Ubuntu Unity introduced new overlayed scrollbars. If you don’t like them you can remove them as follows.

Command line method

If you are happy using the command line and have sudo privileged, open a terminal window (Ctrl -Alt-T) and type

sudo apt-get remove overlay-scrollbar

You’ll be prompted for your password.  Some applications running may need to be restarted to use the default scrollbars.

Alternative using the Software center

If you don;t have sudo privilege or you prefer a to use the a GUI application.  Open the Ubuntu Software Centre (from launcher or click on the dash and type soft – the software center should appear in the list, click on it)

In the search bar on the top right enter “overlay”. At the botton of this window click on the Display ?? technical items” link. This will display several Scrollbar overlay entries.

Near the top of the list will be one called “Scrollbar Overlayed widget” with a package name of “overlay-scrollbar”. Select the Remove button.

Next find an one or more entry called “Scrollbar overlayed widget – shared lib”. Select the Remove button for each of these in turn.

With all these entries removed your scrollbars should revert to standard scrollbars.

If you have applications running you probably need to close and restart them for the change to take effect. Some applications may require a system restart to make the standard scrollbars available.

Ubuntu 11.10 no longer has the Create Launcher option in the Desktop right click menu. A launcher items can still be created by installing the gnome-panel.

1) Start “Ubuntu Software Center” from the Launcher

2) Type “gnome-panel” into the search bar, the item “launcher and docking facility for GNOME” will be displayed

3) Click on it and if a “Install” button is available on the right side click it. Authenticate when asked to do so

4) When the install is complete open a terminal window (click on the terminal item in the launcher.

5) Type “gnome-desktop-item-edit ~/Desktop/ –create-new” and press enter. The following window will be displayed

6) Enter the details of the program, change the icon by clicking on the icon and choosing an appropriate icon and click OK.

7) You now have launcher item on the Desktop to add this to the launcher. Open your Home Folder. (if hidden files are not shown press Ctrl + H and browse to .local/share/applications. Drag and drop your Launcher item from Desktop to that folder.

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

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

10) Enjoy…

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…