Scoundrels

There are some neat things that I have been looking into for customizing my installation of Ubuntu 9.04, one of which is embedding a terminal into the desktop so that I don’t have to worry about closing it on accident (not to mention that it looks cool, too). Seeing as I have had to do this multiple times, I decided to write down the steps. While I know there are other tutorials, I spent too long looking for one that worked correctly (read: to my needs).

Software Required

• Compiz must be running. You’ll also need CompizConfig, as detailed below.
• Terminal (duh)

1. Getting Software

The first thing we will do is install CompizConfig. For this we will open up the Add/Remove application. For those new to Ubuntu, you click Applications, and select Add/Remove. After this opens, search for compiz and check Advanced Desktop Effects Settings (ccsm). Now search for irssi and check it. Click apply, and when the programs are finished installing, you can close the window.

2. Creating a Terminal Profile

For the embedding to work, we need to create a new profile for terminal. We need to do this because Compiz will change the behavior of the terminal depending on it’s title.

Open up a terminal (press Alt+F2 and type gnome-terminal). On the menu bar, select Edit, then Profiles. Click New and name it “deskie” (or whatever else you want to as long as it’s a unique name).

Under the General tab, uncheck “Show menubar by default”. Moving over to the Title tab, name it deskie (or what you named it before, if different) and set to “keep initial title”. Under the Colors tab, select White on Black, or whatever will suit your theme. Next we will move to Background. Set the Transparency to 0% or whatever fits your theme. Under the Scrolling tab, disable the scrollbar. After you’ve done what you want with this, close out of the profile editor.

3. Setting up CompizConfig

Now open CompizConfig (under System -> Preferences -> CompizConfig). The first thing we’ll do here is search for Window Decoration, and click on it. Under Decoration Window, we’ll replace “any” with “!title=deskie“, without the quotes. Now search for Window Rules. Enable it, then click on it. We’ll be adding “title=deskie” (without quotes) to:

• Skip taskbar
• Skip pager
• Below
• Sticky
• Non resizable windows
• Non minimizable windows
• Non maximizable windows
• Non closable windows

After these are filled in, go to the Size rules tab. Click New and add “title=deskie” and set the height and width you want the window to be. When you are satisfied, close CompizConfig.

4. The Aftermath

If you want to see what you’ve done, press Alt+F2 and type “gnome-terminal –window-with-profile=deskie” as the command and hit enter. You should now have a neat “embedded” terminal. To move it where you want, hold Alt, then click and drag.

If you want one to load on startup, go to System -> Preferences -> Startup Applications, and click Add. Name it “Embedded Terminal” and put “gnome-terminal –window-with-profile=deskie” as the command.

That should work, as it has for me. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, feel free to let me know!