FAQ - Guides

Introduction

Here are some the more often requests we get for 'fine-tuning' the Lubuntu installation from people. As most of these involve the use of the command line, if you are new to it, please do have a read of using the terminal. When you see

some instructions

That means you need to type them into LXterminal.

Work Arounds

If you cannot find the information listed here, please also check Work Arounds for further information.

How to install Lubuntu on 4GB USB Drive

Moved to Lubuntu/Boot_Install_Login

How to install Lubuntu Software Center

Lubuntu Software Center is installed by default in 12.04. To get it in previous releases, perform the following:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:lubuntu-desktop/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install lubuntu-software-center

This will add the 'breaking changes' of Lubuntu to your system and also install Lubuntu Software Center.

How to enable automatic logon

Moved to Lubuntu/Boot_Install_Login

Stop autologin For release 12.04 and on (LightDM)

Moved to Lubuntu/Boot_Install_Login

How to make/add an application to the "start" menu.

Moved to Lubuntu/Windows

Shutdown Button is missing from LXPanel, how can I add it?

Moved to Lubuntu/Boot_Install_Login

I want to bind the power-button to change computer state, how do I do it?

Moved to Lubuntu/Boot_Install_Login

How can I create a shortcut on the Desktop

Moved to Lubuntu/Windows

How I can autostart a program when logging into Desktop

Moved to Lubuntu/Boot_Install_Login

I have an English desktop and I want calendar week to start from Monday instead of Sunday

Moved to Lubuntu/Setup

How do I assign certain program to open to a desktop #2

Moved to Lubuntu/Windows

I want to bind a key to lock my screen, how do I do it?

Moved to Lubuntu/Boot_Install_Login

How to install Skype

Moved to Lubuntu/3rdParty

How to search for files in Lubuntu using GUI application

Moved to Lubuntu/Setup

Setting environment variables upon login

Moved to Lubuntu/Boot_Install_Login

Changing to Lubuntu from another flavour

Moved to Lubuntu/Setup

Changing running applications in panel to icons only

Moved to Lubuntu/Windows

Firefox problems

Whilst not installed by default, Lubuntu does fully support Firefox. If you are having problems with your Firefox installation head over to Firefox optimization and troubleshooting thread for some great advice on solving issues.

Multiple keyboard layouts

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1455877

The scroll button on your mouse keeps changing the Desktop Workspace even when you're scrolling through a folder or file.

Moved to Lubuntu/Mouse

Right-clicking on desktop pulls up a menu that is missing the "Desktop Preferences" option and now I can't change my wallpaper

Moved to Lubuntu/Windows

Disable Bluetooth

This is achieved by blacklisting the relevant bluetooth modules. To find these, issue the following in LXterminal:

lsmod | grep bluetooth

An example out would be:

bluetooth             179900  23 rfcomm,bnep,btusb

Using the above example, you would edit the blacklist.conf file, again using LXterminal:

gksudo leafpad /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

and add the following lines to the end of the file:

blacklist rfcomm
blacklist bnep
blacklist btusb
blacklist bluetooth

After rebooting, issuing:

lsmod | grep bluetooth

Should not find anything.

Touchpad settings

Moved to Lubuntu/Mouse

How to control window opacity

Moved to Lubuntu/Windows

Change background of login screen

Moved to Lubuntu/Windows

Revert power/logout button back to LXpanel

Moved to Lubuntu/Boot_Install_Login

Install Virtualbox Guest Additions onto a Lubuntu Virtual Machine

Moved to Lubuntu/3rdParty

Remote Desktop/ VNC on Lubuntu

Read the other wiki

Adjust Double-click speed in 12.04

Moved to Lubuntu/Mouse

Delete List of "Recently Used"

Lubuntu tracks which douments you have recently opened. You can see the list in the file dialog. Here's how to delete the list: (Apps will still remember the list until you restart them)

rm ~/.local/share/recently-used.xbel

Change Color Of Taskbar or LxPanel

Moved to Lubuntu/Windows

Screen and Monitor Brightness

• Start by clicking the LXDE menu, open "Power Manager" under Preferences.
• On the Left Panel, you will Have 'AC' and 'Battery' options. Click on of those, and you will have a opportunity to click the 'Monitor' panel on the right.
• Change screen brightness

Need volume past 100%, need USB headphones to work, need Skype to work

• Install the pavucontrol package.

• Use "PulseAudio Volume Control" in the "Sound & Video" under the LXDE menu.

Turn off iconify/minimize window animation in 12.04

Moved to Lubuntu/Windows

Sound not Working On PC with HDMI

Verify that the non-HDMI device works with step 17 of the Sound troubleshooting procedure

Create a text file called .asoundrc in your home directory. Add the following to it:

pcm.!default {
type hw
card 1
}

ctl.!default {
type hw
card 1 
}

pcm.dsp0 {
    type plug
    slave.pcm "dmix"
    # A hint is required for listing the device in some GUIs, e.g. Phonon configuration.
    hint {
         show on
         description "My dmix dsp0"
    }
}
# mixer0 can stay unchanged, because
# it isn't used anyway, I guess ;)
ctl.mixer0 {
    type hw
    card 1
}

Need to install Adobe Flash Player or MP3 codecs

Moved to Lubuntu/Setup

Change Proxy settings for Web

• Open the lubuntu ppa site.

• Click lxproxy, and download this file: lxproxy_0.~ppa3_all.deb
• Open the deb file that you downloaded, and install
• Proxy settings should be under preferences on the LXDE menu

You might not be able to install lxproxy without an existing connection see here for a workaround.

Change Fonts in Lubuntu

Moved to Lubuntu/Setup

I have an English desktop and I want calendar week to start from Monday instead of Sunday

Firstly edit locale file

gksudo leafpad /usr/share/i18n/locales/en_US

Then change

first_weekday   1
first_workday   2

to

first_weekday   2
first_workday   2

After this you need to generate locales

sudo locale-gen

And logout and login, as you cant run alt+f2 application launcher without lxpanel which needs to be killed.

Create New Keyboard shortcuts

Moved to Lubuntu/Keyboard

Restart lxpanel

lxpanelctl restart
or 
killall lxpanel && lxpanel --profile Lubuntu

Add LED indicator for HDD access

Many new laptops and pretty much all netbooks don't have a hard drive activity LED, the below little script will convert a choice of three keyboard LEDs to show disk access.

#!/bin/bash

# Which indicator to use? [caps, num, scroll] INDICATOR=caps

OLD=$(egrep "pgpgin|pgpgout" /proc/vmstat) NEW=${OLD} ## Initialise both variables to start out while :; do

• NEW=$(egrep "pgpgin|pgpgout" /proc/vmstat) # get status if [ "$NEW" = "$OLD" ]; then ## no change, turn led off

  • setleds -L -${INDICATOR} < /dev/console

  else ## vmstat changed, turn the led on

  • setleds -L +${INDICATOR} < /dev/console

  fi; sleep 0.1; ## prevent us from iterating too quickly OLD=${NEW} # Copy new state for the next iteration.

done

Change size of icons on desktop

The desktop is controlled by pcmanfm

Open the file manager and go to Edit->Preferences

Choose Display Then change the size of 'Big' Icons to something smaller.