I have Ubuntu 8.04. I would like to modify Preferences directly rather than through the System menu in Gnome. I would like to modify/write scripts to:
1) launch gnome-terminal on start up as when I do that via the System->Preferences->Sessions it appears without a title bar so I am unable to move the terminal
2) to set the idle time for the screen saver so I can just execute a script rather than setting it via System->Preferences->Screensaver (as I change it daily to run a video for news in the morning and then decrease the idle time again after it's done)

Does anyone know which files/settings have to be modified in order to do the above?

Thanks.

1) what you say is strange (it should work). Anyhow, you can run a command when X starts by adding that command to a file in your home directoy named .xinitrc

2) you can look at the configuration options using "gconf-editor", in apps/gnome-screensaver. You can modify the options from the command line by using (this sets the timeout to 10 minutes, you can check gconftool-2 --help-all for more info):

To move a window without a title bar, hold down left "alt" and drag the window with the mouse. Most Gnome settings can be modified using the gconf-editor tool if you are curious. Be careful though, the settings are instantaneous

Thanks for the info. Yes I found out about the gconftool and created an alias so I could execute the command more easily.

There doesn't appear to be an .xinitrc file on my computer so I will have to check out the start-up files that are available. Does anyone know which files that the System->Preferences->Sessions modifies?

On my system gnome-session-properties creates a file in the directory ".config/autostart". I found out this by doing:

And then adding a command named yyyy to the session (for testing). Looking in the console you will see where that information is written.

About .xinitrc, you can create it yourself, it doesn't have to be there.