PC Tonic

We all keep talking about how Linux is more secure than Windows, how it provides the same desktop experience for no cost, how it can be run on very old machines, how Tux bombards XP’s green pasture blah blah blah…but if people are to use Linux, they should also get the same “tiny tweaks” that they enjoy in Windows / Mac. Take the exploited but obscure mouse pointer for example. Some people prefer single-click to open files and folders, while others would rather have a monkey’s tail as their mouse pointer! Thankfully, Linux does provide these options and you should be able to tweak them to your liking with a few …errr… clicks. In this post, we’ll be using the Ubuntu OS, which is very popular with first-time Linux users. However, do note that this tutorial can be aptly modified and applied to other Gnome based distros, like Fedora Gnome, Linux Mint Gnome etc.

Click twice once to open

If you’d rather have your files and folders open in a single click, fire up any Nautilus window (like your Home folder under Places). Now, go to Edit > Preferences and hit the Behavior tab. Here, you’ll find the option to have your items opened in single clicks.

Get yourself a glossy pointer

On your desktop, go to System > Preferences > Appearance. In the “Theme” tab under the Appearance Preferences window, click Customize… and then open the Pointer tab. Here, you can select from a list of 7 pointers (may vary depending on your version), and adjust their size as well.

Are you a leftie? Have the mouse configured for you.

Navigate to System > Preferences > Mouse from your desktop, and change the Mouse Orientation to Left-handed. Now the conventional right mouse button will act as the left and vice versa. The General tab under Mouse also holds a lot more options to change your pointer’s speed, sensitivity, double-click timeouts etc. Oh, and you can make that bulb glow with a double click!

Use a prolonged single click as a double click

Under the same Mouse Preferences window, move to the Accessibility tab and tick the option under it. Adjust the slider for the single-to-double time gap.

Mouse gestures!

Mouse gestures have become very popular with browsers, especially the innovative and sleek Opera (use extensions like FireGestures or All-in-One Gestures to get the feature in Firefox). If you love gestures, why not bring it to your desktop as well! Under the same Accessibility tab, jump to the “Dwell Click” section and tick the “Initiate click when stopping pointer movement” option. Now, select “Choose type of click with mouse gestures”. I did feel like the dwell click options of Ubuntu aren’t very well polished yet, but that may be because I’m not very comfortable with mouse gestures. 

So there you go, click your heart out in Linux.