Netbeans 6.5 look and feel (laf)

The easiest (and best in my opinion) way to change the look and feel of Netbeans 6.5 under Ubuntu is to modify the following file:
/etc/netbeans.conf

And add the following to the end of the variable, netbeans_default_options

--laf GTK

Or you can run that from the command line:

netbeans --laf GTK
netbeans --laf Nimbus

etc etc

Full details are here:
http://wiki.netbeans.org/NBLookAndFeels