In Ubuntu 10.4 the minimize, maximize and close buttons for each window are on the left. Coming from a Windows background this just does not feel right and so I immediately wanted to move these buttons back to the right. Here is how to do it:
Click Applications, then Accessories and then Terminal.
In the terminal type gconf-editor and then press Enter. This will open the Configuration Editor application.
In the left pane click apps, then metacity and then general.
In the right pane right-click the button_layout key and in the context menu click Edit Key. Change the Value to the following and then click OK:
Exit the Configuration Editor – now all of your buttons should be back in the right place!
Source: YouTube
Michael Lane's Technology Blog 
Thank you, thank you, thank you….
The change from the right to the left in Lucid was driving me crazy too Jacob!
I have learnt something new today.
The joys of linux!
Thank you
Brilliant! Thanks for posting this, so much more elegant than some of the solutions I found, and I also learnt more about Ubuntu.
What a daft idea to put the buttons on the left in the first place :-0
thanks, that was an instantly annoying change.
Yes, I really don’t know why they decided to change it!
Or just execute this in terminal:
gconftool-2 –type=String –set /apps/metacity/general/button_layout “:minimize,maximize,close”
Thanks for tip nEJC.
Thank you for posting this work-around!
This is why I love Linux — because it is possible to override defaults.
My wife says “Thank you :)”
We are both tired of Microsoft, so we are trying Ubuntu. So far, so good. The command line is a bear to learn though, but I am getting there thanks to people like you posting helpful information like this.
Kind regards,
Sego.
You are most welcome Sego – happy to have helped you out!
…ahhh 🙂
This saves me from a lot of mismatched clicks…
THX
Where is my Easy Button? Because I need to press it right now.
Thanks
Thank you so very much! This was causing misclicks beyond belief!!!
thank god i could take them right, it was annoying…
Thanks, I needed this.
thanks a lot
Something worth noting guys. This normally worked like a charm for me until I did a brand new install on another PC, which despite having made the changes in metacity, they would not take place…buttons would not move. Turns out that I happened to try it withOUT the SUDO, just gconf-editor, and worked. I was able to re-create the problem, by retrying with SUDO and changes were not recognized. Not sure what could be causing this but may be related to the user account already being SuperUser or something.
Just a thought for anyone that may be going through this.