How to hide mounted drive folders on the desktop

1 - Press Alt & F2 and enter this command: gconf-editor

2 - Now browse down to the following key: apps \ nautilus \ desktop

3 - You should see a key in the right-hand pane called volumes_visible. Remove the checkbox from it, and the icons will instantly disappear from the desktop. Remember that you can always access the drives from the “Computer” icon, or easily in the file browser.

You can also check the option to show My Computer icon on the Desktop

My first Ubuntu and its customizations

1. Moving window controls to right

How to change window buttons?

From the Ubuntu 10.04, Lucid Lynx Desktop,

* press "Alt+F2" - You will get the "Run Application" Window.
* Type "gconf-editor" - You will get a Configuration Editor Screen as shown in the figure.
* Goto "Apps -> Metacity -> General" under the window dropdown menu.
* On the right side you can see a key named "button_layout"

It will have a value "maximize,minimize,close" in a different order. Change it to "menu:maximize,minimize,close". The editing can be done by right clicking on the value and pressing "Edit Key".

Press ok. This should do it.