Native Look and Feel for Netbeans on Xfce

Netbeans displays a different look and feel than the rest of the applications on Xfce.

To fix this, just add --laf GTK to the command that runs Netbeans (the command might different on your configuration), like so:
/bin/netbeans --laf GTK

Install Sun Java 6 SDK on Xubuntu 11.10

Since 11.10 (X)Ubuntu does not provide the sun-java-jdk package, to install it open a terminal window and type:

sudo apt-get install python-software-properties
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ferramroberto/java
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jdk sun-java6-plugin


References:
http://superuser.com/questions/353983/how-do-i-install-the-sun-java-sdk-in-ubuntu-11-10-oneric

Install Clementine Music Player (Amarok 1.4 fork) in Xubuntu 11.10

Amarok 1.4 was the primary reason for me to be using Kubuntu a few years ago. Simply put, it was awesome: it was simple to use and advanced features were included.

When KDE4 was released in 2008, Amarok went to version 2. It suffered so many changes that I felt that it lost its essence.

Clementine Music Player is a fork of Amarok's version 1.4 to port it to Qt 4.

Despite the fact that it is a Qt application and Xfce has GTK as its framework, I was so excited to have the good old Amarok back that I gave it a try. It met all my expectations and it works very well on my Xubuntu 11.10 environment; the keyboard multimedia keys work out-of-the-box (may I remind you that gmusicbrowser, the default music player on Xubuntu 11.10, doesn't support multimedia keys).

Clementines desktop integration is very good

To install Clementine on Xubuntu just type on a terminal window:
sudo apt-get install clementine
or

Click to install Clementine


References:
http://www.techdrivein.com/2010/07/clementine-04-rocks-i-love-open-source.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amarok_(software)

Related:
Fix look of KDE/Qt applications in Xfce/Xubuntu

Fix look of KDE/Qt applications in Xfce/Xubuntu

On a fresh install of Xubuntu 11.10, Qt (KDE) applications don't use the same style as the other applications.

VLC using the wrong style

VLC using the desktop style (greybird)

To fix this just install libgnome2-0, via terminal:
sudo apt-get install libgnome2-0

Or

Click here to install libgnome2-0

Add application to Xfce/Xubuntu session startup [Xubuntu >= 11.10]

When a user logs in, the desktop environment starts do load the necessary resources to provide its functionality. Some of this process is configurable by the user. For instance, the user can choose which applications will be run when the session is loaded.

fig.1 List of applications that will be started when the user logs in

Add Application to startup

1. Open 'Settings Manager'
2. Select 'Session and Startup'
3. On the 'Application Autostart' click on the 'Add' button
4. On the dialog that opens (fig.2) write the name of the application and the command that runs the application (description isn't mandatory).
5. Once you click 'OK' the application will be added to the list and will automatically be started on the next session login.

fig.2 Dialog for entering the information of the startup application

Related posts:
Edit Xfce Settings with graphical interface

Fix keyring for accessing Samba shares

If the Samba share that you are accessing is password protected, you'll be prompted to provide the login credentials for that share. It'll be given the choice for remembering the login information, so that it won't have to be entered every time the share is accessed.

However, for some reason every time the share was accessed share with nautilus, the login credentials were being asked persistently.
The way that I found to fix this was to remove the current keyring configuration:
$ rm ~/.gnome2/keyring

After that keyring behaved like it normally does: it prompts once for the credentials and stores them for later use if the 'Remember forever' option is selected.

Suspend on close laptop lid [Xubuntu 11.10]

When using a laptop, the ability to suspend is a important feature because it allows to save some battery when idle and resume operation almost instantly.

To suspend when laptop lid is closed proceed as follows:

1. Open 'Settings Manager'
2. Select 'On AC'
3. Select 'Suspend' from the combo-box.

Related:
Edit Xfce Settings with graphical interface