars, you can enable them by activating the Legacy option in the Scrollbars subsection.

Figure 7: Configuring scrolling settings in Unity Tweak Tool.

Final Word

Together, the described utilities offer a comprehensive set of tools for tweaking practically every aspect of Ubuntu and Unity. bTweaker can be useful for performing housekeeping tasks, installing software, and deploying another graphical desktop environment, whereas Unsettings lets you tweak basic Unity settings with a minimum of fuss. And, if you want to customize Unity to your liking, Unity Tweak Tool is right up your alley.