Then right click the panel, select "Add to panel" and add Gnome Global Menu. The menu will only be functional after you log out and log back in!

You can see both DockBarX and Window Applets (just the Window Buttons part of it) throughout all the screenshots in this post.

Since we're going to use the upper panel for the Global Menu, close buttons and notification area, it's a good idea to create a vertical panel and place DockBarX on it. If the theme you're using doesn't support vertical panels (vertical panels look ugly), you can use THIS script to fix it.

If you're not satisfied with the default themes, you can download about a douzen extra DockBarX themes from HERE

DockBarX is great because besides a window switcher, it can also be used as a launcher (simply right click an application and select "Pin application").

To install Window Applets, download the .deb from HERE , then install it, right click on the panel and select "Add to panel" and add "Window buttons", then place it wherever you want in the panel - I set mine to the left but you can of course place it on the right, next to the Session Indicator.

If in our Ubuntu Netbook Remix optimization guide we talked about replacing Window-picker-applet with Namebar , this time we're going to use Window Applets . Why? Well, because you can place the minimize-maximize-close buttons wherever you want on the panel, without the window title. We don't need a window title because that's included into Global Menu (step 1). For the window switcher we're going to stick with DockBarX but you can use Talika instead if you want.

Global Menu doesn't work with every application out there but you'll feel the difference once you try it out!

3. Battery Status

Battery Status dialog

Power Statistics (provided by GNOME Power Manager)

"Show" setting

CPU frequency scaling (provided by gnome-applets/cpufreq-applet)

Power Management preferences (provided by GNOME Power Manager)

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:iaz/battery-status && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install battery-status

Once installed, right click your Gnome panel, select "Add to panel" and then add the "Battery applet". When you first add it, it will ask you if you want to remove the power icon since it's no longer needed - select "Remove" (so it will remove it).

4. Browser

Firefox requires A LOT of customization to be truly efficient on a netbook so it would be a good idea to replace it with Chromium - a lot of saved space.





Since Chromium dev builds added WebM support, you may prefer it to the stable build. Install it using the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:chromium-daily/ppa && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install chromium-browser

Chromium is a great vertical space saver. But to save some more (actually we'll save about 1 inch of horizontal space in the tab bar), in the options set it to "Use system title bar and borders", then restart it. Ubuntu Netbook Edition automatically removes the title bar for maximized windows so using this you won't have a title bar in Chromium but now you'll also have 1 inch of extra space where the close-minimize-maximize buttons used to be - we don't need those since these buttons are already available on the panel. You can see the result of this small tweak in the screenshot above - no window buttons on Chromium.