Tweaking JWM

Joe's page .
But see also Puppy and archwiki.

# JWM, install in Debian Sid, from repo, one file only.
Conf - one file only, copy /etc/jwm/systemjwmrc.conf to your home as ~/.jwmrc

# Tweak.
Jwm is definitely quite simple WM, but - surprisingly tweakable, at the same time.
For refresh - Jwm has nice 'restart' for you, almost only thing in menu that works out of the box. Yes,  menu building is manual. At the same time, Jwm seems quite lenient to syntax errors - just applying defaults, and not crashing (like Openbox).
All essential can be found on Joe's page. Start from this. Mostly, it's troublefree - read and apply. Mind, there are two distinctly separate parts for tweaking (with varying scope) - features and styles. Means some shuttling back and forth.

Some notes:
- Swallow lets you get some apps' (simple) output onto panel...
I inserted my narrow conky there, and it worked... errr.... It ate Jwms' clock (as conkys' positional command seems to overrule Jwms' efforts. AND!
CPU usage in idle went to 6-7%, which is scandalous. Seems that Jwm and swallowed conky are not best friends... So, I made panel shorter and planted my conky outside of it, to right bottom corner. Problem solved - usage dropped to normal 1-2%.
And that after previously startupping compton with:
compton --backend glx --vsync opengl-swc --paint-on-overlay --shadow-exclude "! name~=''" --config ~/.compton.conf
spacefm with '-d' and also feh for background.
Also, pleasant surprise was that my wallpaper-changer script worked under 'Desktop / Background /command'.
- Group: A lot of options here... but... Oh well, there are things like 'constrain', 'layer', 'nolist' - but see yourself (link one). For group classes, do xprop WM_CLASS and click then on window, and info will be in terminal.
- WindowStyle - border and title. Look also here.
Quite a lot is supported. Fonts etc can be regulated in separate cases, colors for fg and bg, the same for 'active / inactive' - good, I like playing with colors.
Tray items change active / inactive color-behaviour according to mouse-over - and that's because default FocusModel is 'sloppy', not 'click'.
- Keybinds - related to window, mostly, and as such, quite unexciting for me - mouse-oriented as I am.
- Mousebinds - nothing much of interest here.
- Menu - for unactive, there is no gradient. But, there is for active...
- Desktops. The usual... different is that a lot of them are there by default. This multitude can be culled by row (width) and column (height) numbers.

- Window start positions - maybe I missed it, but there doesn't seem to be that option. And that's a thing I would like to have.

Conclusion: Again - no, I am not going to convert, but I keep Jwm for futher playing and who knows... Taken as a panel Jwm is somehow more exciting than lxpanel. Made me feel that I can get more. Probably it's subjective - but also, Jwm feels to me graphically nicer and slicker than Fluxbox. It appears that quite a few of options are new with fresh Jwm v2.2. Keep up with the good work, Joe. And thanks, Puppy Slacko, for drawing my attention to Jwm.
A pleasant experience indeed.
Edit| I have to tone down my excitement: Did new netinstall Wheezy for my 4 year old son, and as I considered him a good test subject - installed Jwm.
Result: Jwm got half-transparent when compton came to play, and youtube flash crashed totally in every browser (strange that). So I swapped to Openbox - and everything was alright. I didn't bother to investigate deeply. Anyway - I will be wary next time. |edit

Tint2 launcher, screwed

... and Conky screwed too

So I played with wallpapering Openbox, one thing led to another and I decided to amuse myself with panel-decorating, bitmapwise.
Tint2 doesn't support adding image as a panel background and consequently - only option is to stick 'panel' onto wallpaper. Easiest to do it is with layered Gimp file - so you can shuffle your wallpapers under panel and then export them as paneled wallpapers.
Now, what I wanted to do, was very slightly steampunkish appearance. Nothing overwhelmingly fancy like brass pipes, cogwheels, rayguns etc. 'Classic' SPs enormously overstuffed spaces are not my cup of tea.
I am not going to explain my confs' parameters here. Tweaking is reasonably easy thing to do - if using material here (tint2), and here (conky), and here (conky).

It came out like that:

-- wallpaper and 'panel'-ribbon below tint and conky are one jpg.

-- Left side, width 71% - is Tint2. All on-top backgrounds and borders are done by tint and so, easily tunable. Launcher has 5 png-icons.
- Left screw in launcher opens Openbox menu (xdotool key super+q
as exec in obmenu.desktop). Desktop file has to be made. Keybind itself has to be also defined, of course, in rc.xml (for 'root-menu', and here the same key is 'W-q'). Xdotool might not be installed by default (it is in Crunchbang and Vsido). In Slackware it is not installed, but can be made from SBO .
- Right screw is 'show/hide desktop', also through xdotool, key 'super+d'('W-d' in rc.xml).
As both those actions are quite pointless (why not to use keybinds stright...), then other tasks can be put here - exit script, weather conky, or whatever.
When making screws or other tiny icons - make png-s bigger with transparent padding, it gives bigger clickable area. Those here are 16px visible, but 24px with transparency.
Whole tint-tuning is simple playing around with numbers and colors (gcolor2 helps with choosing colors). Though, this play-around takes considerable amount of time...
... Of easy tunability - I haven't yet found error-proof way to restart tint (to see changes). For example:
'killall tint2' and start = corrupted taskbar/tasks (double?)
'kill -9 tint2' and start = no systray items
'killall -SIGUSR1 tint2' and start = corrupted systray (double?)
So, after a while I end up doing logout/login, and then decide that's enough of tint ...


-- Right side, 477px wide - Conky. Conky supports background images. So this dark-brown background-with-screws png-file sits in Conky.
I have to say - it took me some time to get Conkys' conf right. Partly because Conky (also) is not loading everything anew when conf is saved and Conky refreshes. Took me some time to realize that... Better to go for killall-method.
Key thing here is to comment those
#own_window_argb_visual yes
#own_window_argb_value 0
#own_window_colour 534821
and leave the next one working and 'yes'
own_window_transparent yes
Beacuse 'argb' things make your image transparent too...

Tuning conky is a bit trickier than tuning tint2. When pressed to this narrow form, quite many numbers have to be expressly '0', like border_inner_margin 0 for example. And see CPU-usage - it has to have spare space to expand. When numbers get into tens, you don't want your whole conky jumping bigger and hitting volumeicon or whatever.
Oh, and those screws here are just decorations.
What complicated things for me was - I didn't want to add panel to every wallpaper. So it turned to balancing act between tint on relatively light panel and tint on relatively dark wallpapers. It boiled down to playing with colors, and using upper layer (tint, conky) backgrounds without very much of transaparency.

And conclusion: oldish-90s-looking panel can be done with tint and conky. Also, I really like the idea of using screws as launchers. :)
Oh, and - do really use those tint and conky links, and info there - as all possible commands are NOT included in default conf files.
| NB! As it was my first time to include pics, I was quite annoyed when I got persistent error with inserting pics (impossible to insert)... Turned out that Googles' spymasters want popups and all cookies enabled... So I installed separate browser, all security-panties down, just for 'insert pic', and nothing else. But cookies will be deleted afterwards anyway. Quite, quite irritating. |

Grub 1.99 in Debian 7. Part 2

Changing menu item looks in Grub2 menu. Deleting and adding entries.
Now - I am no coder and know next to nothing of scripting. So I really can't rewrite grubs' scripts. After more hours wasted with combing interweb for tutorials how to change files 10_linux and 30_os-prober, I came to conclusion that it's hard to find ready-made drop-in script-bits for easy tweaking. And I didn't feel like spending all my time with testing...
I decided to drop my ambitious plans to alter above-mentioned files and go for easier (and commonly used) way: create a 06_custom file.

What I did:
Took existing /etc/grub.d/40_custom file and saved it as 06_custom (in this way it will be the first entry of menu). Then I copied whole entry from between #10_linux start and end lines in file /boot/grub/grub.cfg to my custom-file, under first 5 existing lines.
- Then I changed menuentrys' name
- deleted class statements
- and replaced filenames in /boot/ with links in /. That's because it's said that then you will allways boot with latest kernel (through those links). We'll see about that when there is kernel update... But - if there is kernel number in menuentry, it has to be changed manually, of course.
And final result, scriptways (after first 5 existing lines):

menuentry 'Debian 7 Wheezy, kernel 3.2.0-4-amd64 on /dev/sdb6' { 
load_video set 
gfxpayload=keep 
insmod gzio 
insmod part_msdos 
insmod ext2 
set root='(hd1,msdos6)' 
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root cc715c11-4b56-4d78-bb29-6d78688ce48b 
echo 'Loading Linux 3.2.0-4-amd64 ...' 
linux /vmlinuz root=UUID=cc715c11-4b56-4d78-bb29-6d78688ce48b ro quiet nomodeset nouveau.modeset=0 
echo 'Loading initial ramdisk ...' 
initrd /initrd.img 
}

And, update-grub when done, of course. Interesting enough, custom entry is not shown in 'Found' list... but, when
grep menuentry /boot/grub/grub.cfg - it's there alright.
Reboot, test your freshly baked menu-item. If boot is successful, do
sudo chmod -x 10_linux, to exclude this file from menu.
That's it. The same way you can deal with 30_os-prober. Entries like kernel instances etc can be deleted or added (might be wise to make os-prober temporarily active for adding - to get correct entry for copy-paste). Downside is that when distros come and go, all entries has to be deleted/added manually. Doesn't make you to spit blood but is still a bit bothersome...

Grub 1.99 in Debian 7. Part 1

Debian Wheezy netinstall and Grub 1.99 tweaking 
Part 1: Facelift

With Debian stable comes Grub 1.99. It is not especially nice-looking and/or handy:
- it has useless wallpaper
- there are a lot of entries without submenus (I have 4-way multiboot, currently)
- menu is a bit too black and white... and other little things.
So I decided to change it. Research took enormous time. Versions and tutorials differ... there are no place to find everything together... tips might work, or not... a lot is simply old...
See here: Ubuntu, more Ubuntu, and this one, and Arch, and my own puny paragraph.
Before tweaking anything, we do backups, of course - like this, for example:
sudo cp /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme /etc/grub.d/05_.debian_theme.bak 
# ... and all others in /grub.d we happen to hack. Then we make baks un-executable: 
sudo chmod -x /etc/grub.d/*.bak
Also, do backup files: /etc/default/grub and /boot/grub/grub.cfg
Here we go, with multiboot system, one Grub in MBR, one in root, one distro without Grub, and Windows XP.

What I did:
(Let's remember - ALL changes has to be written in with update-grub.)
1. /etc/default/grub
- I wanted my Vsido to be the default boot-choice.
grep menuentry /boot/grub/grub.cfg shows all listed menuentries. First one is 0, second is 1 and so on - simple, but it's more complicated when dealing with submenus. Fortunately I do not have them... unfortunately I would like to - menu looks a lot more tidy when bunch of different kernels are hidden.
So, third item in list means GRUB_DEFAULT=2 and highlight is on Vsido entry now.

- Default console size is GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480. Text is therefore big and longer lines end behind screen edge. We change it like that:
Reboot, and when in Grub, press 'C' to get command line, set pager=1 (because there are probably 2 pages of text coming, then vbeinfo. Correct/supported resolutions are displayed, pick one, write it down, 'esc', boot to desktop and replace old resolution with new and bigger one. Mine is GRUB_GFXMODE=1280x768.
After that line add a new one: GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=keep
That keeps resolution the same for whole boot process (no jumping back to big letters).
NB! 'Keep' doesn't work when booting another distro with its own Grub. Probably gfxmode should be changed there also.
Edit 06.07.2013: Changing the resolution in local Grub doesn't help -  no change. Also - resolution doesn't change for distros without Grub too. So, it seems that whole thing works only for grub-mastering distro. Edit ends.

- If you do not need your machine searched for additional OS-es (for whatever reason), disable 30_os-prober, by adding this line:
GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=true

- If you do not want bunch of Recovery Modes hanging around, then remove comment from line #GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_RECOVERY="true".
But, there is interesting twist: IF there is Grub also installed for some other distro, then you have to disable recovery mode there also. Otherways master-Grub reads them from there, and displays.
Other weird thing I encountered: I unpacked my Xubuntu (from archive) to another partition, fixed fstab, and removed Grub complitely. Now, when I ran master 'update-grub', it found whole pile of 'Ubuntus'. It appeared that not only current .img, but also symlinks and '.img.old' kernels were listed... I simply deleted links and .olds - and problem was solved and only one Ubuntu was left in list.

2. /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme
- Wallpaper. This file has very nicely commented sequence how wallpapers are searched for... not that it helped me very much. I deleted wallpaper-line from /usr/share/desktop-base/grub-background.sh and changed also colors. No cookie. Nothing changed.
Then I checked what's in /boot/grub/grub.cfg. There I found certain png as wallpaper. After some pondering I resolved thing in inelegant and nasty way - I simply renamed joy-grub.png to joy-grub.png.outcomment. Update-grub! No wallpaper was found AND Grub defaulted to 'set_default_theme', which is quite at the beginning of the file (05_debian_theme) AND which can be now edited (with results):

- Colors. See also: Here and here and here.
Default is 'Debian blue', update-grub, reboot and take a look. I found it a bit too bright, so my tweak ended like this:

set_default_theme(){
 # Set the traditional Debian blue theme.
 echo "${1}set menu_color_normal=white/black"
 echo "${1}set menu_color_highlight=yellow/dark-gray"
 echo "${1}set color_normal=white/dark-gray"
}

Menu text is white, background black, higlighted menu-items' text is yellow and under that is gray background. Outside of menu-box is gray with white text (and this last line I added).

That's it. I'm quite satisfied how things look now (errr... no, still can't be bothered with screenshots).
Now, if not terminally lazy, I might produce also a part 2, dealing with hacking of files 10_, 30_ and 40_custom. Means, how to change menuentries themselves.

Tip-heap, tweak-pile

Collected chaotic scraps and bits from dealings with Debian Sid - Vsido
Things not worth to blow into full post, but which can take (and took) unholy amount of time to dig out from crap-piles of Web.

# Spacefm uses icons from your current theme - and those doesn't have to be 100% of your liking. Icons can be changed through .config/spacefm/session file. It's a bit of detective work but doable (only icon name has to be used, as it is; no pngs, no addressing). NB! when saving your changed file, Spacefm has to be closed - or else it overwrites your changes (when you close it). To use different icons in groups doesn't seem to be possible - currently at least. But keep your eye on Igurus' doings anyway, development goes on.

# Tint2 - kinda shows workspaces... means it divides taskpanel to equal workspace-areas. I find it unconvinient. Thankfully there is pre-defined (Openbox) mouse-scroll-over-desktop for switching. At the same time - NB! I haven't tried it - I am quite sure it's possible to create launcher with xdotool exec with workspace-switcher keybind (same way as this here is done).
- Tasks - what I find marvelous is that task tabs are resizable (and colorable). Also, when using icon + text then the text will be broken to 2 lines AND resized to fit. Entirely cute!
- All in all - Tint2 seems to me optimal for OB. I tried some others and found them less fitting ..., but do check: fbpanel, lxpanel, xfce-panel, pypanel - to mention some.

# Conky - needs apps for getting temps and things: hddtemp and lm-sensors at least. Read wiki.
When you use OB super+d (show/hide desktop) and your Conky disappears (and you hate that), then change in .conkyrc:  own_window_type normal to
own_window_type override.

# Debian menu - the package 'menu', creates menu from all installed things. Can be inserted (IS inserted in fresh OB install) to OB menu. This <menu id="/Debian" /> has to be between menu start and end tags in menu.xml. And it has to be addressed in rc.xml: /var/lib/openbox/debian-menu.xml (just before the line of menu.xml). update-menus forces it to refresh. Debian menu is good source for building your new OB menu. Which will be refreshed by openbox --reconfigure, by the way.

# smxi etc - super scripts for easy-upgrading. Just to mention again: this funny colorful text that runs by HAS TO BE READ, or else quite horrid surprises might happen.
smxi and sgfxi auto-update every time you run them, inxi - the systeminfo one - needs to be updated manually: inxi -U.

# .bashrc has lines to define how title text of terminal window appears: xterm*|rxvt*)
PS1="\[\e]0;${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\u@\h: \w\a\]$PS1"
In my single-user machine I found default myname@mymachine part totally obstructing and silly (especially when minimized to taskbar). So I removed it - you just need to delete those 6 symbols in PS1 line \u@\h:

# Unavoidable CLI - few basics only, but at least in one place:

# devices list
sudo fdisk -l

# check what definitions iptables have
sudo iptables -L

# install the deb pack you downloaded
sudo dpkg -i packagename.deb 

#update and upgrade everything
sudo apt-get update
 # want to check versions? 
 sudo apt-get install apt-show-versions
 sudo apt-show-versions -u 
# Install all updates
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
 # and clean it up
 sudo apt-get clean
 sudo apt-get autoclean 
 sudo apt-get autoremove

# hate some packages? delete their confs too?
sudo apt-get remove --purge hatedpackage

# wanna see some info of installed package?
sudo apt-cache policy packagename

# open console and start other session in parallel
#C+A+F1 to F6 opens console. 
# C+A+F7 to F12 shows sessions. F7 is first and current.
# (use startx or xinit = the same result)
# Openbox to C+A+F8 
startx openbox-session -- :1 
# Fluxbox to F9
xinit startfluxbox -- :2
# Xfce to F10
xinit startxfce4 -- :3 

# Security - read this EPIC work here. Quite educational.

# Fluxbox. Last downloaded Vsido ISO had Fluxbox as a default session. Also, there was pronounced 'I-love-fluxbox-even-more-than-you'-party going on in Vsido forum. That was kinda funny alright.
Now, the thing is not bad at all, easy to setup and such. It's simply that I personally haven't found yet how it's better than Openbox. So I don't use it (after initial play-around).
So, just to blab something:
- to start FB session from console, the magic word is startfluxbox.
- I got an impression that FB windows are resizable only by (bottom) handles, which I find ...er... restricting. I might be mistaken, of course.
- There is a file .fluxbox/overlay. Style parameters written there overcome everything what fluxbox themes have. An option to have certain things defined like default. So it's good to know about it - especially when puzzling over 'why the shit in theme doen't change when I bloody change it'.
- When using Spacefm as a file manager, I found it convenient to use it also as a desktop manager - in 'startup' file add ( spacefm --desktop ) &
Then Spacefm can start your wallpaper (and so replace Feh or Nitrogen) ... and if desktop icons are your 'thing' then you can add them too.

LightDM and Xscreensaver

LightDM tweaking (Xubuntu and Vsido)

LightDM tutorials are quite nicely googleable so - the following is simply chaotic list of things I checked and investigated, and not a 'howto'. AND - this time I didn't do almost a thing, so the story is mostly hearsay. (26.04.2013 - a bit less hearsay now, see Edit below. Which is further edited 10.05.13.)

Important places
/etc/X11/default-display-manager - here you can see which display manager is your default. Quite good to know before starting hacking or swapping it to some other one.
/etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf - here you can add allow-guest=false, and very probably something even more interesting ...
/etc/lightdm/lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf greeters' GUI-related things are here, like background picture (png seems to be the only acceptable format).
By default it sits in /lib/plymouth/themes/xubuntu-logo/ for Xubuntu and in /usr/share/images/desktop-base/ in Vsido. It is a symlink managed by update-alternatives. And it is sayeth: 'So, to change the greeter's background, the best way is to find some images that you like from /usr/share/images/desktop-base/, then use update-alternatives to change the desktop-background group: update-alternatives --config desktop-background' ... And I might add, there is also GUI front-end for that tool: 'galternatives' is the name, download & install (less button-pressing compared to CLI-version).
Once more: Removing un-needed sessions from greeters' menu. Sometimes it's not wise to uninstall all your (backup) sessions...
And then I happened to read of someone who had problem with default greeter sessions - it kept hopping back to first installed one. He did so: /usr/share/xsessions/lightdm-xsession.desktop. Edited lightdm-xsession.desktop - changed "exec" from "default" to "startxfce4" - meant that when he had "Default XSession" selected at the login screen, it started then xfce4 instead of "default".

Short look into lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf (Xubuntu):
logo=/usr/share/pixmaps/xubuntu-lightdm-computer.png 
background=/lib/plymouth/themes/xubuntu-logo/xubuntu-greybird.png 
theme-name=Greybird 
icon-theme-name=elementary-xfce 
font-name=Droid Sans 10 
xft-antialias=true 
xft-dpi=96 
xft-hintstyle=slight 
xft-rgba=rgb 
show-language-selector=true
As is seen, there are quite interesting possibilities here ...  
| EDIT (26.04.2013): First line, 'logo' doesn't work in Debian Sid (I do not know about Xubuntu. But probably it does - this bit of code is taken from Xubuntu). In Debian the icon has to be changed in file /usr/share/lightdm-gtk-greeter/greeter.ui
|added: With unfreezing of the Debian came also new version on Lightdm... which doesn't have greeter.ui file anymore. It's told that it's in-built now. Means, you can take source, change glade file and rebuild your Lightdm. A hassle, I would say... Also - latest iterations of Lightdm (Debian Sid) doesn't have session chooser anymore. One can pick them from upper menu, as 'default'. Really idiotic... add ends|
Object is quite at the beginning of file and it's id is image1, icon_name probably 'computer'. Greeter seeks it in usr/share/icons/gnome/256x256/devices/ - put your new icon there and do sudo gtk-update-icon-cache /usr/share/icons/gnome. Edit greeter.ui - replace 'computer' with name of your new icon (NO png!). Save, logout / login.
PS! I found such address: ... icons/hicolor/64x64/devices/ in web. It wasn't so for me, but might be so in some other configuration.
Second line, background, is OK and works. Probably even when you simply stick your new file into proper folder. I did it through 'update alternatives'. The file probably HAS to be png.
Third line, theme. In version of Greybird I have in Debian, things seem to work, but not entirely. Needs further investigation. Xubuntus' lightdm.css under its Greybird, of the contrary, does everything right. EDIT ENDS |

lightdm.conf has only 2 lines by default - and those are  not good to play with. But here goes this added 'quest...'.
[SeatDefaults] 
greeter-session=lightdm-gtk-greeter 
user-session=xubuntu 
allow-guest=false
Playing around  with those things should make something change. Beware.

Xscreensaver

It seems to be very much default in most distros. And its lock screen is ugly like hell.
In Xubuntu it's slightly tweaked, but still ugly.
In Vsido - all natural - it looks like hairy pile of crap.
Unfortunately, it's also quite difficult to tweak - for example, the picture seems to be the holy grail of Xscreensaver dev-people. They do not want it changed and have secreted it away. I didn't find it at all.
What I DID find:
In you home folder is file .xscreensaver... Alas, there isn't anything overly exciting in this one...
What you have to do is: make a new file named .Xdefaults (in Xubuntu you already have it) into home folder. And fill it with Xscreensavers' parameters.
Alas, I am not going to put this file here - it's not short and has silly wide formatting  - but, the best way to proceed is to use Xubuntus' default tweaked file. Simply copy it to your ~/home/username/. It works in Debian without any problems. That I have tested.
And then, having the base file - tweak away. And I haven't tested that yet -very much, except that the code is, of course, nicely touchy for mistakes, and presents interesting yellow error messages.

Xfce customization, less obvious

We are dealing with Xubuntu here

- Moving things on panels. Right-click on item, pick 'move'. Obvious, yes – but what wasn't so obvious to me, is how items align and stay in groups. There are invisible separators on panels, and you can add more or delete them, according to need. Easiest way to find default ones is: Right-click a panel, open 'panel/panel preferences/items. All things on panel are listed there, also separators – double-click and change 'transparent' to something else. And now you can see it on panel. 'Expand' means that separator pushes items away on both sides. That is, separator in center of panel makes items go to both ends. Do experiment, it's frustratingly educational.

- Xfce menu lacks 'lock screen' option. If needed, it's easy to create: Open your menu editor and add new item to right place, name it, and add exec command: xflock4. Pick an icon. Save, done.
- Xfce has such a nice thing as mime editor (in Settings). Means, you can make certain apps to handle certain files (can't change system defaults, though). If some file is opened in freaky way – like jpg with Firefox, and you can't find jpg at all in mime editor – then open this jpg with app you want to be default. Entry should now appear to mime list. Double-clicking on entry opens edit. There might be occasional need to fix entries which point to app that you removed (but mime didn't notice that). Or something...
- Xfce can have only one wallpaper over all workspaces. Compiz and KDE, for example, can have different ones. There is app called 'wallpaperoz', it has to be downloaded from web and manually installed. This app enables different wallpapers, and also changes them as frequently as you want. BUT, it's slow and lagging when you change workspaces. So, I tried it and I removed it.
- Docks. I am not sure what for they are good – as Xfce lets you make several freely customizable panels and fill them with launchers, drawers, widgets and whatnot. But anyway – there you have some names for googling: Plank dock (simple), AWN (it's not developed anymore), and most famous currently – Cairo dock (looks very pimpy and mac-ish).
- Themes and icons. Next post will be about this. Here I say only - well, obvious: for a simple tuning, look into 'Appearance', 'Window manager' and 'Window manager tweaks' and play around.

Configuration editors: There are occasions when some settings need to be tweaked manually. For that there are configuration editors. If in need or simply curious, take a look. Proper caution should be exercised, clicking like a blind moron is not advisable!
Xfce has a package 'xfce4-settings' which contains xfce4-settings-editor.
Gnome-specific settings come through gconf-editor, Linux Mint uses dconf-editor. Mate desktop one is called mateconf-editor. And so on. Depending on distro, an editor might be already installed – or not.

Tweaking of Grub2 - Not recommended without extensive pre-research!
For serious tweaking DO READ tutorials before, experimenting with bootloader IS dangerous!
One overview is here... googling 'tweaking grub2' gives a lot more.
Here are three less risky things (provided that no errors are made):
- Some easily changeable (and commented) parameters (wait-time before booting OS, for one) are in file /etc/default/grub
- To remove memtest entry from boot menu (if it is there). There is file /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+
Go there and simply make this file non-executable, in terminal:
sudo chmod -x 20_memtest86+
- If using Ubuntu there are 'Advanced options' entries in boot menu. Those folders contain entries to boot older kernels. If your new updated one works (reboot is mandatory, so you will know if it works) then there is no especial need to keep those older kernels (they take disk space too).
Check which is your last, working one. Type in terminal: uname -r
and you get number of current version. Rev up your Synaptic and find all 'linux-image' and 'linux-header' packages. 'Completely remove' those that are OLDER than your current one (lesser ver number). Be very careful NOT to remove the newest ones. And after all that, type in terminal:  
update-grub
Done.

6. Mint 14.1 Cinnamon + Mate

How Mate looks (as of February 2013)

Those two desktops co-existed almost two weeks. Record for me, of course. Partially it's explainable by my then-fixation with software. Means, I didn't make too many efforts to better my Linux (read: break it).

SOME OBSERVATIONS

One thing which makes a noob-user gawk is main menu hodge-podge after successfully adding another session. Means – new DE adds its menu-items to your existing menu. Not all of them – there are some rules – but quite a lot, and in this case there were bunch of same things (editor, calculator, terminal etc) but of slightly different version. Explainable by mixed Gnome 2 and 3 sources. Then I had Cinnamon-settings in Mate, and mateconf-editor in Cinnamon...

Made me quite angry, you know – I had carefully perused nicely available (not every distro provides that) menu-editor, had made some group-changes (shitty thing to do!), uninstalled apps, added apps... I had made a system, and now it was …$%$... very unruly.

Cinnamon and Mate both have editor for such kind of work. After you have hidden/shown/moved/deleted things in both sessions' menus – it stays like that. Except maybe couple of items which might have their own life and behave … differently despite of your wishes. But that's the free thinking of Linux.

I am not going to blab about how editors exactly work. The process is quite self-explaining. Try it. But try not to delete things only because you can – to get them back is not self-explaining.

Mate has panels to add! They are movable and re-sizeable. You can swap your Stuff between them. Or move this Stuff into different order. And you can add new Stuff. Right-click the panel, discover the menu and find out. It's possible to create quite funny mess! Just kidding. Or not...

Settings/Appearance. The place to visit, and fast – to show those devs that they do not know an iota about real design. Play around, get new themes, icons, and shit. They do not work all as they are supposed to – but that's a part of fun. Throw out what you don't like. Tweak others (if you can). Download even more themes, icons, stuff. In some point you will have problems – as said, not everything is 100% compatible, despite being there and free to take.

INFO. Took me some time to get the idea: There are two separate managers in Linux for making windows on your desktop. One makes window frames (windows manager), another creates inside-style of every window (desktop manager). So you can apply features from different theme sources – frames from one theme, insides from another – and of course, icons from third. I like it.

Customizing, tweaking:
I like darker wallpapers and darker panels – means some black text gets invisible. Changing themes makes some things better, but probably not all. Panel-clock text, for my theme choices, tended to remain black. Following is taken from Mints' web-tutorials, and it also works. So, proceed like that:

Simple text file (use default text editor) has to be created, name has to be .gtkrc-2.0 (with dot at the beginning too!), save it to ~home/username/ - means, to root of your real home directory.
Put following code into your new file.

"my-panel-clock" 
{ 
fg[NORMAL] = "#FFFFFF" 
font_name = "sans bold 11" 
} 
widget "*.clock-applet-button.*" style "my-panel-clock"

Save. After logout/login – clock text will be white. #FFFFFF means white and font_name is also place to test your hand.

Silly and annoying default time-formats.
Sequence %F %H:%M displays the time in the format 2012-10-13 15:17.

Problem is, Mate clock doesn't have field for adding this. To aid comes mateconf-editor. Open editor, navigate through tree to: /apps/panel/applets/applet_clock

and click on "format", change value to "custom" - then click on "custom_format" field and change it to abovementioned string.

Took me several tries because of moronic mistakes, but finally it definitely worked.

More interesting and educating reading concerning time-formats.