Configure the window close buttons in Ubuntu 12.04

One thing I really don't like about Ubuntu if the insistence in putting the close window button in the top left. I don't know if this is a Linux thing, but I'm sure older versions defaulted to close in the top right.

Anyway, you can easily change it.

* install gconf-editor
* navigate to /apps/metacity/general/
* find button_layout and change it to whatever you like

The key to the positioning of the buttons is the colon. I went with:

:minimize,close

because I don't really care about maximize. Everything to the right of the colon is floated right.

Another tweak worth considering if you're a keyboard shortcut person is rebinding "Key to show HUD" in the Keyboard config screen. That is the one which, if your experience is anything like mine, is capturing your keypress when you try and alt-tab around.

Edit:
Since 12.10 it seems the gconf-editor setting is sometimes ignored. You can move everything by running this on the command line:

sudo gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences button-layout ":minimize,maximize,close"