Ubuntu 10.4

Ubuntu 10.4 was released while I was in Canada. Yesterday I did the upgrade successfully on my desktop computer. It went smoothly enough with no data lost (I always do a backup just in case).

There are lots of cool features in 10.4 and a slightly different look- icons updated, that sort of thing.

One of the most controversial changes was to put the window controls (close, minimise, maximise etc) on the top left corner instead of the top right. To me it's no big deal and I was prepared to try it out. Apple has had them on the left for years.

However, the big failing in it is this: Open Office has its close document at the top right corner, Opera has its close tab at the right hand side of the tab and other programs that don't use the native window (such as Yoono) still have their window controls on the right.

Even the shut down button for Ubuntu is on the top right corner of the screen.

I decided to return the controls to the right corner for now, becasue it was just too confusing with so many conflicting arrangements on my screen.

To do this I just entered the following at the console:

gconftool-2 --set /apps/metacity/general/button_layout --type string "menu:minimize,maximize,close"

Apart from that one thing, I love the new Ubuntu! I'm looking forward to installing it on my lap top.