Hey buddies,

I want to customize few things in ubuntu

1) configure some application such as Gaim for options such as Server,Port,Alias(In windows we can modify the registry to reflect the changes)How do we do it in Linux

2) In linux every user has his own Background,icons etc but i want to customize the same Background,Icons on the desktop,Icons in the Panel etc for every user.

How do i automate the above.

Thanks,
Abdul.

You don't - you have to configure it all by hand.

What you want to do is change the default (global) settings. The specifics depend upon the actual application itself. However, there is always a configuration file someplace and a master set of stuff... so, like there is a user configurable icons set in ~/.icons , there are also /usr/share/icons and /usr/share/pixmaps which contain more globally available stuff. (eg, I can change the global firefox icon by changing /usr/share/pixmaps/firefox.png)

However, it will take some hunting around for everything you want to do.

So, specifically:
1. you alter the applications global configuration file.
2. you change the default theme

Back to "automate" ... once you have the configuration you want, it can be moved to other machines easily enough.