tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77722051069493333902024-03-05T23:07:12.642+02:00Chronicles of VermindJust for funEemilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03645100565488597681noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7772205106949333390.post-75343161962909274382011-06-11T12:17:00.000+03:002011-06-11T12:17:27.864+03:00Linux Hybrid Graphics: Current Status<span style="font-size: large;">Optimus and multi-GPU computers</span> <br />
A while ago, nVidia introduced what they call <a href="http://www.nvidia.com/object/optimus_technology.html">Optimus</a>. This is a way to use two graphics cards on one machine. One of the cards is typically a low-power Intel or nVidia card, and the other one a high-performance, more energy hungry card. The Optimus laptop would then only do graphics on the high-performance card when the 3D application seemed to require more performance. This would be seamless, and the low-power card would be on 100% of the time.<br />
At about the same time, multi-GPU laptops such as the <a href="http://www.asus.com/Notebooks/Superior_Mobility/UL30Vt/">Asus UL30Vt</a> without the Optimus technology entered the market. These work slightly differently. The high-performance card is separate from the low-power card, and they can be switched when no 3D applications are running. This switches one card off and enables the other.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">On Linux</span><br />
That was the status on Windows. On Linux, nVidia provided no support for either type of multi-GPU machines. However, with the efforts of several Linux people, we now have <a href="http://hybrid-graphics-linux.tuxfamily.org/index.php?title=Main_Page">solutions</a>. asus-switcheroo and the vga-switcheroo kernel mechanism allow one to switch between two different graphics cards, provided that one first logs out. This is because a running X session locks a card so that it cannot be switched off. <a href="http://hybrid-graphics-linux.tuxfamily.org/index.php?title=Asus_switcheroo">More detail and a solution for easy switching is at the hybrid graphics wiki</a>. Now, this is not seamless, and rather cumbersome, since one is forced to log out in order to switch cards. Also, this only works on the non-Optimus machines. For those with Optimus, one would use <a href="http://hybrid-graphics-linux.tuxfamily.org/index.php?title=Bumblebee">Bumblebee</a>. This is basically an X server that runs on the high-performance card, and copies its output to the screen that runs on the low-power card. With some <a href="http://hybrid-graphics-linux.tuxfamily.org/index.php?title=Acpi_call">acpi magic</a> Bumblebee can turn on the high-performance card when you run a demanding application, and turn it off when it stops running. At the moment, this needs to be done manually. Instead of running for example google earth with "googleearth" one would run it with "optirun32 googleearth". The 32 comes from the fact that google earth is a 32-bit application. If you run 64-bit applications on a 64-bit Linux, you would use simply e.g. "optirun mplayer".<br />
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On my UL30Vt, I have combined Bumblebee, acpi_call and asus-switcheroo, allowing me to run applications on the high-performance card using the optirun and optirun32 commands. The high-performance is turned off when these applications are not run, saving battery. I use the asus-switcheroo and acpi_call to turn off the high-performance card when the computer is started, so that I get 10 hours of battery life with Wifi turned off. If I want a fully high-performance desktop, or to use the HDMI port, I type the word "nvidia" into a special file called switcheroo.txt, and log out. The system will then switch the cards and give me a session running with the high-performance nVidia card.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Conclusion</span><br />
On Linux, one can run demanding applications with the high-performance card manually. One can keep the high-performance card off at other times, saving battery. On multi-GPU non-Optimus machines, one can also switch cards after logging out.Eemilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03645100565488597681noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7772205106949333390.post-835441085814726592011-05-08T19:55:00.000+03:002011-05-08T19:55:41.170+03:00Unity and which Linux to choose todayUbuntu adorers may be shocked by the article at lxer <a href="http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/150988/">that criticizes the dumbed-down new interface in Natty, Unity</a>. I have used Ubuntu for a long time, for its ease of use and flexible GNOME desktop, that I do customize a lot from its default appearance and function. My current choice is <a href="http://www.linuxmint.com/">Linux Mint Debian Edition</a>, because of its great application menu. This menu allows you to search for applications to run or install, and also browse through categories as in the traditional menu. I add dockbarx for a good application launcher / window list, similar to that of Windows 7 and less toy-ish than that of Unity. I put that on the left side of the desktop. Finally, I use AWN as a notification area. These are both available from the <a href="https://launchpad.net/%7Enilarimogard/+archive/webupd8">webupd8 ppa</a>. The finished desktop looks something like the attached picture:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPmSB3pbwBVkIt83kZtzjVueh02qyrYoHcnhr_kQ5xyw2oG5wN_mYgPALIJdMyJLs93RE8V1dR1yNsyTkCj0RxkAGBw2DtGpEk94j5zb5DjqU0bZpNfoc5ZHxHWOQe565JwOjWkRudyr4/s1600/2011-05-08+19-45-45.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPmSB3pbwBVkIt83kZtzjVueh02qyrYoHcnhr_kQ5xyw2oG5wN_mYgPALIJdMyJLs93RE8V1dR1yNsyTkCj0RxkAGBw2DtGpEk94j5zb5DjqU0bZpNfoc5ZHxHWOQe565JwOjWkRudyr4/s640/2011-05-08+19-45-45.png" width="640" /></a></div>We have a more capable application launcher and window list on the left, and a notification area in the top right. We do not have a Mac OS X - like global menu. I dislike that because I have not been able to use it together with mouse focus (sloppy focus / focus follows mouse). It is just incompatible with focusing everything the mouse traverses, which is useful to my workflow.Eemilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03645100565488597681noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7772205106949333390.post-52096419820193684012010-06-24T15:12:00.006+03:002010-06-24T15:18:56.269+03:00Dessy on SourceForgeMy research project Dessy (Desktop Search and Synchronization) is <a href="http://dessy.sourceforge.net/">officially on sourceforge</a>. The project is Free (as in beer and freedom) Open Source Software (FOSS). You can download and use it on Windows, Linux, Mac (not tested), BSD, Nokia N900, and MIDP phones. The software lets you search synchronize individual files and whole filesystems.<br />Software download sites have also picked up on Dessy: <a href="http://www.softsea.com/review/Dessy.html">softsea on Dessy r65</a> and <a href="http://www.softpedia.com/get/Internet/Other-Internet-Related/Dessy.shtml">softpedia on Dessy r67</a> (windows variant), <a href="http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Development/Java/Dessy.shtml">softpedia on Dessy r67 (Mac variant)</a>. I hope it works on the Mac, because I have not tested it there.Eemilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03645100565488597681noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7772205106949333390.post-84391994459622910522010-06-24T15:07:00.002+03:002010-06-24T15:11:46.537+03:00DiscGolfer for N900, Windows, and MIDPI have published <a href="http://discgolfer.sourceforge.net/">a piece of software for recording (Disc) Golf scores while on the track</a>. The software is Free (as in beer and freedom) Open-Source Software (FOSS). You can add/remove players and holes, and use numbers 1 to numberOfPlayers and numberOfPlayers+1 to 2 * numberOfPlayers to add/remove throws of players. On the Nokia N900, qwerty... and asd... can be used similarly, to support up to 10 players. On MIDP phones, numbers 1-9, 0 are used and 5 maximum players are supported. Games can be saved and loaded, though on MIDP there is currently no way to export games from the device.Eemilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03645100565488597681noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7772205106949333390.post-92210634383637585012010-06-24T15:02:00.001+03:002010-06-24T15:03:06.371+03:00Funny stuff from Kansas CityFunny stuff from Kansas City. Check it out on Picasa Web:<br /> <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/eemil.lagerspetz/KCFunny?authkey=Gv1sRgCOHo_ovZ4LeoDQ&feat=blogger" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_6SkDEmrU7Oc/TAAU4Vac7iE/AAAAAAAAAQE/sZe6Ritn4bQ/s160-c/KCFunny.jpg" border="0" /></a>Eemilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03645100565488597681noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7772205106949333390.post-53816584455089641162010-06-24T13:44:00.003+03:002010-07-02T15:22:51.443+03:00Things to check out in (Ubuntu) LinuxThe default setup of <a href="http://www.ubuntu.com/">Ubuntu</a> is still not on par with Windows or Mac OS X:<br />
<ul><li>An icon-based application switcher with previews is missing.</li>
<li>The option for a Mac OS X - style global menu bar is coming in the next Ubuntu release.</li>
<li>The Ubuntu Menu is clearly separated into Applications, Places, and System, but requires several clicks to get you where you want to go, and does not support search.</li>
<li>The File manager does not support quick preview of most file types.</li>
</ul>In this post, I offer solutions for these four issues. I believe each is worth trying for anyone using Ubuntu Linux. Most are possible to try under other distributions as well, though you may need to compile things from source or search for alternate binary releases to the ones I present here.<br />
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For the first issue, an icon-based application switcher with preview support, I recommend DockbarX. I let the screenshot from <a href="http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php/DockbarX?content=101604">DockbarX's gnome-look page</a> speak for itself:<br />
<a href="http://gnome-look.org/CONTENT/content-pre1/101604-1.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://gnome-look.org/CONTENT/content-pre1/101604-1.png" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 521px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; width: 834px;" /></a><br />
For Ubuntu, the easiest way to install this is to add the <a href="https://launchpad.net/%7Edockbar-main/+archive/ppa">DockbarX PPA</a> and install dockbarx with synaptic. After that you can add it to the GNOME panel and start dragging/pinning applications and launchers to it.<br />
<br />
For the second issue, my solution is <a href="http://code.google.com/p/gnome2-globalmenu/">gnome2-globalmenu</a>. The Google Code site has an illustrative screenshot:<br />
<a href="http://gnome2-globalmenu.googlecode.com/svn/wiki/GlobalMenuWindows.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://gnome2-globalmenu.googlecode.com/svn/wiki/GlobalMenuWindows.png" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 192px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; width: 452px;" /></a><br />
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Good enough? Install it from the <a href="https://launchpad.net/%7Eglobalmenu-team/+archive/ppa">globalmenu team PPA</a> on Ubuntu, and head for the <a href="http://code.google.com/p/gnome2-globalmenu/">Google Code Site</a> otherwise. After installing and adding it to the GNOME panel, I had to toggle some gconf options to make it work properly. Press Alt-F2 and type in gconf-editor, then press enter. Look for /apps/gnome_settings_daemon/gtk-modules/globalmenu-plugin and turn it on.<br />
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For the third issue, the limited Ubuntu menu, <a href="http://www.linuxmint.com/">Linux Mint</a>, a derivative of Ubuntu, has come up with a very functional menu replacement, with customization options, search, and favourites, that also allows menu editing like the default GNOME menu. <a href="http://www.linuxmint.com/screenshots.php">Their screenshots</a> include this:<br />
<a href="http://www.linuxmint.com/img/screenshots/isadora/menu.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://www.linuxmint.com/img/screenshots/isadora/menu.png" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 600px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; width: 800px;" /></a><br />
<br />
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The colours will follow your GNOME theme. By clicking System, Places, or Applications, you can iconify portions of the menu to the left side. I found that the best way to install this into Ubuntu is to get the debs from A <a href="http://mint.nano-box.net/packages/list.php?release=Isadora">Linux Mint mirror</a>. The debs you need are <a href="http://mint.nano-box.net/packages/pool/main/m/mint-translations/mint-translations_2010.05.14_all.deb">mint-translations</a>, <a href="http://mint.nano-box.net/packages/pool/main/m/mint-common/mint-common_1.0.5_all.deb">mint-common</a> and <a href="http://mint.nano-box.net/packages/pool/main/m/mintmenu/mintmenu_4.9.9_all.deb">mintmenu</a>. Just click the "all" next to them on the mirror page if the links in the previous sentence do not work. To install them, you can double-click the debs and install them with the package installer in the same order. For those who prefer a quick one-command install, do<br />
<span style="font-family: courier new;">sudo dpkg -i mint*deb</span><br />
in the folder where you saved the debs. You will also need deskbar-applet installed for the menu to work. The former method does this for you, while the latter requires an extra<br />
<span style="font-family: courier new;">sudo apt-get install deskbar-applet</span><br />
. The final issue, previews and usability for our file manager, can be accomplished using nautilus and gloobus-preview from <a href="http://www.elementary-project.com/index.html">the elementary project</a>. This is a bunch of developers that have inspired the current icons and cleaner themes of the Ubuntu default install. The PPA for the elementary team is <a href="https://launchpad.net/%7Eelementaryart/+archive/elementarydesktop">here</a>. Just install gloobus-preview and upgrade nautilus in synaptic. Then restart nautilus. Nautilus should now look cleaner, have a transparent UI, a zoom slider, and pressing space should preview files and folders.Eemilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03645100565488597681noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7772205106949333390.post-22914318237020248892010-06-24T13:40:00.003+03:002010-06-24T13:44:48.109+03:00Nokia N900 and disk spaceThe disk space woes on the Nokia N900 seem to be partially solved by the <a href="http://conversations.nokia.com/2010/05/25/nokia-n900-software-update-release-1-2/">PR 1.2 release</a>. /usr/games, /usr/share/pixmaps, /usr/share/themes, and a bunch of other things are symlinked to /opt, which by default has the 2GB of space. Also, some games in extras and extras-devel allow you to place game data under MyDocs. An example is <a href="http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=650280#post650280">Albion</a>.Eemilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03645100565488597681noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7772205106949333390.post-69387231733618119202009-12-30T17:28:00.027+02:002010-07-02T15:23:23.784+03:00Nokia N900 out of space? Repartition it, here's how<span style="font-size: 85%;">This post is an up-to-date version of the repartitioning guide from <a href="http://sumoudou.org/%E7%9B%B8%E6%92%B2%E5%A4%96%E%BC%9ARepartition%20the%20Nokia%20N900.html">sumodou.org</a>.</span><br />
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The Nokia N900 is the first full GNU mobile phone. However it suffers from a very poor root file system partitioning scheme.<br />
It has root mounted with only 80 Megs free, which means that you quickly run out of space if you install a lot of packages, or a few unofficial packages which are not careful about their space usage. There is no way to repartition the device, as the partitions live on different chips.<br />
To get more root space, and especially more ext3 space, we will change the large FAT partition housing /home/user/MyDocs into an ext3 one, and move it from /home/user/MyDocs to /home. To finish up, we will make most of the things in /usr, that is, most of what applications use to install files, end up on the new large partition in /home. You will need to install the rootsh package for root access. Using ssh to the device is recommended, since then you can easily copy-paste commands from here and can use your better computer keyboard.<br />
<span style="font-family: courier new; font-weight: bold;">This is a command</span>. All commands are executed as root.<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Step 1: get rootsh</span><br />
<br />
<ul><li>To get rootsh, Enable Maemo extras repository: start Application manager,<br />
click the top menu - Application catalogs - Maemo Extras. Untick Disabled.</li>
<li>Install rootsh from Application manager.</li>
</ul><span style="font-weight: bold;">Step 2: back up MyDocs</span><br />
<ul><li>First we will back up MyDocs. This requires a memory card,<br />
which we assume is mounted at /media/mmc1.</li>
<li style="font-family: courier new; font-weight: bold;">cp -r /home/user/MyDocs /media/mmc1</li>
</ul><span style="font-weight: bold;">Step 3: change old MyDocs to ext3</span><br />
<ul><li>Get fdisk on your computer from <a href="http://penguinbait.com/tools/fdisk.tgz">here</a> and transfer it to the N900.</li>
<li>extract it on the N900 as root:</li>
<li><span style="font-family: courier new; font-weight: bold;">cd /</span></li>
<li style="font-family: courier new; font-weight: bold;">tar xzvf /path/to/fdisk.tgz</li>
<li>Where /path/to/fdisk.tgz is where you put fdisk.tgz. After this, you have fdisk "installed" and in your path. Now unmount old MyDocs:</li>
<li style="font-family: courier new; font-weight: bold;">umount /home/user/MyDocs</li>
<li>Change the 1st partition (FAT) to Linux:</li>
<li style="font-family: courier new; font-weight: bold;">fdisk /dev/mmcblk0</li>
<li>Give fdisk the commands t, 1, and 83 (press enter after each). Verify by typing p and pressing enter. The first partition should now also be Linux. Then type w and press enter.</li>
<li>Now let's create an ext3 filesystem on it (note the p1 at the end!):</li>
<li style="font-family: courier new; font-weight: bold;">mkfs.ext3 /dev/mmcblk0p1</li>
<li>This may take some time.</li>
</ul><span style="font-weight: bold;">Step 4: Make our home in the new ext3 partition</span><br />
<ul><li>We mount the new ext3 partition at MyDocs, and copy our home stuff there:</li>
<li style="font-family: courier new; font-weight: bold;">mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 /home/user/MyDocs</li>
<li style="font-family: courier new; font-weight: bold;">cd /home</li>
<li style="font-family: courier new; font-weight: bold;">cp -r * /home/user/MyDocs</li>
<li>The last command will complain about recursion. Don't worry, you can ignore it.</li>
<li>Finally, we need to give our user rights to use the files we just copied as root:</li>
<li style="font-family: courier new; font-weight: bold;">chown user /home/user/MyDocs -R</li>
<li>After this you should reboot. This is required to have the device auto-detect that mmcblk0p1 has home stuff, and should be mounted as /home.</li>
</ul><span style="font-weight: bold;">Step 5: Create a new MyDocs</span><br />
<ul><li>After the reboot, mmcblk0p1 is mounted as home.<br />
The old smaller home (2G), mmcblk0p2, is not mounted. We will use this for MyDocs.<br />
fdisk it to FAT mode:</li>
<li style="font-family: courier new; font-weight: bold;">fdisk /dev/mmcblk0</li>
<li>Give fdisk the commands t, 2, and c (press enter after each).<br />
Verify by typing p and pressing enter. The second partition should now be FAT. Then type w and press enter.</li>
<li>Now we create a FAT32 filesystem on the partition (note the p2 at the end!):</li>
<li style="font-family: courier new; font-weight: bold;">mkfs.vfat /dev/mmcblk0p2</li>
<li>Mount it to MyDocs:</li>
<li style="font-family: courier new; font-weight: bold;">mount -t vfat /dev/mmcblk0p2 /home/user/MyDocs</li>
<li>If you backed up MyDocs in the beginning using a memory card, move the backed-up MyDocs to the new one:</li>
<li style="font-family: courier new; font-weight: bold;">mv /media/mmc1/MyDocs/* /home/user/MyDocs</li>
<li>Remove the backup if desired:</li>
<li style="font-family: courier new; font-weight: bold;">rm -r /media/mmc1/MyDocs</li>
<li>Finally, we need to change one of the configuration files that regulates the mount of partitions to include the new MyDocs. edit /etc/event.d/rcS-late using vi:</li>
<li style="font-family: courier new; font-weight: bold;">vi /etc/event.d/rcS-late</li>
<li>Go to around line 24 by typing :24 and pressing enter in vi. You should see:</li>
<li style="font-family: courier new; font-weight: bold;">/bin/mount /home || echo "Failed to mount /home partition."</li>
<li>Add the following line after this, by typing o and then the line:</li>
<li style="font-family: courier new; font-weight: bold;">/bin/mount /home/user/MyDocs</li>
<li>Finally, press esc and type :wq to write the file and quit. If you edited the file as user by accident, quit by using :q! and then say sudo gainroot and try again.</li>
</ul><span style="font-weight: bold;">Step 6: Move most of /usr under our spacious /home</span><br />
<ul><li>Create the directories we will use:</li>
<li style="font-family: courier new; font-weight: bold;">mkdir -p /home/root/usr/share</li>
<li style="font-family: courier new; font-weight: bold;">mkdir -p /home/root/var/cache</li>
<li>Start by moving some things in /usr:</li>
<li style="font-family: courier new; font-weight: bold;">cd /usr/</li>
<li style="font-family: courier new; font-weight: bold;">for FILE in games include local src var<br />
do<br />
mv $FILE /home/root/usr/<br />
ln -s /home/root/usr/$FILE /usr/<br />
done</li>
<li>Also move /var/cache/apt, this is used by apt-get for temporary storage:</li>
<li style="font-family: courier new; font-weight: bold;">cd /var/cache/</li>
<li style="font-family: courier new; font-weight: bold;">for FILE in apt<br />
do<br />
mv $FILE /home/root/var/cache/<br />
ln -s /home/root/var/cache/$FILE /var/cache/<br />
done</li>
<li>Move parts of /usr/share. This contains icons, sounds, games.</li>
<li style="font-family: courier new; font-weight: bold;">cd /usr/share/</li>
<li style="font-family: courier new; font-weight: bold;">for FILE in fonts icons locale mime nokia-maps pixmaps sounds themes tutorial-applet zoneinfo<br />
do<br />
mv $FILE /home/root/usr/share/<br />
ln -s /home/root/usr/share/$FILE /usr/share/<br />
done</li>
<li>If you have /usr/share/games, do this (If you do not know if you have it, do both. The first one will complain if you don't have it, and the second if you do, but no disasters will happen):</li>
<li style="font-family: courier new; font-weight: bold;">mv /usr/share/games /home/root/usr/share/</li>
<li>If not, do this:</li>
<li style="font-family: courier new; font-weight: bold;">mkdir /home/root/usr/share/games</li>
<li>in both cases, do this:</li>
<li style="font-family: courier new; font-weight: bold;">ln -s /home/root/usr/share/games .</li>
<li>All done. Reboot. You should now have around 100 MB free in /, a /home with 23GB free, and a /home/user/MyDocs with around 2GB of space.</li>
</ul>Eemilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03645100565488597681noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7772205106949333390.post-2121612673520217922009-11-13T23:46:00.004+02:002010-07-02T15:24:52.937+03:00Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala: Games submenus and stylish notification iconsBlogging has not held my interest recently, but tonight I thought I should jot down some things about Ubuntu 9.10, the Karmic Koala.<br />
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The new release is shinier and fancier than before, and contains genuine improvements, such as the <span style="font-style: italic;">ibus</span> input method (Chinese works out of the box in all programs!), the Bluetooth manager (almost as good as Blueman), and the new, more informative grayscale notification icons.<br />
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However, there are some features I haven't made sense of, and some misfeatures as well. For example, the default sound system, Pulseaudio, causes Regnum Online and Rhythmbox music player, at least when used together, to stutter and lose sound entirely after a while. A simple sudo apt-get remove pulseaudio and killall pulseaudio fixes sound, so it is not a big hassle.<br />
The new automatic subcategorization of the Games menu is a feature I welcome; Strategy and Logic games automatically put themselves to their respective subcategories. However, the bulk of the games menu contains a lot of games I rarely play, namely those that come with GNOME. I would like those to be put in their categories, so that my games menu would provide quick access to my favourites rather than system defaults. Also, I tried to put my role playing games into the Role playing category, but I couldn't figure out the right magic word to use in the "Categories=" line of the launchers. For Strategy games, the line is "Categories=Game;StrategyGame" but RoleplayingGame seems to do nothing. I talk about this in the <a href="http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=8303665">Ubuntu forums</a>.<br />
<br />
Another t<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8H1BSd1e_xI3YiBd6nH14nKXD2ZQVQaVGZSUDlE81DgD6l8CAavqlZzy3vyq0f6JXwih2qZcw3QSjHVj20HcmaJHHAnbCjnuD4fNcU4q5k1jilfrpRCl_wmtPoWX7yf_NkMhCKt9bjzA/s1600-h/2009-11-14+00:00:27.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5403712291274388930" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8H1BSd1e_xI3YiBd6nH14nKXD2ZQVQaVGZSUDlE81DgD6l8CAavqlZzy3vyq0f6JXwih2qZcw3QSjHVj20HcmaJHHAnbCjnuD4fNcU4q5k1jilfrpRCl_wmtPoWX7yf_NkMhCKt9bjzA/s400/2009-11-14+00:00:27.png" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 24px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; width: 173px;" /></a>hing are the new grayscale icons in the notification area. They look good and make changes in the notification area capture your attention better. However, some applications do not have grayscale icons, but use colours like a christmas tree. In this picture, Skype, Dropbox and ibus taint the notification area. So, I would like to modify the respective programs so that they would honour the icon theme. For Skype, that seems impossible, since it is a proprietary program and has hidden the icons that once were accessible in the Skype folder. However, the Skype team is moving towards open-sourcing the software, so maybe in the future this will be possible. For Dropbox, the majority of the client is open-source, so changes may be possible. For ibus, I expect the icon may be changed somewhere. However, different ibus input methods also have their own icons. Right now I only use the Chinese pinyin input method along with English/Finnish by simply disabling ibus with the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Space. I would therefore probably need to change only two icons. However, with more programs, the effort will be greater, and less worth the trouble...Eemilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03645100565488597681noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7772205106949333390.post-64477126357081681652009-05-29T11:37:00.002+03:002009-05-29T11:41:54.642+03:00verminds-alarm-clock 0.5.4.4verminds-alarm-clock is now at version 0.5.4.4.<br />Changes include removal of the save button, since the program now saves settings on exit. Also, all actions on the user interface cause the alarm thread to refresh, meaning that your changes now reliably take effect instantly.<br />Get the new version here:<br /><ul><li><a href="http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/971117/dev/verminds-alarm-clock_0.5.4.4-1_all.deb">For Linux</a></li><li><a href="http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/971117/dev/verminds-alarm-clock-0.5.4.4.zip">For Windows</a></li></ul>Eemilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03645100565488597681noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7772205106949333390.post-29248170747755168972009-05-18T12:19:00.005+03:002009-05-21T10:52:32.941+03:00PyGTK - the easy way<a href="http://aruiz.typepad.com/siliconisland/2006/12/allinone_win32_.html">Someone with a bit of free time</a> made <a href="http://osl.ulpgc.es/%7Earc/gnome/pygtk-setup.exe">an installer that has everything needed to run PyGTK on windows</a>. So, now people interested in an alarm clock that uses a media player for playing the alarms, can just <a href="http://osl.ulpgc.es/%7Earc/gnome/pygtk-setup.exe">download and install this</a>, and then<a href="http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/971117/dev/verminds-alarm-clock-0.5.4.2.zip"> unzip and double-click my alarm clock</a>. This 2-step process replaces the <a href="http://vermindsblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/verminds-alarm-clock-0541.html">previously mentioned 6-step process</a>.<br />Edit: It would seem that the installer cannot be downloaded any more. Therefore, I looked for and found <a href="http://www.bonifazi.eu/appunti/pygtk_windows_installer.exe">another one</a>. Enjoy.Eemilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03645100565488597681noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7772205106949333390.post-924475287535884452009-05-14T11:39:00.001+03:002009-05-14T11:42:03.830+03:00Verminds Alarm Clock 0.5.4.2Changelog:<br />0.5.4.2<br /><ul><li>Background the player process</li></ul><br />Links to packages:<br /><ul><li><a href="http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/971117/dev/verminds-alarm-clock_0.5.4.2-1_all.deb">Ubuntu and Debian</a></li><li><a href="http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/971117/dev/verminds-alarm-clock-0.5.4.2.zip">Windows</a></li></ul>See previous posts for installation instructions.Eemilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03645100565488597681noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7772205106949333390.post-43377977635076026092009-05-13T15:22:00.003+03:002009-05-13T15:38:45.961+03:00Verminds Alarm Clock 0.5.4.1The alarm clock is now version 0.5.4.1. Changes:<br /><ol><li><p>Works on Windows, requires the .svg icon in the same folder as the .py. Further requirements:</p><br /><ul><li><a href="http://www.python.org/download/releases/">Python</a> (I recommend <a href="http://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.5.4/python-2.5.4.msi">2.5.4</a>)<br /></li><li><a href="http://sourceforge.net/project/downloading.php?group_id=98754&filename=gtk-dev-2.12.9-win32-2.exe&a=86007972">GTK+ runtime (development version)</a></li><li><a href="http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/binaries/win32/pycairo/1.4/pycairo-1.4.12-2.win32-py2.5.exe">PyCairo</a></li><li><a href="http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/binaries/win32/pygobject/2.14/pygobject-2.14.2-2.win32-py2.5.exe">PyGObject</a></li><li><a href="http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/binaries/win32/pygtk/2.12/pygtk-2.12.1-3.win32-py2.5.exe">PyGTK</a><br /></li></ul></li><br /><li>Fixed song selection file chooser associating with player selection</li><li>Playing the alarm now hangs the alarm clock, until the player command returns. This is because I use the subprocess package for launching the player, this was the only way to get filenames with spaces in them to behave correctly on Windows. To be fixed.</li></ol>Packages available:<br /><ul><li><a href="http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/971117/dev/verminds-alarm-clock_0.5.4.1-1_all.deb">Linux (debian, all architectures)</a></li><li><a href="http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/971117/dev/verminds-alarm-clock_0.5.4.1-windows.zip">Windows</a></li></ul>Installation instructions:<br /><ul><li>Linux: double-click on the .deb, follow instructions. The alarm clock can be started from the Accessories submenu. The console command verminds-alarm-clock.py also does the job.<br /></li><li>Windows: Install the requirements mentioned above. Then extract the .zip and double-click verminds-alarm-clock.py to run.<br /></li></ul>Eemilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03645100565488597681noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7772205106949333390.post-55101527771209751692009-05-07T10:49:00.004+03:002009-05-07T11:22:06.312+03:00Verminds Alarm Clock<span style="font-style: italic;">Verminds Alarm Clock</span> is now version 0.5.2.1. The new version is compatible with GNOME systems with or without python-indicate. This means it works on both Ubuntu Jaunty and earlier Ubuntu systems. It requires the installation of Python GNOME libraries, i.e., the python-gtk2 package. The deb will request that to be installed when you click on it. <a href="http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/971117/dev/verminds-alarm-clock_0.5.2.1-1_all.deb">Get it here</a>.Eemilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03645100565488597681noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7772205106949333390.post-17171025566799035622009-05-05T22:26:00.015+03:002009-05-05T22:50:17.084+03:00Perfect Ubuntu Setup - Instructions - 2This is the second post in the series <span style="font-style: italic;">Perfect Ubuntu Setup - Instructions</span>. This post details setting up Firefox; experimental or the default version, with all plugins necessary to handle the content on the web. We will also remove clutter, such as unused elements, on the user interface. <span style="font-style: italic;">Hint: All the tips that deal with Firefox add-ons and extensions also work in the Windows version of Firefox. Try them!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Vertical Space</span><br /><br /><p>To see how to Firefox can be made to use less vertical space, compare these two pictures:</p><br /><div style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_3IM9C3LJJ_r78wW_yRhiHJ3c8wz-kqJx4T9JdF7_7vxPbqubkbLhI8GDgZmatx07O_KrmcVpiF4F8dP8P6toVQBTbeb-Vw-anoxmYfZuMW0KRHdLc0gBuqn2wLsBBXQAk5d84nWpAQw/s400/before.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332426884426456946" /><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPnGUq6JvAUAl_yz6jPXIISLo5Tbqo0bJfUfADaKyakqLJUiTCl4akCuQxFNcxcuZfKfPO_v4rAEwi4hsKzrejhYGsUqhyphenhyphendDr2BgmPzVMVbLbwUNIE7jeVUm7-CzA86Oc42xGwMlDpzWw/s400/after.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332426888465553010" /></div><p>When we remove the menu bar and bookmark bar, we reduce the vertical size taken up by the top part of Firefox to about half. This is more space for websites when You are browsing in a window, or in a maximized window with controls visible. <span style="font-style: italic;">Hint: You can also fullscreen firefox by pressing F11. This hides the bars to the top of the screen, you can show them again by moving the mouse to the top. Press F11 again to return to a window.</span> Firefox allows you to search through your bookmarks by just typing words in the address bar, so bookmark folders and menu options are not usually necessary. There is also a small bookmark button you can put on the navigation bar. It allows accessing your bookmarks without adding extra permanent bars on your Firefox. To make these modifications, install the <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3895">Firefox Personal Menu add-on</a></span>. Then right-click near the address bar, and untick the Bookmarks Toolbar. You can also select <span style="font-style:italic;">Customize...</span> to add or remove elements from the bars that you want to keep.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Ads were yesterday</span><br /><br />Firefox's success as a web browser was originally sparked by its rendering speed and liberal license, compared to many competitors. Nowadays Firefox has become a slower monster. However, the latest development releases boast some speed improvements. However, a lot of people, including myself, use Firefox because of its extensibility. That the competitors are not essentially better, or available on my favourite platform, is another reason.<br /><br />The Firefox extension called <a href="http://adblockplus.org/en/"><span style="font-style:italic;">Adblock plus</span></a> also available for some other browsers, is a big reason to use Firefox. Adblock plus, to put it simply, prevents Your browser from downloading unwanted advertisements. What is unwanted is determined by You. You can also subscribe to advertisement filter lists, which auto-block a large part of the advertisements online. With Adblock plus, You reclaim the web from advertisers, and see and download only what You want to. You can install Adblock plus from the page linked to in the beginning of this paragraph. After installation, restart Firefox, and configure your ad filters. You can get rid of ads that You do not like by right-clicking them and choosing Adblock item/image. Some flash videos, which do not allow a middle click, Adblock fixes by adding a small "Adblock" tag in their top corner. Clicking that gives you options on blocking the item.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Security with NoScript</span><br /><br />A lot of web-browser exploits take advantage of the fact that any program code, or scripts embedded in a web page are run by Your web browser on entering a website. Poorly protected websites might use text provided to a webpage to generate content on the next page, without checking the text for malicious code. This allows what is known as a Cross Site Scripting (XSS) attack, where an attacker tricks a website into downloading a piece of malicious code, and the resulting malicious version of the web page is shown to the user. If the malicious code is for example a silent program that sends your keyboard strokes to a listener program, and the site is Your bank site, You can imagine what can happen. <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/722">The Firefox NoScript add-on</a> disables all scripts on all websites by default, and forces you to explicitly allow newly visited sites into a list of allowed scripting. It prevents XSS by default, simply by checking the address of scripts against the address of the current website. It also includes an unsafe mode where all scripting is allowed, which may for example be used to see if a non-functioning site was crippled by NoScript itself, for some reason.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Security and Perspectives</span><br /><br />All sites that implement secure login use SSL these days. This means they use a certificate, issued by an authority that your web browser, or You, trust. These authorities do not give the certificates freely, but require fifty or more euros per year of certificate validity. This is why a lot of sites employ a self-signed certificate, which in effect says just that the site is certified by its author (and its author is not certified by anyone). While both officially certified and self-signed sites can be attacked with a man-in-the-middle attack, by a person showing you a non-secured, but secure-looking site, that is almost an exact replica of your bank site, social networking site, etc, there is one small difference: The attacker has not broken the original protection, he is just trying to trick you into not using it. <a href="http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~perspectives/firefox.html">The Firefox Perspectives add-on</a> employs a bunch of computers storing a certificate history for a lot of websites. When You make a secure connection, Perspectives checks that the certificate has not been modified; that it is signed with a valid key. This helps in two ways:<br /><br />1. You know that the site has not been tampered with<br />2. You don't get annoying warnings from sites signed with self-signed certificates, because perspectives remembers them.<br /><br />The Perspectives add-on was developed by researches at the Carnegie Mellon University, and the download site also has a link to a white paper about it, if you are interested in its function.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Download Statusbar</span><br /><br />If the separate download window ever annoyed You, this add-on is for You. The <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/26">Download Statusbar Firefox add-on</a> puts Your file downloads to the status bar, on the bottom of the Firefox window. No need to open a new window to see the downloads, they are shown in Your currently focused Firefox window.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:180%;">Ubuntu Tweak</span><br /><br />This should probably be in its own post, but I put it here for now. <a href="http://ubuntu-tweak.com">Ubuntu Tweak</a> is a tool to automate adding the custom repositories and sofware to Ubuntu that make it surpass most Windows installations in Internet multimedia playing capabilities. Most of Windows users cannot play embedded MPEG or other movies/sounds on web sites, if they are a non-windows format. After Ubuntu Tweak, you will be able to play anything that Mplayer, Java and Adobe Flash can handle. With Wine and MozControl, you may be able to handle ActiveX / Windows only websites.<br /><br />To start on the easy path to tweaking Ubuntu, <a href="http://ubuntu-tweak.com/downloads">download Ubuntu Tweak</a>. Install it by double-clicking on the downloaded .deb. Then fire it up from Applications - System Tools - Ubuntu Tweak. Inside, you can click Applications to show a lot of extra applications to install. For playing all kinds of media such as movie files and dvds, click Third Party Sources, then Unlock (this may require your password) and Medibuntu, the last entry in the list. then click Refresh and click Add/Remove after the process is finished. Now, in Add/Remove, You should tick Ubuntu Restricted Extras for non-default media playing stuff, and Wine Microsoft Windows Compatibility Layer for Wine, the program that installs and runs Windows software (at least some of it). After clicking Apply, you should have flash video support with Flash 10 from Adobe, and be able to e.g., play Youtube videos. Java may not yet work at this point, so the Java test page may fail. If it does, we can set up Java by starting Synaptic from the System - Administration menu, and install the package called sun-java6-plugin. Then restart Firefox, and You should have Java. If You experience Java difficulties, try removing icedtea6-plugin with Synaptic. To finish up with Firefox media playing, install mozilla-mplayer from Synaptic, and restart Firefox. Here you can check the media player functionality.Eemilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03645100565488597681noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7772205106949333390.post-76105419962540588582009-05-05T22:05:00.014+03:002009-11-15T01:00:48.993+02:00Perfect Ubuntu Setup - Instructions<p>Hello,</p><br /><a style="" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7JK6i7lF-b8LlTQpdwgCPQoxjdB1jRwD_bUBmAe0WULIVLQddBqU9gjQuuhcwOdYw0t8K76ZtuD3s1JAiq2ex5GD5hJmrSG5pAAc-e6hMKWXHA7RnE2NwnlI2ByFz6yUwnMRPfEx0gjQ/s1600-h/screenshot-1.png"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 176px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7JK6i7lF-b8LlTQpdwgCPQoxjdB1jRwD_bUBmAe0WULIVLQddBqU9gjQuuhcwOdYw0t8K76ZtuD3s1JAiq2ex5GD5hJmrSG5pAAc-e6hMKWXHA7RnE2NwnlI2ByFz6yUwnMRPfEx0gjQ/s200/screenshot-1.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332419269323052562" border="0" /></a><p>in this post series, I will explain, step by step, how to customize Ubuntu 9.04 to, at least, my liking. I will show how to conserve vertical screen space, how to change the default colour scheme, how to clean up Firefox, how to easily install commonly used software, including Windows software, and how to make the most of the Gnome Panel. I will also introduce a program that lets You juice up that kludgy laptop pad mouse. The first post will deal with changing the look of Ubuntu to suit Your preferences.</p> <p>The picture to the left shows some examples of Ubuntu themes. The same themes can be applied on any Linux system that uses the GNOME desktop.</p> <p><img src="http://drache.homelinux.org/vermind/wp-includes/js/tinymce/plugins/wordpress/img/trans.gif" mce_src="http://drache.homelinux.org/vermind/wp-includes/js/tinymce/plugins/wordpress/img/trans.gif" alt="" class="mceWPmore mceItemNoResize" title="More..." />As You might have guessed, this guide requires Ubuntu. Most of the things here do not require a very new version. I recommend Ubuntu 8.04 or newer. If You already have a previous Ubuntu version, You can fire up the <i>Update Manager</i> from <i>System - Administration - Update Manager</i>. It allows you to <i>Upgrade</i> the system to the new version. For those who do not have Ubuntu, the first step is to download and burn an Ubuntu LiveCD. This CD allows You to try Ubuntu and these instructions without touching your hard disk. It also has an easy to use installer, should You choose to install it. To get Ubuntu, go to <a href="http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download" mce_href="http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download">the ubuntu download site</a>. Choose a location, and click <i>Begin download</i>. This may take some time. After You have downloaded the CD image, use your favourite CD burning software to make a bootable CD out of it, or use some tool such as UNetbootin for making a bootable USB memory stick instead. Then boot with it, and start tweaking!</p> <h2>Themes, Firefox and OpenOffice</h2> <div class="mceTemp"><dl id="attachment_91" class="wp-caption alignleft" style="width: 410px;"><dt class="wp-caption-dt"><a rel="attachment wp-att-91" href="http://drache.homelinux.org/vermind/?attachment_id=91" mce_href="http://drache.homelinux.org/vermind/?attachment_id=91"><img class="size-full wp-image-91 " title="Appearance themes" src="http://drache.homelinux.org/vermind/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/screenshot-1.png" mce_src="http://drache.homelinux.org/vermind/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/screenshot-1.png" alt="Some appearance themes" height="351" width="400" /></a></dt><dd class="wp-caption-dd">Some appearance themes</dd></dl></div><p>When I set up a new Ubuntu machine, the first thing that bugs me are the interface colours. I include here some of my favourite themes, from old to new. I currenly use the pleasant dark-coloured Murrine Wise Dark, found in the <a href="http://www.gnome-look.org/content/show.php/Murrine-Colors?content=77661" mce_href="http://www.gnome-look.org/content/show.php/Murrine-Colors?content=77661">Murrine Colors</a> theme package. To install it, <a href="http://www.gnome-look.org/content/download.php?content=77661&id=1&tan=41545017" mce_href="http://www.gnome-look.org/content/download.php?content=77661&id=1&tan=41545017">download the package</a>, go to <i>System - Preferences - Appearance </i>and click the <i>Install </i>option. Then point the file browser at the downloaded package and press <i>Ok.</i> The Murrine Colors themes specify an icon set preference to use with them. If You do not have the icon set installed, or prefer another, You can simply change the icon set from <i>Customize - Icons. </i>I use the Tango icon set. I recently used the black Slickness-black theme with white text, easy on the eyes, and SlicknesS for Openoffice: <a rel="attachment wp-att-66" href="http://drache.homelinux.org/vermind/?attachment_id=66" mce_href="http://drache.homelinux.org/vermind/?attachment_id=66">slickness-dark-theme.tar.gz</a>. Previously, I used the pleasantly green combination of the Cillop-Mediterranean and Gilouche themes, with black text: <a rel="attachment wp-att-65" href="http://drache.homelinux.org/vermind/?attachment_id=65" mce_href="http://drache.homelinux.org/vermind/?attachment_id=65">cillopgreen-theme.tar.gz</a>. Users of white text themes know that setting up a web browser to fix all the erroneous web pages with backgrounds set to white, and text colour unset, or text colour set to black, and backgrounds unset, can be a pain. I also include a <a rel="attachment wp-att-67" href="http://drache.homelinux.org/vermind/?attachment_id=67" mce_href="http://drache.homelinux.org/vermind/?attachment_id=67">firefox_userContent.css</a> Firefox colour override file for input fields and boxes, for this purpose. In the old days when I used gentoo, my preference was minimal decorations around windows, and maximum space available for applications. The chaos-gtk theme, ripped off from the chaos fluxbox/blackbox theme, is such: <a rel="attachment wp-att-64" href="http://drache.homelinux.org/vermind/?attachment_id=64" mce_href="http://drache.homelinux.org/vermind/?attachment_id=64">chaos-all-theme.tar.gz</a>. To install the themes, You double click them, and extract to the home directory. <i>Hint: Your home directory is on the left side of the file browser window that appears after you click extract. It is named after your username. </i>Installed themes appear in <i>System - Preferences - Appearance. You can activate them by clicking on them. </i>To install the firefox content override, You go to your firefox profile folder. To find it, go to your home folder, and press Ctrl-H <i>(Show hidden files). </i>Then double-click <i>.mozilla</i>. <i>Hint: You can start typing</i> <i>the name of a file or folder when browsing. This brings you to that folder quickly. You can then press enter to activate it. </i>Then double-click firefox, and finally the profile name, which is something like <i>mfeoifngee.default</i>. In there you will see a folder called <i>chrome</i>. Put the <i>userContent.css</i> file in that folder. <b>Make sure</b> it is called <i>userContent.css</i> <i>(Yes, the uppercase C is required)</i>. The firefox content override activates when put in the folder, when firefox is next restarted. To remove it, you need to rename or remove the file that we just saved in the profile folder. The override makes all input boxes black, and their text white, as the picture below shows.</p> <div class="mceTemp"><dl id="attachment_108" class="wp-caption alignleft" style="width: 257px;"><dt class="wp-caption-dt"><img class="size-full wp-image-108 " title="input-boxes" src="http://drache.homelinux.org/vermind/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/input-boxes.jpg" mce_src="http://drache.homelinux.org/vermind/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/input-boxes.jpg" alt="Firefox dark input boxes" height="134" width="247" /></dt><dd class="wp-caption-dd">Firefox dark input boxes</dd></dl></div><p>Some of my themes require extra <i>theme engines, icon themes, and mouse cursor themes </i>to be installed. The <i>chaos</i> themes require the <i>pixbuf</i> gtk2 engine, the <i>slickness</i> themes require the <i>ubuntulooks</i> engine, and the Murrine themes require, surprise, the Murrine theme engine. I recommend the <i>oxygen </i>mouse pointer suite; it has a wide variety of colours and stylish, well animated pointers. Regardless of theme, I also recommend the <i>Tango </i>icon set. Tango icons have a standard set of colours, and clear rules on what icons should look like. Their expressiveness and simplicity appeal to the eye.</p> <p>To install these things, go to <i>System - Administration - Synaptic Package Manager. </i>It will ask you to input your password. The password will be remembered for the next 5 minutes, if you do other administration. The theme engines are found by the names gtk2-engines-pixbuf, gtk2-engines-murrine and gtk2-engines-ubuntulooks. <i>Hint: You can click the right part of the window, where the package names are, and start typing a package name to find it quickly. If you know the program or type of sofware you want, but do not know the package name, you can use the search button at the top part of the window. </i>The mouse pointer suite is called oxygen-cursor-theme, and the extra colours oxygen-cursor-theme-extra. The tango icon set is called tango-icon-theme. I also installed tango-icon-theme-extras. To install something, double-click it, or right-click and <i>mark for installation</i>. Some programs may require additional changes when marked; for example, the ubuntulooks gtk2 theme requires you to <b>remove</b><i> </i>the Ubuntu default window decorations package, human-theme. Removing this is not too drastic, but if you ever try to install or uninstall something that would require you to remove dozens of packages, it is likely dangerous and will render Your system unusable. Luckily, nothing will be installed until you click the big green <i>Apply </i>button in the top part of the window. Always take care to review your choices before clicking apply. To do this, look on the bottom left of the window. Click <i>Custom filters.</i> Now you have several new filters visible on the top left of the window. Click <i>Marked Changes</i> to review the changes you have marked. If something looks wrong, You can always right-click it and choose <i>unmark, </i>or close the program altogether, without applying the changes. After you click apply, the system will download the new packages, and install, remove and upgrade the packages that you requested.</p><br /><br /><h3>OpenOffice <i>High Contrast</i> misfeature</h3><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRfv7C2-KpaknXw8bvK_NZKMzy_LChK2pKIkRh0EKfZ2r8cUyVAdBTpn_lNBJ5CI9_0DTPVlupIAyOe0-3Y2McDK0u0VUUjeDL_WggbaR8hAMRiQbsTlZd97oj3GEYeUmJFVkW_-k-xnQ/s1600-h/ooffice-misfeature.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 112px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRfv7C2-KpaknXw8bvK_NZKMzy_LChK2pKIkRh0EKfZ2r8cUyVAdBTpn_lNBJ5CI9_0DTPVlupIAyOe0-3Y2McDK0u0VUUjeDL_WggbaR8hAMRiQbsTlZd97oj3GEYeUmJFVkW_-k-xnQ/s200/ooffice-misfeature.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332420169422670322" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnozvdmVxulpffKgdgT9pOnxaS0Ub86UdAyI6N-GXKGXwPR5wX0GWt3yOJkaGBF19jAxiWt7yLTuEbzkskzXwxXUEciCG45dpDjl6cJ3aYpuGgWsO-u8FDPFm_3MS_cdKPBWlLjxVBWRE/s1600-h/ooffice-misfeature-fix.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 135px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnozvdmVxulpffKgdgT9pOnxaS0Ub86UdAyI6N-GXKGXwPR5wX0GWt3yOJkaGBF19jAxiWt7yLTuEbzkskzXwxXUEciCG45dpDjl6cJ3aYpuGgWsO-u8FDPFm_3MS_cdKPBWlLjxVBWRE/s200/ooffice-misfeature-fix.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332420168592939666" border="0" /></a><p>The most widely used, and Ubuntu recommended free office suite, called OpenOffice or OpenOffice.org, thinks that you want to lose all colours when your colour scheme has a white foreground and a dark background colour, as demonstrated by the first picture. This makes presentations look wrong, text documents lose colour markup, spreadsheets lose most printing options, and so on. To turn this horrible misfeature off, when you have a dark theme, you need to tell openoffice to use a lighter theme instead. Luckily, the SlicknesS GTK2 theme matches the SlicknesS-black in looks, but is light enough for OpenOffice. <b>Use this fix only if you use the SlicknesS-black dark theme. It is not required on normal themes, nor is it required with Murrine Colors</b>. There are two steps to the process of activating this fix:</p><p></p> <ol><li>Making sure that updates do not remove the fix, and</li><li>Adding one line in the OpenOffice startup script.</li></ol> <p>For me, the best way to ensure things are done correctly and to the letter according to instructions, is using command line programs to do things. This is also usually faster. To open the command line in Ubuntu, go to <i>Applications - Accessories - Terminal</i>. Then run these commands to fix OpenOffice colours:</p> <pre>cd /usr/lib/openoffice/program # go to OpenOffice directory<br />sudo dpkg-divert --rename --add $PWD/soffice # Divert openoffice startup script updates away from the modified file<br /><br />awk 'BEGIN{ s=0 }<br />$0 == "" && s == 0{<br /> print "export GTK2_RC_FILES=\"/usr/share/themes/DarkRoom/gtk-2.0/gtkrc\"";<br /> s=1;<br /> next;<br />}<br />{ print $0; }' soffice.distrib | sudo tee soffice # this will create the soffice copy with the GTK2_RC override line.<br />sudo chmod 755 soffice # make the copy executable for all</pre> <p>And we are done with the fix. Now, You can start OpenOffice with</p> <pre>openoffice.org</pre> <p>or select it from <i>Applications - Office - OpenOffice.org Word Processor</i>. The white - and - black look should be gone, but You should now have good icons and colours visible on documents. In The Openoffice <i>Tools - Options</i> menu You can fine-tune <i>Appearance</i> to Your liking.</p> <p>This concludes the instructions for changing the look of Ubuntu. The rest of the customizations will follow in future posts; the next post will discuss making Firefox sleek, quick and powerful.</p>Eemilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03645100565488597681noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7772205106949333390.post-56261721855072030232009-05-05T11:40:00.003+03:002009-05-05T11:46:01.709+03:00My Alarm ClockThis post announces the publication of my <a href="http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/971117/dev/verminds-alarm-clock_0.5.0.1-1_all.deb">Alarm Clock</a> written in PyGTK, for Ubuntu 9.04. It integrates with the new Indicator Applet, requiring no tray icon, unlike the previous version. <a href="http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/971117/dev/verminds-alarm-clock_0.5.0.1-1_all.deb">Get it here</a>.Eemilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03645100565488597681noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7772205106949333390.post-7971960533425299912009-05-05T10:46:00.002+03:002009-05-05T10:46:46.270+03:00Automatic Tag CloudI just added an automatic tag cloud widget. Let's see how well it matches my posts..Eemilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03645100565488597681noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7772205106949333390.post-12877088447044988562009-05-05T10:35:00.001+03:002009-05-05T10:35:44.964+03:00TestiHeippa, tämä on testi.Eemilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03645100565488597681noreply@blogger.com0