some Unity configuration issues

[sktsee]

On Thu, 27 Oct 2011 11:20:29 +0100, Adam Funk wrote:

[snip]

>There are some junk items I don't want in the RH corner of the panel; how
>can I remove them?  AFAICT they're locked and not unlockable. 

The menubar is basically a system tray stretched across the screen.  It's 
primary purpose is to serve as placeholder for various indicators. I'm 
not clear as to how the unity-panel-service (the program that draws the 
bar) determines indicator placement, so the only method I know to get rid 
of indicators is to either prevent their execution, or remove their 
packages. 

dpkg -l indicators* will list what indicator packages are installed so 
you can choose which one to remove.

>
> Unity comes with four workspaces in a 2×2 arrangement --- where can I
> change that?  (I want four workspaces in one row, so I only need
> ctl-alt-left and ctl-alt-right enabled to move between them.)

Install compizconfig settings manager (ccsm) and navigate to the General 
section->General Options button->Desktop Size tab. Change Horizontal 
Virtual Size to 4 and Vertical Virtual Size to 1.
> 
> I don't like having a window's main menu bar appear in the panel ("Mac
> style"); is there any way to move it universally back to the top of each
> window, where I'm used to finding it?

In a terminal type:

$ sudo sh -c 'echo "export UBUNTU_MENUPROXY=0" > /etc/X11/
Xsession.d/81ubuntumenuproxy

Firefox and Thunderbird will still use global menus unless you remove the 
following packages

firefox-globalmenu
thunderbird-globalmenu

Alternately, you can nuke global menus altogehter by uninstalling the 
indicator-appmenu package.

-- sktsee