You will need to install python-glade2 for the XAMPP control panel to work:
sudo apt-get install python-glade2
Then create a file called XAMPP-Control-Panel.desktop in /usr/share/applications/ and put the following in it:
[Desktop Entry] Version=1.0 Encoding=UTF-8 Name=XAMPP Control Panel GenericName=Control Panel Comment=XAMPP Control Panel Exec=gksudo "/opt/lampp/share/xampp-control-panel/xampp-control-panel" Icon=/opt/lampp/htdocs/favicon.ico StartupNotify=true StartupWMClass="xampp-control-panel.py" Terminal=false Type=Application Categories=Developer;
Alternatively do the following:
wget http://www.samclarke.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/XAMPP-Control-Panel.desktop sudo mv XAMPP-Control-Panel.desktop /usr/share/applications/XAMPP-Control-Panel.desktop
By default (in Ubuntu 12.04) the control panel will not be themed as it needs to run as root. To set the root users theme to your current theme, simply do:
sudo ln -s ~/.themes /root/.themes sudo ln -s ~/.icons /root/.icons sudo ln -s ~/.fonts /root/.fonts