Help: Ubuntu! Video: How to Use AWN in Ubuntu 11.04

Our latest video is up and running.  In this video we will cover how to use AWN (Avant Window Manager) as a dockbar.  I will be running AWN from with Ubuntu 11.04 using the Ubuntu Classic desktop environment.

Why would you want to use AWN in the first place, we have Unity now?
Simple, Unity is kind of heavy on the resource side of things.  I have ran it on a few physical machines (older hardware) and on several virtual machines (using VirtualBox).  And in every case (except for my newer desktop PC) it caused the system to take a little longer to load, and in some cases even to use for daily/simple tasks.  I like the idea of using a dockbar.  Especially to mess with my friends who are Apple fans because with a dock and the right theme, it's extremely easy to get that 'Mac' look to the desktop.  Plus, it's just fun to play around with some extra customization.  Whereas, with Unity what you see if what you get with it.

Themes are pretty easy to find for AWN, and they are incredibly easy to install and use.  Plus, you can move the dockbar around the screen and you pretty much have a really simple way to add or take away applets from the dock with very little trouble.  And it's pretty stable as well, so there isn't as much of a worry about hanging up or crashing.

As always, be sure to swing by my YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/techiesmarts
There we have more videos and will be continuing our Help Ubuntu! video series for folks who may be new to Ubuntu or Linux in general.  Our next video will focus on some of the software included in the base install of Ubuntu and certain settings within them that will help ease some transition pains for new Ubuntu users.

Also find us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/techiesmarts
And our Facebook Page: TechieSmarts on Facebook! http://on.fb.me/qwpd4i







If you decide that the AWN dockbar isn't to your liking, and you want to reset your GNOME panel back to default (after a GNOME panel) than the following commands are used in this video to reset GNOME:

Open Terminal and type (after each line hit the Enter key):
gconftool-2 --recursive-unset /apps/panel
rm -rf ~/.gconf/apps/panel
pkill gnome-panel

And that should reset it for you.

Happy Surfing!