Many people have reported that the upgrade from Ubuntu 11.04 to Ubuntu 11.10 means that they loose the icons for Home Folder, Terminal, Workspace Switcher and Rubbish Bin (Trash) and are replaced by a bland icon. Also the System Menu in the top right of the desktop disappears.

Fortunately there is a simple solution.

1) Click on Dash Home and type System into the search bar

2) Launch System Settings and choose Appearance

3) In the bottom right corner is a drop down which is probably set to Ambiance, Change this to Radiance or one of the other settings and close the window.

Now the launch icons are restored and the Gear icon for the system menu is restored to top left. Should you wish to return to the Ambiance theme no problem the icons etc. will still be there. The act of changing the theme restores the items.

I’ve seen several articles on setting up the Samsung CLX3175FW as a network printer on Ubuntu. Some warn against using the Samsung drivers others suggest using them…

Here’s the easiest way I found to set it up on Natty Narwhal…

Ensure that the printer is switched on and connected to the network, you’ll also need to be connected to the internet to download the drivers.

From System Settings choose Printing. The following dialog is displayed

From this screen select “Add”, this dialog is displayed

Click on the Network printer item to expand it and wait while the system searches the network, you’ll notice a activity icon in the bottom left. The printer is found automatically and the following dialog is displayed

Select the Samsung CLX-3170 item in the list and click “Forward” the following dialog is displayed

Wait for the search to complete and the following dialog is displayed

Select Samsung (Recommended) and click “Forward”

Select “CLX3175 (Recommended)” and click “Forward”

Just to confirm that it is set up correctly you can print a test page, my system defaulted to printing in Monochrome which is fine by me but you may want to print a test page in colour, I’ll show you how to do that later. If you select “Print Test Page” the following will be displayed…

Click OK, the following dialog is displayed

You can Choose “Printer Options” from the list to change to colour and then return to the settings item and print a test page using colour.

Now you have a printer set up and ready to use…

Please note: this post relates to 11.04 only, if you are using a later version see the this post.

Some programs like the Eclipse IDE have to be installed manually they’re not available from the Ubuntu Software Centre. To add these to the launcher panel in Ubuntu Unity first you need to create a desktop file (Unity calls it a launcher), save it in the applications folder, then you can just drag it to the launcher panel.

Create the Launcher on the Desktop:

Right click your desktop and select “Create Launcher…”. The following window will be displayed

Enter the details of the program, change the icon by clicking on the icon and choosing an appropriate icon.
This gives you a launcher on the Desktop

Add the Launcher Panel:

Open your Home Folder. (if hidden files are not shown press Ctrl + H and browse to .local/share/applications. Drag and drop your Launcher from Desktop to that folder.

Now drag and drop your launcher from .local/share/applications to the Launcher Bar on the left on your Screen.

You can now delete your custom Launcher on the Desktop if it’s still there.

Enjoy…