Linux Dump

I love configuring my Linux (Ubuntu) desktop, in fact one of the reasons I switched to Linux was for its ability to configure the desktop to my exact specifications.

If you’re like me and prefer a dark desktop wallpaper, you’ll know that it can be impossible to see the black text of the menus (if you set your panels to be transparent as I do). Hence, you need to change the text colour of items in the panel to the colour white (or whatever “lighter” colour takes your fancy).

In order to edit the panel colour to white (against a dark background/picture) and have desktop icons appear white, type this in a terminal (note I’ve only tried this in Ubuntu, I can’t guarantee it will work in other Linux distributions):

$ gedit .gtkrc-2.0

and paste in the document that opens:

include “/home/autocrosser/.gnome2/panel-fontrc”style “desktop-icon”

{
NautilusIconContainer::frame_text = 1
text[NORMAL] = “#000000″
NautilusIconContainer::normal_alpha = 200
}
class “GtkWidget” style “desktop-icon”

#NautilusIconContainer::dark_info_color=”#888888″
#NautilusIconContainer::light_info_color=”#bbbbbb”
#NautilusIconContainer::highlight_alpha=200

style “my_color”
{
fg[NORMAL] = “#000000″
}
style “panel_color”
{
fg[NORMAL] = “#FFFFFF”
}

widget “*PanelWidget*” style “panel_color”
widget “*PanelApplet*” style “panel_color”
widget_class “*MenuItem*” style “my_color”
widget_class “*ToolItem*” style “my_color”
widget_class “*SeparatorMenuitem*” style “my_color”
widget_class “*SeparatorToolitem*” style “my_color”
widget_class “*ImageMenuitem*” style “my_color”
widget_class “*RadioMenuitem*” style “my_color”
widget_class “*CheckMenuitem*” style “my_color”
widget_class “*TearoffMenuitem*” style “my_color”

Clieck Save and you’re done!

Log out and back in to see changes.