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Fix Alt Tab task switching in GNOME Shell

Ryan — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 02:44:05 +0000

If you are using GNOME Shell with the latest Gnome 3 you may be wondering why you cannot Alt+Tab through your running applications. This is especially important since the panel and task bar no longer exists, making switching between applications especially difficult. To enable task switching with Alt+Tab you must configure metacity to support this with gconf-editor.

Hit Alt+F2 and type gconf-editor.

Now navigate to the switch_windows key binding.
apps -> metacity -> global_keybindings -> switch_windows

The default value is set to Disabled. Change this to <Alt>Tab instead. Now exit the editor and task switching should be enabled.

Fix Slow Animations in GNOME Shell for NVIDIA Graphics Cards

Ryan — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 19:44:51 +0000

The release of GNOME Shell and GNOME 3 is fast approaching. Unfortunately for many the latest build is nearly unusable due to the slow animation speed and lack of mouse responsiveness. If you have an NVIDIA graphics card you may be in luck as the fix is fairly simple. You need to change to the latest recommended NVIDIA drivers.

To install the recomended NVIDIA drivers navigate to the Additional Drivers menu.

System -> Administration -> Additional Drivers

You should have 2 proprietary drivers available. Choose the recommended driver which should be your second option.

Now restart your system and launch gnome-shell.

$ ./gnome-shell --replace

Your desktop should now operate more quickly.

Fix for missing title bar and GNOME panel with Firefox

Ryan — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 12:22:55 +0000

This is a bug in Firefox 3 where it launches into full screen mode and completely covers the top and bottom GNOME panels as well as its own title bar. While in this buggy mode Firefox cannot be resized, and can only be closed from within the menu.

File -> Quit

A temporary fix involves pressing F11 which switches you into full screen browser mode and pressing it once again to switch back. Once you close Firefox and restart it however it will continue to have the same issue.

To fix this bug permanently, delete the file localstore.rdf from your Mozilla-Firefox profile which is stored in your home directory. Firefox must be closed in order for this to work correctly.

In your home directory run the following command:

$ find . -name localstore.rdf

./.mozilla/firefox/9m0erq4m.default/extensions.rdf

Close Firefox.

Remove the file that was output by the previous command.

$ rm ./.mozilla/firefox/9m0erq4m.default/extensions.rdf

Restart Firefox.

After restarting Firefox will rebuild this file and your browser should work correctly once again.

Customize keyboard shortcuts in GNOME

Ryan — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 23:55:21 +0000

Use the Keyboard Shortcuts tool in GNOME to customize the default keyboard shortcuts for your system. If you have a laptop that has special media buttons you can configure them here as well. In some distributions such as Ubuntu these media buttons may be automatically configured but you may still need to fine tune them to suit your needs.

To access this menu in from the GNOME desktop open the following menu:

System -> Preferences -> System Shortcuts

There are 3 groups of shortcuts you can customize: Sound, Desktop, and Window Management. These groups break down in the following way.

Sound – Deals with media players and system sound.

Desktop – Shortcuts for opening applications and managing menus.

Window Management – Shortcuts for working with windows and workspaces.

To make a change select the shortcut from the menu and enter the new combination, it should correctly appear as you have pressed it. If you are configuring media buttons press them here instead. To disable a shortcut select the shortcut from the menu and press backspace.