Customizing your GUI desktop

GETTING PERSONAL

Article from Issue 65/2006
Author(s): , Author(s):

Just a few tweaks can give your system that individual touch.

An individual boot screen, a tasteful login background, and an upbeat desktop theme can help you personalize your Linux system. But which controls will you need to tweak? This article describes some techniques for personalizing your desktop.

Before your get started with customizing, it is a good idea to think about the way the system starts. When you switch your computer on, the BIOS loads the bootloader, which then initializes the kernel. The kernel then hands over control to the init process, which launches the services. This process finally takes you to the login manager on most systems.

Buy Linux Magazine

SINGLE ISSUES
 
SUBSCRIPTIONS
 
TABLET & SMARTPHONE APPS
Get it on Google Play

US / Canada

Get it on Google Play

UK / Australia

Related content

  • Grub Customizer

    Is the simple black and white GRUB menu causing confusion and obscuring important choices? Why not customize with GRUB themes and the Grub Customizer?

  • Customized GRUB and KDE Boot

    Power users can adjust the look of their desktops in openSUSE with just a few clicks. We'll show you how to customize the GRUB boot menu, the boot splash screen, and the KDE start screen.

  • Modifying the Bootsplash

    Users interested in customizing even the smallest detail of their machines will probably want to modify the boot screen. We show you how to carry out this task with openSUSE 11, Ubuntu 8.x, and their derivatives.

  • Customizing GTK3 Themes

    We'll show you what a GTK3 theme is made of and how you can customize it to match your tastes.

  • In-Depth Security

    More than just a boot manager, GRUB 2 can help you add another line of protection to your security defenses.

comments powered by Disqus
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters

Support Our Work

Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.

Learn More

News