Most things are personal preference, these are the things that I do to customize elementary OS.
Install dconf-editor
dconf-editor is used to change GNOME settings, and is useful to change settings where there is no options in the GUI.
Install with:
sudo apt-get install dconf-editor
Disable aero snap
Since I put windows next to each other, they’d always snap by mistake.
With dconf-editor, open the following setting:
org > gnome > pantheon > desktop > gala > bahavior
Then, uncheck “edge-tiling”.
Install Elementary Tweaks
Elementary Tweaks is a little app that install an icon in System Settings from where you can change a few things.
For Loki, use:
sudo apt install software-properties-common && sudo add-apt-repository ppa:philip.scott/elementary-tweaks && sudo apt update && sudo apt install elementary-tweaks
gnome-software
My favorite app to install and download software is gnome-software. It will enable installing software by double-clicking .deb files.
Install with:
sudo apt-get install gnome-software
Restore user session
One cool thing about macOS (which I come from) is that it restores your open apps and windows when you log in.
There is no such thing in elementary OS at the moment, but I found a script that does exactly that: http://blog.thewebsitepeople.org/2013/07/gnome-session-save-and-restore/.
It works great, just save your session before logging out:
perl ./session save
Then, restore it like so:
perl ./session restore 2
In order for it to work, you need to install the following package:
sudo apt-get install wmctrl
Touchpad
On a MacBook Air, the touchpad driver is horrible.
I did a lot of things, but pretty much switched the driver to Synaptics and change lots of settings until the thing worked for me.
First, switch to synaptics:
http://elementaryos.stackexchange.com/a/7562
When you install Synaptics, you can’t change settings from Switchboard, so you have to set things manually using synclient and adding configuration files in /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/.
It’s a mess. I ended up creating a script that I run at startup, with the following contents:
########################### synaptics ###########################
# fix sensitivity
synclient FingerHigh=75
# detect palm
synclient PalmDetect=1
# disable clicking/tapping with two fingers (normally right-click)
synclient ClickFinger2=0
synclient TapButton2=0
# right-button at bottom right
synclient RightButtonAreaLeft=2800
synclient RightButtonAreaTop=3919
# natural scrolling
synclient VertScrollDelta=-111
synclient HorizScrollDelta=-111
# kinetics scrolling
synclient CoastingSpeed=15
synclient CoastingFriction=80
# tracker speed
synclient MinSpeed=0.2
synclient MaxSpeed=3
synclient AccelFactor=0.015
The script takes care of natural scrolling, kinetic scrolling, fixes issues with the MacBook Air touchpad like jumping cursor, etc.
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