I don't know about install time, but when new users are created, the files from /etc/skel are copied to the new home directory. You could add a file
/etc/skel/.gconf/apps/metacity/general/%gconf.xml
with the contents
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<gconf>
<entry name="button_layout" mtime="1273173410" type="string">
<stringvalue>:minimize,maximize,close</stringvalue>
</entry>
</gconf>
to /etc/skel.
Or you could create the perfect user-setup (let's name him perfectuser) on a new account, and replace
SKEL=/etc/skel
with
SKEL=/home/perfectuser
in /etc/adduser.conf.
That way, each new user you create would have the same configuration as perfectuser.
Maybe the install CD could also be modified in a similar way?
To change the setting for all users, you could write a script that adds
<entry name="button_layout" mtime="1273173410" type="string">
<stringvalue>:minimize,maximize,close</stringvalue>
</entry>
to all /home/[user]/apps/metacity/general/%gconf.xml.
You can't do that. I remember reading some thoughts about doing things like that (I think with regards to right-to-left readers), but it hasn't been implemented yet.
Well. You can't do that with the Unity panel, anyway. I think it should be possible to replace the Unity 2D panel with a Gnome Panel, add the indicator-applet-complete and the global menu applet, move the window buttons and achieve the same effect that way. I haven't tried it myself, though, but it should work. It would require some tweaking.
Best Answer
Chrome draws its own buttons rather than letting the OS do it. There is a setting that allows it to use native window titlebars, but this isn't the most elegant solution to the problem because you lose the benefit (when windowed) of Chrome not having extra space for the titlebar.
Chrome guesses which side to put the buttons on based on various Gnome-related settings, but this doesn't always work properly with Ubuntu's Unity interface.
This article tells how to move them to the desired side. Note that if you sometimes use Gnome-shell rather than Unity, this has the potential to affect how all title bars appear in your Gnome-shell sessions.
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