Install and Customize notify-osd in Xubuntu

I love Ubuntu's notification system, it manages to be both functional and beautiful, but it lacks customization options.

The following guide will show you how to install a custom version of Ubuntu's notify-osd that will allow you full control of the color, text, opacity, behavior and location of your notifications.

You first need to install two PPAs. leolik's PPA contains a customizable notify-osd package. amandeepgrewal's PPA includes notifyosdconfig, a gui interface that makes customizing notify-osd much easier.

To add leolik's PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:leolik/leolik

To add amandeepgrewal's PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:amandeepgrewal/notifyosdconfig

Install the necessary packages:
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install notify-osd notifyosdconfig


For Xubuntu Users:

You can uninstall Xfcebuilt in notifaction system xfce4-notifyd:
sudo apt-get remove xfce4-notifyd


Or you can just set notify-osd as the default notification service. Sometimes after an Xubuntu update xfce-notifyd replaces notify-osd as your default notification service and you'll have to repeat this step.

Open a terminal:
gksu gedit /usr/share/dbus-1/services/org.xfce.xfce4-notifyd.Notifications.service

Replace:
Exec=/usr/lib/xfce4/notifyd/xfce4-notifyd

With:
Exec=/usr/lib/notify-osd/notify-osd

Save and exit.

You will have to reboot your computer for the changes to take effect.

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