Spatial Desktop: One Script, Ultimate Minimalist Desktop

By , Published November 25, 2009

Spatial Desktop is a theming script that transforms your GNOME desktop into a minimal and uncluttered space.

after

Essentially  a combination of themes, applications and tweaks, it maximizes space by removing GNOME Panels, toolbars and applets, replacing them with Docky, GNOME Do and Conky €“ all in a descreet, sleek package.

Colours

Spatial Desktop comes in three colours, all of which are installable from the same script: -

View whocares

Smaller-screened netbook or laptop users might find Spatial Desktop useful as will those looking for an uncluttered and minimal space to work in.

Even if you’re just curious about it, try it out anyway! It has a restore function will will set everything back to how you had them before.

How To Get Spatial Desktop

Download the script:

wget http://spatial-desktop.googlecode.com/files/spatial_desktop_installer.sh

Make it executable (so you can double click it to run): 

chmod +x spatial_desktop_installer.sh

Finally, run it by double clicking on it.


Install Options

screenshot_055

When you run the Spatial Desktop script you'll be given a list of options. The important ones are: -

Default
This will install all of the default settings. If you’ve already made changes to your desktop i don’t recommend using this option.

Custom
This is the option i used. It allows you to have a hand in some of the changes that could be made.

Restore
This will set everything back to how you had it before.

Custom Options In Detail

Theming

screenshot_056 
The default settings for Compiz in Spatial are minimal and functional rather than eye-candy laden. (E.G. uses Desktop Wall rather than Cube, no wobbly Windows, etc.) If you have Compiz set up how you like it and want to keep it the same in Spatial Desktop simply uncheck 'Compiz' in the custom setup steps to carry your settings over to the.

Spatial uses the Plano metacity theme and the Murrina Smoothie GTK theme for GNOME. Icons are from the GNOME Colours icon set. Wallpaper is by mx-steel.

The system font is Sans.

Gedit is themed to look like this: –

screenshot_061 

using a theme called "darkmate". The terminal will look like this: –

screenshot_060 

As with the other options you can uncheck these if they’re not to your taste.

Applications
screenshot_057

Depending on what you already have installed, you may want to uncheck Docky and Gnome-Do.

Conky adds the date and time in the left hand corner, and Trayer adds the applets in the right corner, so keep these both checked.

Tweaks

screenshot_058
Uncheck mailto links if you use Evolution, Spicebird or Thunderbird for you mail.

Volumes on the desktop is a minor choice and can be disabled/enabled anytime from UbuntuTweak if you change your mind but use Spatial Desktop.

I personally like having system sounds, but, again, this is a minor tweak that can be re-enabled if you do stick with Spatial Desktop and decide you want them back later.

Done?

Once you've chosen all of your settings and clicked OK, the script will do its job and install the required parts. After this you will be prompted to Logout. Upon logging back in you will presented with your Spatial Desktop.

Restoring Your Previous Desktop

Tried Spatial but want your previous setup back? No fear, simply run the script again and choose restore. The script will revert all of the settings and then prompt you to log out and back in. Once you have you'll see your previous desktop looking almost untouched.

Things to note€¦

  • There is no €œmain menu€ €“ all applications are accessed via GNOME Do and Docky.
  • There is no €œlog out€ applet, this, too, is handled by GNOME Do.
  • Trayer doesn't support most GNOME Panel applets meaning there is no indicator applet, no messaging applet or any others that you use.
  • After restoring your previous settings you may find Conky still running. Issuing a 'killall conky' from the terminal will solve this.

Project page: http://code.google.com/p/spatial-desktop/

Article originally appeared on omgubuntu.co.uk

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  • http://openid.maximebf.com/ maxime

    Thanks a lot for this great article!

  • manny

    looks awesome

  • Rasmus Zetter

    Hey! Someone copied my looks! :P

    Seriously, this is almost identical to what I use.

  • Dragonbite

    For minimalistic desktop, I prefer using Xfce and removing ALL panels.

    When it’s booted up there’s nothing but the desktop wallpaper looking back at you.

    When you want to do something, you right-click anywhere on the desktop and the main menu pops up. If you middle-click then you get a list of desktops and any apps open on them.

    Add Conky if you want some information on the screen and bind keys to produce the two menus and you’re all set. The “ultimate” minimalistic desktop.

  • Anonymous

    This is the kind of desktop I like, very minimal, and this is a much easier way to do it.
    Here was my desktop before Karmic (sorry for long url, from msn live photo):

    http://public.blu.livefilestore.com/y1p0JKMyk_6pNkVBI1f0Nh6PKZKX3jo3G5qfCcu3fEidw7IXA8Vgf5BIC5tTh8tpW_kByRSy5uFXORrpuV3rgYVCg/Screenshot-1.png

    Later I made the top panel autohide quickly editing gconf, and changed my gnome-do to the docky theme, worked out really nice.

    I may go back to something like this, I wanted to try the new Karmic NBR(E?) and I like it, but i seem to always end up using gnome-do for everything.

    • Anonymous

      Hey i really like that desktop!
      Particularly all the stats on the bottom. Is that conky? Or something else? It looks awesome!

      • Anonymous

        Ya, thanks conky. you can see i was still workin on it when i took this picture. i think that was about at the final stage though :)

  • Anonymous

    I absolutely love this theme, and how easy it was to install everything at once. This is a great example of how themes should be done. I normally don’t really care if my desktop is minimalistic, but this pulls it off with perfection. I plan on sticking with this for a while, and with the multiple color themes if I get bored of seeing this blue background I can switch to another color. Thanks a bunch, made my day!

  • http://twitter.com/Temikus Artemis Yakimenko

    Thank you for another great article :)

  • Anonymous

    My desktop is looking better already! http://imgur.com/YYwHq.jpg

    • Anonymous

      Really nice! i want my desktop will be same of your desktop! But i don`t know how i install Spatial Desktop right….pls tell me point to point

      • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ d0od

        If you follow the instructions in the article point-to-point you can’t really go wrong.

        Open a termainal and then paste the two commands. double click the script. choose custom. choose your options. logout. done. :)

        • Anonymous

          I cant see the applets in the right corner,that is the problem :( I paste the two commands,but…i don`t know how i remove the panel (in the top of my desktop) and i add the applets in the right corner…

          • Primordium

            Check before install if you can activate your Compiz effects in the “Change Background menu” if you dont you probably need to mess with xorg.conf and come with a solution!

            By the way that “problem” is registed in official site … use the link in the post

  • Nir

    I love it, but how do I reach the menus now ?

    • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ d0od

      As stated in the “things to note” section of the article – via Gnome DO.

  • pt

    it still has a panel for the tray area, it would be good if someone can build docky plugin for the tray area

  • http://olympusdigitalpen.blogspot.com/ dr. watson

    This is exactly what ubuntu needs. While I admit that the default theme in 9.10 looks better than prior releases and while I understand that Ubuntu is a very extensible compared to Windows and Mac in terms of theming and customization, I just can’t help but to feel that out-of-the-box it looks rather dated compared to most modern operating systems and let’s face it first looks can be important as we are living in a very superfiscial society where sometimes it’s what’s on the surface that truely counts. If Ubuntu looked like this out-of-the-box could you imagine the warm reception ? Just look at all the press Windows 7 recieved for it’s theme, taskbar, and new wallpapers – press good enough to forgive sins of the past…

  • adamvert

    BE CAREFUL! This f^*&ing thing doesn’t restore properly. At least it didn’t work for me.

    Anyone know how I can get my menu back?

    • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ d0od

      What menu and where? Specifics help problems get solved quicker. Have you logged out and back in?

      I will add that the restore process worked flawlessly for me.

      • adamvert

        Yeah, sorry for not being more specific, but I’m not that happy – as you can probably imagine.

        I meant the gnome panel with the main menu on it, which I’ve got back again now by running gnome-panel (so admittedly not that complicated…)

        I had a look at the .spatial-desktop directory that this script creates, and the restore.sh file was empty, for some reason. Looking through the script, I don’t really understand why this happened, but it did.

      • Anonymous

        I’m having a similar problem, When I try to restore it says
        Restoring using
        $
        help

        • tylerannosaurus

          I’m having the same problem….REALLY want my old desktop back. Also, the script didn’t remove the panel…

  • Anonymous

    Does anybody know of a menu plugin for docky? I mean. A way to put a replacement for the Applications, Places and System menus in docky… I know how to handle gnome-do, having the menus there would just be a bit easier. :P

  • http://computergyan.blogspot.com/ Sayantan

    Nice one. I like it. But i guess we should give docky to mature more before average users actually use it. this is because it crashes . it crashed on me twice. and alt+f2 is disabled in spatial desktop . and so is alt+f1. i had to run docky from gnome-do. most people wont know that. plus gnome do does not index all new applications on the fly. you need to restart your system for gnome do to index the newly installed applications. but nevertheless it is a very good step in the right direction.

  • Anonymous

    OK,my right screen applets from aren`t show.

  • Anonymous

    I love this, but since installing it I get the following errors when trying to run programs from the terminal. Can anyone advise on this?

    http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1010011/term.png

  • Haji

    “Tried Spatial but want your previous setup back? No fear, simply run the script again and choose restore. The script will revert all of the settings and then prompt you to log out and back in. Once you have you’ll see your previous desktop looking almost untouched.”
    This script was worse than a virus, thank you for destroying gnome.
    http://code.google.com/p/spatial-desktop/wiki/Restoring
    Just as bad! Your script works, and then leaves the users with no other option than to fix the mess themselves. Don’t do that.

    • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ d0od

      Without meaning to be rude, the restore function has worked well for most people hence no-one else decrying that it “destroyed gnome”.

      I don’t force you to try these things out, either, and i did warn that you should make a double backup just incase. The restore function worked flawlessly for me so it can’t be screwed up – don’t translate your experience as the standard of this application. Why not go report your issue on the google.code page for this? That way they can fix whatever caused the script to go wrong in YOUR case.

  • Anonymous

    OK,i can`t use this script,thats all!

  • Anonymous

    If i was running vanilla ubuntu I would try this out. I’ve got a good install (finally) of xubuntu 9.10 so I’m not gonna mess around with it right now. This looks and sounds awesome though :-)

  • Mexican user

    dood, I think I screwed up on something…
    here is what I get from using the script:
    a) No trayer
    b) No conky
    c) No Gnome-Do
    d) No panel
    e) Pressing Alt+F2 does NOTHING.

    Now If i want to do anything I have to “right-click” the wallpaper, click on Open terminal, then start everything manually. but if I close the terminal everything will be gone.

    I really wanted to like this, but so far it has screwed my desktop to something “Too Minimalist a.k.a. only wallpaper”
    Any help would be greatly appreciated.

    • Mexican user

      Oh well, I fixed it manually!
      And not all was lost, now my wallpaper and Xsplash are synchronized!
      I am just getting the ugly font color on the terminal but I can live with that :)

  • Anonymous

    nerdgasm

  • Anonymous

    How do I adjust the clock in the left hand corner from 24 hour format to 12 hour format

  • http://lajungladelpoder.blogspot.com/ Santiago

    Works also with jaunty?

  • http://dagensdans.se/ Lwordish

    I run the script. First with Customized option and then with “Upgrade to Compiz Fusion”. All my menus have now disappered. All I see is my desktop icons, the clock & date and the volume in the right corner.

    I want to re-run the script to restore to my previous setup, but I can’t figure out how to open the terminal (or Nautilus).

    I tried the Spatial-remove tip from haji (http://code.google.com/p/spatial-desktop/wiki/Restoring). And it says to use (superkey) + t , to open terminal. I pretty much tried every key with t. No one opens terminal for me.

    What is my superkey? Is it a 3-key combo?

    • http://dagensdans.se/ Lwordish

      Alright, I fixed it. Right clicked an icon on my desktop and chosed “Open with other application”. Then I hit “Browse” and went to my homefolder. I draged the spatial-script to the desktop and then doubleclicked it. Picked “restore” and it worked. At least got restored to my “customized” options, and from there I could change averything back with System – Preferences – Appereance.

  • Anonymous

    Even though this script worked for me as far as running it I found I didn’t like it in the end without having my gnome menu to use with docky. So I tried the restore option and that failed and tried all the manual ways to restore everything with that to fail as well. I can press super button plus f2 to bring up run and can’t get the panels back unless I leave the terminal open. I think the project needs work before it is ready for the masses. If anyone knows of a menu I can use with docky I would try it again but for now it is a no go for me. I was using this script on a machine with Ubuntu 10.04 Beta 1 AMD64 machine. Everything was great until I used this script.

  • Anonymous

    I’m the same, but I’m forced to use Cairo Dock or AWN on the older computers, since they don’t jitter around and suck up RAM like the new Docky does. I have no clue why- maybe it’s because of the new enhancements in AWN? Avant is becoming quite nice, and adopted most of the features I really liked in Docky, so it’ll be interesting to see where all these docks go. No matter where, it’s certain they’re going to make Mac OS X look like a total wuss (they already have, but still).