<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type"> <title></title> </head> <body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"> me, I understand what you are saying. I only recently started using Ubuntu and I too feel like the screen is hogged by Gnome stuff. You can change the Gnome panels height, default font sizes, etc. But Gnome still feels BIG compared to my old windows setup. Even after playing with various settings, the file manager displays only about 50% of the files on screen at once than windows did (set to 'detail' view). I also noticed that redcuing the font size for window titlebars in Gnome doesn't seem to reduce the actual size of the titlebar itself (just the font). If the 'problem' that you are having is the same as I've described above (rather than a resolution setting issue) then I hope someone can help you out with some Gnome tweaks, because I'd love to see them! On a side note: for me this issue is similar to the difference between using the default WindowsXP theme and the 'classic' theme (ie, the default theme wastes too much space for my liking - as the titlebars are actually a fraction larger) me wrote: <blockquote cite="midc3297be10512010152k2ee0bb2dhec2b549186488f3b@mail.gmail.com" type="cite"> <blockquote type="cite"> <pre wrap=""> my biggest complaint about the desktop right now is, that in windows xp I have an enormous amount of room. I have a 19" LCD display driven by a GeForce FX 5200 AGP 8x 128mb video card. This is one of the old LCD displays so i have to run it at a max of 1280 x 1024 @ 75hz. Which gives me this wonderfully huge desktop. EXCEPT in GNOME!! it Gnome it feels like 640x480. I have no room. Yet I go to the resolution control panel in gnome and it says I'm in 1280 x1024. I don't get it!. I hate having no room to wokr. </pre> </blockquote> <pre wrap=""> make sure you really use the resolution, as is said: the configuration of the resolution and refreshrate are things of your X server, your WindowManager should not have to do anything with it - even if it sometimes does interfer... there is a item on your monitor menu (button at the LCD panel), that displays the info what is reality. if that does match your selection, maybe you set some accessibility features or should try another theme. also try the multiple desktops, they are really fine to organize stuff and provide space. if you find out that the resolution displayed is not as you like you should search the forums on how to configure X or learn it by yourself :/etc/X11/XF86Config peace </pre> </blockquote> </body> </html>