[http://thegraveyard.org/skippy.php Skippy] is a full-screen task-switcher for X11. It will arrange and scale snapshots of all windows on the current desktop and it'll let you pick a window using a mouse or a keyboard.

Installation

Download the debian package:

wget http://www.debian.org.hk/~glee/deb/....5.0-1_i386.deb

and install it:

sudo dpkg -i skippy_0.5.0-1_i386.deb

NOTE: For breezy users (5.10) skippy is in the universe repository:

sudo apt-get install skippy

Configuration

Edit:

vim ~/.skippyrc

and change line 24 to read:

keysym=Scroll_Lock

It's better than having F11!

Usage

Start it with the following command:

skippy

Troubleshooting

If you get such error messages:

WARNING: Couldn't load config file '/home/stubby/.skippyrc'
X Error of failed request:  BadAccess (attempt to access private resource denied)

You probably are missing the .skippyrc file. We need to make one in that case:

gedit ~/.skippyrc

copy and paste the following lines:

# Copy this to ~/.skippyrc and edit it to your liking
#
# Notes:
#
# - keysym can be anything XStringToKeysym can handle
#   (like F11, KP_Enter or implementation specific keysyms)
#
# - colors can be anything XAllocNamedColor can handle
#   (like "black" or "#000000")
#
# - distance is a relative number, and is scaled according to the scale
#   factor applied to windows
#
# - fonts are Xft font descriptions
#
# - booleans are "true" or anything but "true" (-> false)
#
# - opacity is an integer in the range of 0-255
#
# - brighness is a floating point number (with 0.0 as neutral)
#

[general]
keysym = Scroll_Lock
distance = 50
useNETWMFullscreen = true
ignoreSkipTaskbar = false

[xinerama]
showAll = false

[normal]
brightness = 0.0
tint = white
opacity = 100
border = gray33

[highlight]
brightness = 0.05
tint = #d0d0ff
opacity = 255
border = #d0d0ff

[tooltip]
show = false
border = black
background = #e0e0ff
text = yellow
font = fixed-11:weight=bold

now save the file

If the permission is wrong then change it (but shouldn't be the case):

sudo chown [username]:[username] ~/.skippyrc
sudo chmod u+rxw ~/.skippyrc

replace username by your username

Approach from Source

Read the [http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=151996&postcount=1 howto] for compiling from source.

Credits: [http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=30510&highlight=skippy HOWTO: Compile skippy (Exposé like features for Hoary)]