Eddie's Tech Notes

If you would like to use cangjie (倉頡) input method but often don't know the full input codes for words, probably you will find gcin the best Chinese input method for Linux Desktop. First it supports * wildcards as in the counterpart in Microsoft Windows. Second it allows words so typed to turn to simplified Chinese automatically. However, in Ubuntu 9.10, the installed gcin may not allow you to switch between input methods. The solution that works with me is as follows: Remember to type sudo im-switch -s gcin so gcin starts when boot. Open the corresponding config file. One can do it in command prompt, by typing in sudo pico /usr/lib/gtk-2.0/2.10.0/immodule-files.d/gcin.immodules Change the line "gcin" "gcin Input Method" "gcin" "/usr/share/locale" "*" to "gcin" "gcin Input Method" "gcin" "/usr/share/locale" "" Reboot the machine More information about the problem and the solution c...

Use Gnome Color Chooser . There you can Reduce the size of the icons in the application menu. So the menu space can fit in more applications. Change the font color of Desktop icon, so as to fit the color pattern of the background (for example, you may wish a black instead of the default white Desktop icon font to fit a white background).

Finally I get a nice Gnome layout on my netbook of resolution 1024 x 600 by the use of Trebuchet MS font (require sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts ) size 9 extensively in System -> Preferences -> Appearance -> Fonts (this one still looks nicely even when it is as small as size 9). removing the default panel on the top (by right-clicking on the empty space of the top panel and selecting the appropriate option), putting icons and shortening the date/time display (also by right-clicking on the empty space of the panel to add back, move and customize elements) P.S. To get even better Tahoma fonts used in Microsoft Windows Standard Theme ( ref ), one can do the following: Install Wine In command prompt, type mkdir ~/.fonts Copy the fonts to user .fonts directory: cp /usr/share/wine/fonts/tahoma* ~/.fonts Change the font size to 8