Friday, May 13, 2011

Plans for greater Unity app integration in Ubuntu 11.10

Ubuntu 11.04 brought with it a shiny new Launcher with shiny new capabilities, such as the ability to display progress bars, count badges and quicklists on application Launcher icons.

Although Ubuntu 11.04 didn’t see the default application take advantage of these features to any great degree plans are afoot to provide Oneiric’s default apps with Unity integration from the get-go.

Selection_001-500x300

Default applications

  • Gwibber already has Quicklist support in Unity but will benefit from an unread tweet/message count in Ubuntu 11.10.
  • Update-Manager will receive an update count, progress bar and quicklists containing items such as ‘check for updates’, etc.
  • Banshee won’t gain player controls in its’ quicklist but ‘media sources’ – as currently found in the Banshee sidebar – will be entered. A progress bar for music and podcast download will also be looked into.
  • Dynamic quicklists – as seen in AWN and Docky – have been suggested for use with Nautilus, with its quicklist containing user shortcuts and favourites. Progress bars to relay something transfer/copy status are also being mooted.
    Other integration changes planned include control items in Transmission’s Quicklist and progress bars for Brasero – and the Ubuntu Software Centre.

Simple quicklists are also proposed for Gedit, the Terminal, new default backup ‘Deja Dup’ and movie player Totem.

Ubuntu adopts LightDM, login screens to get more exciting..

‘LightDM‘ will replace the standard ‘GDM’ login experience for Ubuntu 11.10, based on a decision taken today at the Ubuntu Developer Summit.

lightdm-login_screen
Why?

With Ubuntu 11.10 requiring a slick, ‘consumer orientated’ login experience that better matches the rest of Ubuntu, the decision to switch to ‘LightDM’ proved the ideal solution.

LightDM is promoted as fast, small, well documented, is easily themable and has ‘great accessibility’. A 3D-based interface will greet those with capable hardware, with a 2D version being used fallback where not supported.

Login screens are something that often get overlooked on a machine because at most we spend a few seconds every day staring at them. But they are important not only because of the security they offer, but because of the loading time they can add to a system boot.

Canonical has decided it is going to change the login manager it uses for Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot) from the Gnome Display Manager (GDM) to the Light Display Manager (LightDM). This is a significant change for two reasons. The first is one of size, and as the name implies LightDM is much more lightweight than GDM. While GDM consists of around 50,000 lines of code, LightDM only has 5,000 for effectively doing the same job. LightDM is meant to be very fast meaning it could have a positive impact on boot times.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Gnome 3 Widgets | Kde Plasma widgets in Gnome3



How to Run KDE Plasma Widgets in Ubuntu Gnome3 


Add Plasma Widgets to Ubuntu 11.04

You don't need to Remove your gnome 3 desktop or your nautilus file browser.
Just install plasma-desktop and start it!!


How to install plasma Desktop 


sudo apt-get install plasma-desktop plasma-scriptengine-python


How to start plasma Desktop

You can start it by entering the following command
hit Alt + F2

plasma-desktop


When you start the plasma desktop for the first time, the default KDE panel will be on it you can remove it if you don't want it by right click, remove this panel

How to Add widgets

Right Click on your plasma Desktop -> Add widgets...



Friday, May 6, 2011

Gnome 3 Themes | How to install Gnome 3 Gtk 3 and shell themes?


How to install Gnome 3 Gtk 3 and shell themes?

Download Atolm Theme


To install the theme, extract it and copy the Atolm-gtk3 folder to /usr/share/themes/, then use GNOME Tweak Tool to change the GTK theme.

 To install Atolm Mutter theme (for GNOME Shell)
  1. press ALT + F2, enter "gconf-editor"
  2. or sudo gconf-editor
  3. navigate to desktop > gnome > shell > windows 
  4. change the "theme" value to "Atolm-gtk3".
  5. Please note that it's no longer required to copy the theme to ~/.themes/ too for the Mutter theme to work (tested on Fedora 15 and ubuntu natty 11.04 with all the packages up to date).
  6. After changing the Mutter theme, remember to reload Gnome Shell (ALT + F2 and enter "r") or log out.


Thursday, May 5, 2011

How to Install BURG Themes

To install a BURG theme
sudo nautilus

Extract the archive to /boot/burg/themes.

If there is an icon folder inside the archive, then extract the icon files to the folder /boot/burg/themes/icons

Update burg by

sudo update-burg



Download







Download

Download


Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Burg Bootloader for natty.


Do you think it a booted Os, or a splash of a booting Os?

Can u believe that its a boot loader.


How to install Burg boot loader in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal?

Open up your favorite terminal gnome-terminal or xterm or konsole.

Add ppa to the software source list.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:n-muench/burg
sudo apt-get update

Installation

sudo apt -get install burg burg-common burg-emu burg-pc burg-themes burg-themes-common

Use the following commands if the burg is not appeared after rebooting.(Installation of burg to MBR, usually it will be done automatically after burg install).

Remember to substitute ‘hd0′ with the drive on which your MBR is installed. This usually, but not typically, located on your primary HDD.


sudo burg-install hd0
sudo update-burg




Burg ships with a selection of (admittedly pretty) themes by default. To switch/change between theme is simple:
  • Reboot
  • Press ‘T’ on your keyboard when at the BURG screen
  • Using your arrow keys select a theme from the list that appears
  • Hit enter for it to be applied
How to install custom BURG themes?

Monday, May 2, 2011

Amarok | Rediscover music!


For the newbies the default player in ubuntu is banashee.
But I recommend you to try Amarok.
It can be easily installed from ubuntu software center or Synaptic 
or 
the geeky way

sudo apt-get install amarok 

Also install the following codecs, the codecs ubuntu recommends is having some problem in my system, these are recommended by the amarok developers.
  • libxine1-ffmpeg
  • gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly
sudo apt-get install libxine1-ffmpeg gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly
 
Also try clementine and exaile two mediaplayers inspired by amarok