Ubuntu Tutorials

I found this very interesting.

TI-92+

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TI-73

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TI-89

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TI-83+

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Voyage 200

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TI-89 Titanium

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TI-84+ / TI-84 Silver Edition

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Date-stamp signing key for TI-73 / Explorer, TI-83 Plus / TI-83 Silver Edition, TI-84 Plus / TI-84 Silver Edition, TI-89 / TI-89 Titanium, TI-92 Plus, Voyage 200

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After getting a lot of feedback from the crowd regarding window managers I’ve decided to try a few out. Initially I’ve tried awesome and wmii, and I’m fairly impressed with both. I do wish I could combine some of the features that I like from each one–and maybe that is possible. Below are my thoughts on each:

awesome
This window manager seems like it is very actively developed and has a decent following. It has a lot of features that I haven’t even looked at yet, but for basic window management it works well. It has a decent default configuration and is easy to navigate once you familiarize yourself with the keys.

I like the pre-defined layouts that you can toggle through with mod-space. This allows you to really easily toggle between vertical, horizontal and many more layouts without a lot of work.

I also like that the configuration is so simple. I really haven’t found a need to change much (yet), but the lua based config is very readable from what I’ve seen.

wmii

This window manager seems just as minimal as awesome, and even has a few things that I like that I didn’t find in awesome. The only immediate difference in wmii and awesome is the mod key is different (alt on wmii, super on awesome). wmii also swaps the status bar to the bottom vs the top and only displays the space/tag if there are open applications.

I like the dmenu (alt-a) as well as alt-p. I find the auto-find of dmenu a little more dynamic than the super-r ‘run dialog’ of awesome. This is one of the things I like most about wmii vs awesome.

It seems to be easier to arrange windows in different layouts in awesome than it is in wmii, but it is possible just the same.

At the end of the day my machine is still running wmii, but I’m yet undecided. Can anyone offer more tips on usage, scripts, plugins, etc of either?

Yesterday I spent some time playing with some alternative window managers. After spending hours and hours tinkering with the internals of GNOME in preparation for my presentation at the Utah Open Source Conference I needed a change of scenery. I experimented with evilwm and openbox primarily. They were both very interesting, and I realized there are so many more that I haven’t even considered yet. What do you use?

I keep hearing about other window managers like Awesome, xmonad, etc, etc. I’m curious about trying them out but I’m not sure I’d know where to start. If you use any of these (ie; anything other than the ‘standard’ GNOME or KDE environments) please drop a comment regarding why.

To give you an idea about my computing habits, I generally only really need the following:

• Terminal (gnome-terminal preferred, xterm is fine)
• Browser (chromium or something else lightweight)
• Email (evolution or mutt generally)
• Keyboard control (if I could spend a day without touching the mouse, that’d be awesome)

I appreciate the feedback. Hopefully I’ll be able to generate some posts based on using some of these other window managers soon.

I’ve been doing a lot of customization lately with my GNOME installation, trying out new layouts and trying to gain as much screen real estate as I can. I came across an issue this morning in regards to the GNOME panel that I wanted to write down / publish. In the short article below I will describe how to completely hide the GNOME panel, allowing your applications to use 100% of the screen.

Autoide.. not 100%

Some of you might be thinking “Just click ‘Autohide” on the panel properties. How hard can it be?” The problem is that the default autohide still displays a few pixels, meaning your applications won’t extend to the absolute edge of the screen. When I tried it initially my panel still took 6px across the top. While that isn’t a lot, it still left a gap and was something I wanted to remove.

I found the value for this change within the gconf-editor. To ensure that your Autohide doesn’t continue to show any pixels (0 pixels), use the following command:

gconftool-2 --set --type integer /apps/panel/toplevels/top_panel_screen0/auto_hide_size 0

You can also find this value in the graphical editor using the following instructions:

ALT-F2 > "gconf-editor" > apps > panel > toplevels > top_panel_screen0 > auto_hide_size > 0

I prefer the command, its much simpler.

There are quite a few more “hidden” settings within the gconf-editor that allow you to change values not held within the normal Properties menu. I’ll have more of these to post in mid-October, after my GNOME presentation is finished for the Utah Open Source Conference.

As seen on identi.ca/twitter this morning, Ubuntu 10.04 will be codenamed “Lucid Lynx”.

here here.

Thoughts?

In less than a month I’ll be presenting at the Utah Open Source Conference regarding GNOME UI Customizations. This topic will cover usage of the graphical  gconf-editor as well as using command-line tools to track and implement UI changes. In preparation for this event I would like to ask for public feedback regarding common desktop customizations. Please comment or email me regarding UI changes that you make to your desktop.

To get started with some ideas, here are the most common changes that I make:

• Move bottom panel to top
• Shrink both panels to 19 pixels
• Update system font to Droid Sans (ttf-droid package), 8pt font
• Updated workspace switcher to four workspaces
• Activate GNOME-based compositing
• Set gnome-terminal to white-on-black, Droid Sans Mono, 8pt font. Disable scrollbar and menubar
• Set custom wallpaper, screensaver and GDM login screen
• etc..

I’d like to make sure that my presentation can cover the most interesting and popular changes to the UI. If you would like to share the changes you make, please comment. Feel free to include links to screenshots, GNOME-look.org references, etc.

Thank you!

Ubuntu 9.04 comes pre-installed with Firefox 3.0.x. This was the current version of the browser at the time the Ubuntu version was released. Based on the development model of six-month releases, Firefox won’t be updated to the 3.5.x version until Ubuntu 9.10. Security updates for the 3.0.x branch are supplied, but major revision upgrades won’t happen until the next release.

I have recently discovered that there is a package available for Firefox 3.5.x in the universe repository, which will install the latest version of the browser alongside the default version. I know how important web browsing is for most of us, and having the latest browser with the latest features is a requirement. This article will outline how to install the Firefox 3.5 package from the default repositories, as well as update the user-agent string as needed.

Install the package

To install the package you’ll need to make sure you have the universe repository configured. This should be enabled by default, so unless you’ve manually removed it you should be fine. Once this is verified you can install the package using the command below (or click the link):

sudo aptitude install firefox-3.5

Once this package is installed you should have a new menu entry in Applications > Internet called “Shiretoko Web Browser”. This is named after the development codename (I believe) of the 3.5 branch.

Required tweak : User-Agent

I’m unsure the reasoning behind it (probably the Mozilla license issue regarding redistribution using the name & logo), this version of the browser identifies itself with its development codename and not the known “Firefox” name. This will break functionality on a number of sites that verify the user-agent string. There is a simple way to fix this, which I’ll outline below.

In your address bar, enter the url: about:config

Accept the notice that tinkering with the settings in this section might catastrophically break things, destroying the world and all mankind.

In the field at the top, enter the string: general.useragent.extra.firefox

Double-click on the result and change the string from “Shiretoko/3.5.2" to “Firefox".

Conclusion

At this point you should have a working copy of Firefox 3.5 installed alongside your default copy of Firefox 3.0. You may notice some oddities based on the Firefox vs Shiretoko issue, but at least the user-agent string is reporting what you’d like it to. Remember, the latest version will be the default in Ubuntu 9.10, so just wait a few more weeks and you can get it with the next release!

I remember when network-manager first came out. It was the most welcome piece of software I could imagine! The idea that a graphical tool would manage my wireless networks for me, display available SSIDs and signal strength and basically just keep me online with minimal work on my part. It sure beat the dark magic of the command line just to get connected! I want to thank the network-manager developers for creating such a helpful application. I’d also like to introduce an alternative for those that may not have had the same luck I did with network manager.

Install Wicd

The Wicd network manager is available in the core Ubuntu repositories for Ubuntu 9.04. It can be installed by using the following command or clicking on the link below:

sudo aptitude install wicd

This will download and install the Wicd package, and remove the network-manager tools. You’ll likely want to relogin for the changes to fully take effect.

You’ll find that Wicd isn’t that much different than network manager. It has a slighly different interface, but I think it is a little lighter and, at times, more customizable. I have had great luck with Wicd. When network-manager will give me connection issues, Wicd is able to directly connect when I need it to. Of course wireless on Linux isn’t flawless, but its getting there, and between these two tools we have greater choice on what we want to use while getting online.

In yesterdays post I mentioned some of my feelings regarding the new Ubuntu 9.04 notification system. In a nutshell I think it could evolve into a nice system tool (similar to OS X “Growl”), but at this point it isn’t there yet. Until it is improved (perhaps in 9.10?) I’ve decided to simply disable it altogether. If you would like to disable the system as well keep reading:

Disable New Notifications

Disable the new system by using the following command: (one line)

sudo mv /usr/share/dbus-1/services/org.freedesktop.Notifications.service /usr/share/dbus-1/services/org.freedesktop.Notifications.service.disabled

To re-enable the new notification system after you’ve applied the above change, use the command: (one line)

sudo mv /usr/share/dbus-1/services/org.freedesktop.Notifications.service.disabled /usr/share/dbus-1/services/org.freedesktop.Notifications.service

I’ll admit that, so far, I’m not a big fan of the 9.04 notification system. It does remind me a lot of OS X “Growl”, but the lack of customization options make it frustrating at times. I do hope that the developers continue to improve on the system as I think it could be a very nice tool given a little more attention.

In the meantime I have disabled Pidgin from using it. I don’t need every inbound IM and status change to be displayed for all to see.

Disable Pidgin Notifications

This “annoyance” can be easily fixed by disabling the libnotify plugin within the Pidgin plugins manager. To disable this system go to Tools > Plugins and untick the checkbox next to “Libnotify Popups”.

Also, if you’d prefer, you can try to customize the pop-up behavior by selecting the “Configure Plugin” button.

Hopefully being able to customize this or disable it altogether will make the new notification system livable until some improvements are made.