31 Useful Ubuntu 11.04 Unity Keyboard/Mouse Shortcuts

Ubuntu 11.04 'Natty Narwhal' will be released in another 8 days or so. We have followed the development of Ubuntu 11.04 very closely. In fact, we have reviewed all the previous developmental releases of Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal so far including Alpha 1, Alpha 2,Alpha 3 and Beta 1 releases. In my opinion, the overall Ubuntu 11.04 experience is so much better and involving if you know some essential Ubuntu Unity keyboard and Mouse shortcuts. So here are a bunch of very basic yet useful Ubuntu 11.04(Unity) keyboard shortcuts. 

Ubuntu Unity Shortcuts

Top 10 Ubuntu 11.04 Unity Panel Applets

The following article will list some of the most important panel applets, also called indicators, for Ubuntu 11.04's Unity interface.

The Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) operating system introduced a different user interface, designed by Canonical, called Unity. The default indicators are nice, but many people complained that they miss their usual applets on the panel.

CPU monitors, system load indicators, bandwidth statistics, weather indicators, RSS news feeds, DropBox handlers, and many more other applets can be quite easily installed on Ubuntu 11.04.

This article will show a list of ten most used Unity indicators (panel applets), with installation instructions and screenshots. At the end of the article we will also list other indicators, less important, and where to find them.

1. Weather Indicator

Unity Grab Handles Are Beautiful, Learn How to Enable it in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal

Unity Grab Handles are a fun and aesthetically beautiful way to resize windows in new Ubuntu Unity. Even though they are not enabled by default in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, you can easily turn Unity Grab Handles on by following a few easy steps.

How to Enable Unity Grab Handles in Ubuntu 11.04?

Chrome nearly replaced Firefox in Ubuntu Linux, Mark Shuttleworth says part 3

page 1 ,page 2

Page 3 of 4

"Everybody has the things they want to work on," Shuttleworth said. "I think it's a little tasteless for folks who work for competitors to jump up and down and say that Canonical doesn't contribute. I find that bizarre."

Why Mark Shuttleworth doesn't own a smartphone

Shuttleworth spent $20 million to become a space tourist in 2002, but hasn't ponied up $200 for a smartphone.

"I'm the last of the non-smartphone holdouts," Shuttleworth said. "Someone described my phone as being designed not to get stolen."

Chrome nearly replaced Firefox in Ubuntu Linux, Mark Shuttleworth says part 2

page 1

continue.............

"The Linux graphics stack enablement isn't great," Shuttleworth said. "There are a lot of devices where [Unity] is not an appropriate choice. So we've been working on a 2D version of Unity, which preserves all the same semantics and behaviors, but it's visually less intense."

Chrome nearly replaced Firefox in Ubuntu Linux, Mark Shuttleworth says

Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth lavishes praise on Google and the Chrome browser part 1

anonical founder Mark Shuttleworth is a big fan of Google Chrome, and says the browser could replace the standard Firefox in future versions ofUbuntu Linux.

Shuttleworth, the onetime space tourist, is spending his days on Earth to guide Canonical through a crossroads.

The overhauled user interface Canonical created for Ubuntu was greeted with a mixed reaction upon its release two months ago. But Canonical may not be done making radical changes to what is likely the world's most popular Linux desktop OS.

Ubuntu 11.04 won't be the same old Linux desktop

new Unity Linux desktop interface is the change that everyone is talking about, but it was far from the only change that Canonical and Ubuntu's developers are making to Ubuntu's desktop. In fact, even without the change from straight GNOME to Unity, the developers are planning on major changes to the Ubuntu desktop.
We knew some of these changes were coming. Mark Shuttleworth, Ubuntu's founder, had already announced that Ubuntu would be moving from OpenOffice to LibreOffice for its default office suite. At this point, LibreOffice is 99.9% identical to OpenOffice. By the time Ubuntu 11.04 is released in April, LibreOffice is expected to have improved performance and increased interoperability with Microsoft Office 2007 and 2010 formats.

Some people had expected to see Ubuntu switch from Evolution to Mozilla Thunderbird for e-mail. That did not happen. Although many dislike Evolution -- I've never understood this myself since I like Evolution's do-it-all functionality -- it was decided that Thunderbird simply wasn't ready yet.
I'm not sure Thunderbird will be ready anytime soon. Although I was a Thunderbird supporter early on, the Mozilla Foundation hasn't spent much time or effot in keeping Thunderbird up-to-date. The two main reasons why the Ubuntu programmers have deferred making Thunderbird the default e-mail choice are it's lack of a built-in calendar and no Microsoft Exchange support.  There were also my main problems with Thunderbird last year.
If you want a better, full-featured e-mail client in Ubuntu, my suggestion is to start working on cleaning up Evolution. I don't see Thunderbird taking its place.
The most controversial change, other the switch to Unity for the main interface, is that Ubuntu is changing its default music player from Rhythmbox to Banshee. Personally, I welcome this move. Banshee is my favorite Linux music application. As I said when it was first introduced in 2006, Banshee is as close as you can get to an iTunes for Linux. I still think that's true.

While some people love Rhythmbox, and other music players like Amarok and Clementine have their fans, Banshee's biggest opposition will come from those who hate that it uses Mono, the open-source version of Microsoft's .NET infrastructure. For some people, the mere presence of Mono in a Linux distribution endangers it from Microsoft software patents taxes.
I don't think that's the case. Software patents are an evil that, as the current mobile phone sue-me, sue-you circus shows, don't require the explicit use of a named technology. Besides, Mono users and developers already have Microsoft's blessing. You may dislike using a program built on top of a Microsoft technology, but I don't see any special legal danger in using it.
In any case, if you really can't stand Banshee, Unity, or LibreOffice in the forthcoming Ubuntu, you'll still be able to switch back to Rhythmbox, pure GNOME and/or OpenOffice. Personally, I'm looking forward to Canonical's new take on the Linux desktop, but if you can't stand it, you can have your desktop your way. After all one of Linux's beauties is that you can always set it up just the want you want, not how someone else wants it to be.