Disabling the way too loud Umbongo login sound at startup in Ubuntu Oneiric

You'd think that the bug in Oneiric beta would have been sorted out by the time 11.10 was generally available, but no, they're still thumping away at every startup.

Up until 11.04, hey used to obey the volume you had set in your sound preferences, but they don't seem to anymore - they're always deafening.

Some of this may be down to the messing about I had to do just to get login to work at all (lightdm didn't work with nvidia-current for my nvidia graphics card, so I had to switch back to gdm), but all I know if that no matter what I did, I couldn't get those drums to SHUT UP.

Here are a few methods:

1) At terminal type:

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.sound event-sounds false

Result: this didn't work for me, although it has worked for others. Retried same with sudo, no difference.

2) At terminal type:

gksudo gedit /usr/share/gnome/autostart/libcanberra-login-sound.desktop

Go to the line that reads "NoDisplay=true" and change true to false.

Result: this also didn't work.

3) Read the rest of that file, and noticed that the command called is:

/usr/bin/canberra-gtk-play --id="desktop-login" --description="GNOME Login"

However, the umbongo drum sound file is actually "system-ready.ogg", and not "desktop-login.ogg" which is actually rather nice.

I concluded that this file has nothing whatsoever to do with the bongo drums that make my ears bleed.

4) At terminal type:

sudo rm /usr/share/sounds/ubuntu/stereo/system-ready.ogg

Result: I don't actually know, since this somehow seemed like cheating ;) However, I can't see why it wouldn't work.

5) Since that file mentions canberra, I searched synaptic package manager for canberra. Found "gnome-session-canberra", description: GNOME session log in and log out sound events. Decided to uninstall it.

Result: No more bleeding eardrums and spilt coffee :D

Edit:
If all else fails, this one is sure to work...
$ sudo su gdm -c "gconftool-2 --set /desktop/gnome/sound/event_sounds --type bool false"


All this really does beg the question: did they really have to make it so hard for people to turn a login sound off, or at least turn it down?

Configuring Synaptics Touchpad in Ubuntu

If you want to take advantage of the more advanced features of your Synaptics touchpad in Ubuntu, such as two-finger scrolling, multitouch and circular scrolling (or chiral scrolling), then you'll need to know how to configure it.

Open a terminal and type:

synclient -l                                                                      


This will list the current touchpad settings, which might look something like this:

pchelptech@ubuntu:~$ synclient -l

Parameter settings:

    LeftEdge                = 1773

    RightEdge               = 5471

    TopEdge                 = 1665

    BottomEdge              = 4829

    FingerLow               = 24

    FingerHigh              = 29

    FingerPress             = 255

    MaxTapTime              = 180

    MaxTapMove              = 248

    MaxDoubleTapTime        = 180

    SingleTapTimeout        = 180

    ClickTime               = 100

    FastTaps                = 0

    EmulateMidButtonTime    = 75

    EmulateTwoFingerMinZ    = 280

    EmulateTwoFingerMinW    = 6

    VertScrollDelta         = 113

    HorizScrollDelta        = 113

    VertEdgeScroll          = 1

    HorizEdgeScroll         = 1

    CornerCoasting          = 0

    VertTwoFingerScroll     = 0

    HorizTwoFingerScroll    = 0

    MinSpeed                = 1

    MaxSpeed                = 1.75

    AccelFactor             = 0.0353482

    TrackstickSpeed         = 40

    EdgeMotionMinZ          = 29

    EdgeMotionMaxZ          = 159

    EdgeMotionMinSpeed      = 1

    EdgeMotionMaxSpeed      = 452

    EdgeMotionUseAlways     = 0

    TouchpadOff             = 0

    LockedDrags             = 0

    LockedDragTimeout       = 5000

    RTCornerButton          = 2

    RBCornerButton          = 3

    LTCornerButton          = 0

    LBCornerButton          = 0

    TapButton1              = 1

    TapButton2              = 3

    TapButton3              = 2

    ClickFinger1            = 1

    ClickFinger2            = 1

    ClickFinger3            = 1

    CircularScrolling       = 0                                                   
    CircScrollDelta         = 0.1                                                 

    CircScrollTrigger       = 0

    CircularPad             = 0

    PalmDetect              = 0

    PalmMinWidth            = 9

    PalmMinZ                = 199

    CoastingSpeed           = 20

    CoastingFriction        = 50

    PressureMotionMinZ      = 29

    PressureMotionMaxZ      = 159

    PressureMotionMinFactor = 1

    PressureMotionMaxFactor = 1

    ResolutionDetect        = 1

    GrabEventDevice         = 1

    TapAndDragGesture       = 1

    AreaLeftEdge            = 0

    AreaRightEdge           = 0

    AreaTopEdge             = 0

    AreaBottomEdge          = 0

Let's say you want to enable circular scrolling, starting at the top right hand corner, here's how you'd do it:

pchelptech@ubuntu:~$ synclient CircularScrolling=1 CircScrollTrigger=2

For a full list of available functions, check out this page:

http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/karmic/man4/synaptics.4.html