L’UDS è ormai finito e i vari team hanno ricominciato il loro lavoro e a prendere in considerazione le idee da portare in Lucid. In questa serie di post esamineremo le decisioni o le novità su cui si baserà l’LTS che verrà.

Player musicale Gli estimatori di banshee rimarranno delusi, anche Lucid viaggerà con rhythmbox, per il cambio se ne riparlerà poi per la 10.10. I motivi sono vari, ma il succo della questione è che banshee deve ancora maturare un po’.

Ubuntu Music Store Ne ho già parlato qui Appare chiaro che ora, alla luce della notizia precedente, l’integrazione avverrà per adesso principalmente con rhythmbox. Il partner di canonical è ancora sconosciuto, ma le ipotesi ci sono: dopo 7Digital, ora si parlerebbe anche della possibilità che sia Amazon. In ogni caso rimarrà valida la regola basilare del servizio: niente DRM.

Ubuntu One Il servizio di storage sarà maggiormente integrato con nautilus: volendo sarà possibile condividere file senza necessità di spostarli nella cartella Ubuntu One. È inoltre in sviluppo il plasmoide per KDE (PPA), è quindi possibile che anche gli utenti di kubuntu possano accedere più agevolmente al servizio on-line.

Gestione ed editing foto È confermato che il noto programma di fotoritocco avanzato molto probabilmente ci lascerà (qui il commento di Ryan Paul), rimpiazzato dall’accoppiata F-Spot & EOG. Quest’ultimo però acquista la possibilità di visualizzare gif animate e vari plugin extra. Per loro è poi prevista un’intera milestone di papercuts.

Video Editor Come anticipato dalle voci di corridoio, sarà un video editor a occupare lo spazio lasciato libero da GIMP. Il candidato più in vista è l’annunciato PiTiVi, ma la scelta definitiva verrà presa durante la fase di alpha testing.

Fase di boot Viene confermato che gli sforzi verranno concentrati sul portare la velocità di boot a 10 secondi prendendo ad esame un Dell Mini 10v con disco SSD. Sarà dunque ottimizzato il passaggio a upstart ultimato in karmic, sreadahead sarà rimpiazzato dal più performante ureadahead, e saranno fatte tante altre ottimizzazioni. Dal punto di vista dell’aspetto non ci saranno cambiamenti radicali, a parte la sostituzione di usplash con plymouth e armonizzazione del processo (Grub2 -> plymouth -> xsplash -> GDM -> xsplash -> desktop). Probabile ma non certo l’inserimento di un tema per Grub2. Certo invece è l’ampliamento delle schede che supportano il KMS.

Nowe wydanie Ubuntu zawiodło chyba sporą część społeczności. GDM i XSplash w oficjalnej wersji 9.10 bez możliwości dostosowania ich wyglądu to jakieś nieporozumienie. Zmuszeni jesteśmy do używania sztuczek żeby zmienić wygląd GDMa ale wiąże się to z pewnymi estetycznymi niedogodnościami. W aktualnej wersji GDM i XSplash stanowią tak jakby jedność, brązowy motyw jest w jednym i drugim produkcie a zmiana ustawień GDMa sprawia, że nic ze sobą nie gra.. Dlatego postanowiłem pokazać jak dostosować wygląd tych elementów do swoich potrzeb, będzie się to wiązało z zastąpieniem XSplasha USplashem z wersji Ubuntu 9.04.

Wywalamy XSplash’a i instalujemy USplash’a :
# sudo -i
# apt-get update
# apt-get remove xsplash ubuntu-xsplash-artwork
# apt-get install usplash-theme-ubuntu-color
# apt-get remove usplash-theme-ubuntu
i w tym momencie posiadamy zainstalowany motyw Splasha z wersji 9.04. Po zrestartowaniu komputera będzie on już dostępny.

Po instalacji paczki usplash-theme-debian będzie pojawiał się sam tekst zamiast grafiki i pasków postępu.

Zarządzanie motywami USplash’a :
Parę motywów USplasha możemy znaleźć w repozytoriach, np szukając przy pomocy aptsh. Innym sposobem jest zainstalowanie startupmanager’a
# apt-get install startupmanager

i z jego poziomu zmieniać motywy. Sporo ciekawych motywów można znaleźć tutaj http://gnome-look.org/index.php?xcontentmode=160

Edycja GDM’a :
Odpalamy konsolę i wpisujemy
$ gksudo -u gdm dbus-launch gnome-appearance-properties
Po podaniu hasła pokaże nam się okno edycji ustawień wyglądu identyczne jak to w którym możemy zmieniać ustawienia wyglądu okien i zmieniać tapety :

Po wykonaniu tej komendy za każdym razem gdy uruchomimy Ubuntu pojawia się niebieska ikonka dostępu uniwersalnego. Jeżeli chcemy to wyłączyć to musimy wejść do ustawień Technologi wspierających :
System --> Preferencje --> Technologie wspierające --> Dostępność klawiatury --> i odznaczamy opcję "przełączanie funkcji dostępności przy użyciu skrótów klawiszowych"

Wyłączamy listę użytkowników pokazywaną w GDMie :
sudo -u gdm gconftool-2 --set --type boolean /apps/gdm/simple-greeter/disable_user_list true

A tak włączmy z powrotem:
sudo -u gdm gconftool-2 --set --type boolean /apps/gdm/simple-greeter/disable_user_list false

Efekt końcowy :

En este post voy a explicar, como cambiar la imagen de carga de nuestro Ubuntu, llamada correctamente  USplash, para q no aya confusiones, todas las pruebas las hice en, Kubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala, bueno manos a la obra:

Primero vamos a necesitar recopilar un poco de cosas, lo primero q van a necesitar, es el Script q pueden descargar dando clic en ¨usplashtest.sh¨, lamentablemente la pagina no me permita subir el archivo en este formato así q cuando lo descargen van a tener un documento de nombre usplashtest.odt lo único q tienen q hacer es cambiar el nombre a usplashtest.sh no olviden borrar el ¨.odt¨,  este documento nos permitirá probar la pantalla sin tener q reiniciar el equipo, mas adelante explico como.

Segundo necesitamos el programa startupmanager y una librería de compilación para instalarlos  en una consola usamos el comando:

sudo apt-get install startupmanager libusplash-dev

Por ultimo necesitamos descargar USplash de http://www.gnome-look.org/ o de http://kde-look.org/ les recomiendo seriamente q sean archivos del tipo source es decir sin compilar, de esta forma, es mucho menos probable q tengamos algún error, les dejo aqui un link a uno q yo mismo probé, el cual usaremos como ejemplo.

Ahora vamos a compilar el archivo descargado para generar un documento del tipo *.so, para esto seguiremos los siguientes pasos:

• Descargamos el archivo comprimido de la Source, sera del tipo ¨tar.gz, o rar, o zip¨
• Descomprimimos este documento y entramos y entramos a la carpeta resultante
• Debemos asegurarnos q exista un documento Makefile.
• Ahora vamos usando la consola, al lugar donde se encuentre este archivo usando el comando ¨cd¨ y la dirección correspondiente, en mi caso es:

cd /home/usuario/descargas/tema1/

tengan en claro q no va  a el mismo para ustedes.

• Ahora debemos compilar usando el comando:

sudo make

• Eso habrá generado en la carpeta un archivo del formato *.so, por ejemplo ¨tema1.so¨
• Echo eso, en una consola escribimos:

sudo startupmanager

• Se abrirá una pantalla del programa q instalamos previamente, seleccionamos la pestaña ¨aspecto¨ debería verse igual a esto

-> Damos clic en el botón ¨Administrar temas Usplash¨ y navegamos hasta el archivo *.os q habíamos creado lo seleccionamos y agregamos.

-> Luego en la lista desplegable seleccionamos el nuevo tema, cerramos el startupmanger.

• Con esto la imagen ya debio haber cambiado, pero para confirmarlo, copiamos el script q descargaron a su carpeta personal, y en una consola escribimos:

Alerta este script es experimental y por lo mismo, puede dar un poco de problemas es mejor grabar todos los documentos importantes.

Si salen solo letras, es porq el tema fue mal compilado, el source estaba corrupto, o porq modificaron algo sin respetar la gama de colores, si es el caso, no hay forma de regresar al escritorio, deberán reiniciar la maquina.

cd

sudo ./usplashtest.sh

Listo, si todo salio bien ahora tendrán una nueva ventana de carga!!!

Ya hemos visto en el artículo anterior como instalar StartUp Manager y sus opciones de arranque.

En esta segunda parte nos vamos a centrar en como nos puede ayudar esta aplicación en el proceso de arranque de nuestro ordenador.

Para empezar iniciaremos el programa y seleccionaremos la segunda pestaña, la de aspecto.

Esta ventana consta de dos partes, una dedicada al aspecto del menú GRUB y la otra dedicada a la imagen de la progresión de carga del sistema operativo.

Cambiar el aspecto del GRUB

En la parte de arriba, disponemos del apartado Colores del menú del Cargador de arranque. Debajo del título hay una casilla de verificación con el nombre Usar colores en el menú del Cargador de arranque. Haciendo clic sobre esta opción se habilitan los campos inferiores donde podemos escoger el color de fondo y el color del texto. Para las opciones de menú que se encuentren resaltadas y las que no lo estén.

En la lista desplegable Imagen de fondo del GRUB puedes escoger que imagen deseas entre las que tengas instaladas. Se incluyeron al instalar el paquete grub-splashimages que mencionamos anteriormente.

El botón Administrar temas del Cargador de arranque te permitirán añadir nuevos temas. Si lo pulsas, aparecerá una nueva ventana.

La clave está en ir haciendo probaturas y escoger la que te guste mas.

Cambiar la imagen de carga del sistema operativo

Cuando digo la imagen de carga del sistema operativo (normalmente llamada usplash) estoy hablando del dibugito del sistema mas la barra de progreso. Si estas cansado de ver la misma imagen día tras día al iniciar tu sistema sigue leyendo, estás en el lugar indicado. Para instalar un nuevo Usplash lo primero que debes hacer es tener uno, puedes encontrar una gran variedad en Gnome-look.

Cuando encontremos el tema que nos guste nos lo descargamos. A continuación lo descomprimiremos haciendo doble click en este y pulsaremos sobre extraer. Cuando se haya extraído en el mismo lugar donde tienes el archivo tendrás una carpeta con el mismo nombre, es el archivo descomprimido.

Abrimos StartUp Manager (Sistema > Administración > Administrador de arranque) seleccionaremos la pestaña Aspecto y hacemos clic en el botón Administrar temas Usplash.

Nos aparecerá una ventana Administrador de arranque, donde puedes observar los diferentes temas Usplash que tienes instalados. Posiblemente, en tu sistema sólo aparezca usplash-theme-ubuntu o el de tu distribución. Para incluir nuestro nuevo tema sólo tienes que hacer clic en el botón Añadir.

En la nueva ventana nos situamos en la carpeta que hemos descomprimido y seleccionamos el archivo con extensión .so. Seguidamente haremos click en Abrir.

Al volver a la ventana Administrador de arranque, ya aparece el nuevo tema, será el que hayas bajado e instalado. Ya puedes cerrar esta ventana.

Finalmente en la lista Temas Usplash elegiremos el tema que acabamos de instalar. Posteriormente cerrar StartUp Manager y reiniciar nuestro ordenador para ver el nuevo icono.

El último artículo repasamos las opciones avanzadas y la seguridad.

[Updated to include some great news on the evolution-rss bug. -Peng]

The Ubuntu devs released the beta of Ubuntu 9.10 “Karmic Koala” back on the first of the month (now available as a Release Candidate), and while I snagged the disk image pretty quickly it wasn’t until Friday a week ago that I was able to actually get a chance to fire up the LiveCD long enough to see how well it played with my system. I couldn’t find any major glitches in it other than a problem with my USB WiFi adapter, and I had already seen that people were having enough major issues with the combination that there was a request to change the status on the support for the adapter from some support to absolutely no support. Luckily I was already having enough connectivity issues with our Linksys WiFi router that I has already gone back to using the good, old-fashioned CAT 5 cable to connect to it.

After looking at a number of other items that are important to me I went to the page on the Ubuntu website about the 9.10 beta to check for any known issues that I needed to be aware of and decided it was an upgrade I could probably do safely. I ran command sudo do-release-upgrade -d with the Run Application (Alt-F2) tool, although you could also run it in the terminal, and waited the two hours plus while my system got upgraded. Your system may take the upgrade more quickly or more slowly than mine, but having done a clean installation for version 9.04 I decided I didn’t want to go through the hassle of having to reinstall every bloody app and tool I use this time around. I did notice a number of dbus errors during the upgrade and unfortunately I didn’t think to document what they were about. They may have had something to do with how long my upgrade took, but I hadn’t found any dbus issues connected with the upgrade so I have absolutely no clue what the errors should have told me.

Now that I’ve used and updating Karmic for just over a week I found some things that I want to point out, some good, some not so good.

Overall Thoughts

I kept seeing people say that the boot times for Ubuntu 9.10 are shorter and sure enough my boot time is shorter. Of course since the Ubuntu devs decided to switch from using Usplash for the initial boot splash to XSplash any Mac4Lin boot splashes would have been broken anyway (I never did get a Usplash working for Mac4Lin 1.0, much to may chagrin) but I have to say that I really do like the look of the new splash screens. The boot splash is a simple Ubuntu logo on a dark background, but I have to say the new XSplash is a thing of beauty. As you can see in a YouTube video posted on Softpedia’s article on the newly released Ubuntu 9.10 beta, it’s no longer a simple case of the Ubuntu logo and a progress bar. The Ubuntu logo is now suspended and lit by an overhead spotlight and the animated bar now scrolls up rather than going from left to right.

In addition, they’ve added the Ubuntu Software Center (USC) as a new tool for adding software to the usual collection of Synaptic and Add/Remove Software. When I first looked at it I thought, “So what? I can do the same thing with existing tools.” Except the UI for the USC makes it a lot handier than Add/Remove Software. You can either search for a specific app or browse through the library and when you find what you’re looking for you’re provided with a much nicer information screen complete with buttons to wither install the software as well as to go to the app’s website where you can get even more information. The information screen even lets you know the version that’s available, something that Add/Remove Software never had. Have software you installed from a Debian package (.deb)? The USC knows about the app (at least what the package told the system) and gives you a button to remove it. It may not always have the application’s icon, but that may be more of a limitation in the package itself. Yes, you can do all this via Synaptic, but not everyone’s all that comfortable with it.

The Good

For the most part I’m pretty happy with the upgrade. I won’t bore you with a ton of specifics or screenies (I’ll include a link to some screenshots I made at the end) but there are a few things that I noticed are definite improvements in the user experience for me. The first thing I noticed was a dialog that popped up on my first reboot after the upgrade was done. I knew my hard drives were getting a bit old in the tooth, but now I could see just how bad things are getting. I dismissed the dialog, but now when I boot up I get an icon in my notification area and when I click on it I get a helpful message. I can click on the message and get more information, and I know I need to replace that drive one of these days but now I know I need to do it sooner than later (picture). I can disable the message if I want, as I can for the warnings that I’m getting low on disk space on my partitions. Those warnings come up each boot, as well as when I’m working with videos and the available space gets too small. Yes, they can be a little annoying, but I haven’t decided to silence them just yet.

An even nicer improvement comes in the Update Manager. Now it lets you know the source for the particular updates, plus it flat-out gives you more information on the update, such as the version number. This is information that’s been missing from the Update Manager for as long as I’ve used Ubuntu.

Another small, yet a very nice set of improvements came in Evolution. The first is a better visual notification of new messages coming in. In the past when you fired up Evo you simply saw the folder names bold when you had unread messages, which is okay, unless you left some messages marked unread to follow-up on as I do. Now you’ll see that there’s a star on the folder that has brand new unread messages.

The other improvements come to those who use Evo as their RSS reader. Not only does Evo show the site icons for the folders with feeds where available (the other folders use the stock RSS feed icon), but on many sites you can now see the comments when you look at the article summaries. I’m not sure why they show up on some feeds and not others, but I have noticed that some feeds still show a count for the number of comments without actually showing the comments themselves. But it’s not all good news with Evo though.

There’s one more fan-damn-tastic improvement in Ubuntu 9.10 that I just discovered trying to get caught up on my RSS feeds: It’s a piece of baklava to enable using Ctrl-Alt-Backspace to force a new X session. Just go to System > Preferences > Keyboard > Layouts > Layout Options. Then select Key Sequence to kill the X server and check Control + Alt + Backspace. That’s all it takes. Yooouge thanks to Panji Nushantara for pointing it out on his blog.

The Not So Good

First off all let me warn you about a potential deal breaker in the updated Evolution. If you’re like me and you use Evo for your RSS/ATOM feed reader you won’t want to grab the new Evo. The reason for this warning is the fact that for some unknown (to me) reason the evolution-rss plugin no longer works and no feeds are updated (filed as Bug #460462 with fixed link). Luckily you can export your feed list (Edit > Preferences > News and Blogs > Export) so you can migrate your subscribed feeds to another app like Liferea and hopefully not miss too many days’ posts. There’s also an advantage that Liferea has over Evolution’s RSS plugin: You can sort and rename your feed folders to your heart’s content without borking the feed settings, something that you can’t say about evolution-rss. Updated 26 October 4:00 pm: Thanks to some very quick work by Andrew Starr-Bochicchio the evolution-rss bug is already fixed. There’s a .deb package on comment #6 on the bug, or you can wait for it to be available through the Update Manager as it’s already been accepted for distribution.

There are more upgrades in Ubuntu 9.10 that aren’t such good news, and one that sticks out like a sore thumb on my system is the GNOME web browser, Epiphany. As I mentioned back in December I finally got tired of the decisions Firefox devs were making and switched to using Epiphany for my web surfing. There were two flavors of Epiphany, one using the Mozilla Gecko rendering engine and one using Webkit, but the Webkit version didn’t quite seem ready for prime time so I was using the Gecko version. It was great that I had the option and it allowed me the option of using a Gecko-based browser without dealing with what I thought were boneheaded UI decisions from Firefox devs. Unfortunately the Epiphany devs have stopped supporting the Gecko engine and since with the release of Epiphany 2.26.3 Epiphany/Gecko no longer exists, Epiphany/Gecko is simply not available in Ubuntu 9.10. You may think that’s not a big problem, except there are some basic behavior issues that no longer available.

There’s finally a semi-usable spell checker in Epiphany now. I saw semi-usable because if I select a correct spelling the misspelled word is deleted but not replaced with the correct spelling (filed as Bug #460450).

The biggest issue is that you can no longer right-click a link and select Open in New Tab from the context menu. You also can’t middle-click a link on every site and open it in a new tab, especially when the links are on a Google site like Gmail.

Another serious usability issue for me is that the extensions that I used don’t seem to work quite properly anymore. The biggest issue for me is the fact that my beloved New Blank Tab extension no longer seems to be working. I’m hoping someone will come along and fix it because while the Tab Foreground extension works it doesn’t let me open a new tab and go straight to the location bar so I can type (or paste) in a URI. This is a rather big pain in the arse, although not quite as big as the no middle-click issue.

Wallpaper Tray is another app that has broken in the upgrade. For some reason it flat out won’t launch on booting for some reason. I ended up switching to Desktop Drapes, which is a nice app that I can put right on my upper panel, but doesn’t have the hover feature of showing the path and filename for the current wallpaper like Wallpaper Tray does. Hopefully we can get that fixed before too long.

On the Whole

One the whole there are some nice benefits to the upgrade, as long as you don’t depend on the features I mentioned above. As I finally finish this post we have a mere four days before Ubuntu 9.10 “Karmic Koala” is released, now may be a great time to snag the ISO for the Release Candidate and try it out on your own system. Remember, try the LiveCD before you make the upgrade, and look at every app that you use now to make sure the upgrade won’t bring bad news as I found. make sure you also read the overview before you make the upgrade for more information on what’s coming in the upgrade as well as the known issues.

Check out all of my Ubuntu 9.10 screenshots in my Picasa Web Album.

Karmic Upgrade screenies

No, your eyes are not deceiving you, I finally have a new omnibus links post. I’ve meant to write one a lot sooner than today, but time and my todo list have been busted for conspiracy to deny me the time and energy to do quite all the things I want to get done.

And yes, you are seeing a new hackergotchi on my posts on Ubuntu Weblogs and the Ubuntu Universe, as well on my About page here. Since I finally got some pics of me that I don’t hate I decided it was time to make a new hackergotchi that reflected two of my loves: Mac4Lin and the Los Angeles Dodgers. As I write this the Dodgers are a mere four wins away from locking up their trip to the post season and they’re 8 wins away from repeating as the champions of the National League West.

Some of these links are a tad old, but as I went through the items I’d flagged in Evolution (there’s no way I was including 70 links in a pair of posts, let alone one post) there were a few things I’d found early last month that I really did want to share.

• Panji Nushantara: Digsby: All in One IM Client for Linux (soon). Not everyone loves Pidgin, and Panji has info on a multiple IM client that’s currently available for OSX and Windows. the good news is that the Digsby devs know we’d like a Linux version and they’re hard at work on a native GNU/Linux version. They even have a page you can use to ask them to let you know when Digsby for Linux is available. With Pidgin getting replaced as the default IM client for Ubuntu 9.10, and I’m really not thrilled with what I’ve seen of Empathy so far, there’s a good possibility that Digsby may become a favorite IM client for fans of the penguin.
• directhex: Vive la différence. The person responsible for getting Moonlight easier to install for Ubuntu users has a great post about “Free Software”, including links to how a few others define that term. A must read, and I apologize for not getting the link posted before Saturday’s Software Freedom Day.
• Panji Nushantara: 2.6.30 Kernel on Jaunty Jackalope and Karmic Koala’s Kernel on Jaunty Jackalope. As always, the 9.10 version of Ubuntu Linux will include an update to the Linux kernel. Alpha 6 of Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala has just been released (see below), but since it’s a really bad idea to install testing releases on computers you use every day, especially alpha versions, Panji has given us a pair of posts on how to update your kernel to the newer version while still running Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope. I haven’t made the upgrade myself (see the above mentioned conspiracy charges) if you’re interested in making the jump yourself I’d love to hear your responses to it. Just remember the very important disclaimers about what can go wrong if you apply this upgrade. If you make the jump and your computer breaks please don’t come crying to myself, Panji or even Nanci. If you do we reserve the right to use those three words we hate using almost as much as you hate hearing: told you so.
• Colin Walters: Pay no attention to the processes and X Windows behind the curtain… Colin, a Fedora user whose posts are syndicated on Planet GNOME, gives us a nice preview of GNOME 3. There’s quite bit of geek speak in his post, but there’s also a nice glimpse at how GNOME 3 will make being a GNOME user even better than it is now.
• Scott James Remnant: Making a splash. One of the biggest pains in working with the Mac4Lin dev team is that every time Ubuntu rolls out an upgrade there are a number of things that break until we can get the components upgraded. This is the reason getting a Mac4Lin 1.0 Usplash created has been such a royal pain in the arse, and Ubuntu 9.10 includes a major change. They’re dumping Usplash for the boot splash screen, the first splash screen you get when you boot a computer into Ubuntu, and they’re replacing it with xsplash. Scott looks at the matter, including why the change is in fact a good idea. And yes, once I get 9.10 installed on my system (hopefully soon after it reaches beta status) I’ll see about getting a xsplash screen created for Mac4Lin.
• Stormy Peters: 3 ways our awesome habits get us into trouble. Currently the executive director of the GNOME Foundation, Stormy has long been a great source of information, especially on security issues within GNOME. This time Stormy looks at three habits that it’s great to develop if you don’t already have them, but she also points out “gotchas” that can turn on us if we’re not careful.
• Stormy Peters: Stacks of books are disappearing. If you love books you may be aware that libraries around the world are changing, and not always for the better. Stormy looks at the problem and why libraries are no longer the great resource they used to be.
• Dustin Kirkland: Encrypted $HOME Now Offered at Installation. I’m not one of them but some users make a point of encrypting the data on their hard drives. It’s a good idea, but in Ubuntu’s past it’s been a bit of a pain to do it. Ubuntu 9.10 has given users the ability to encrypt their home directories as a part of the install process since the fifth alpha came out earlier this month.
• André Gondim: New Ubuntu Screens Installer. Installing Ubuntu 9.10 will no longer be the rather boring experience it’s been in the past thanks to new installer screens that will finally let you know about some of the programs that are getting installed with the OS. André is kind enough to give us screenshots of the ten new information screens.
• Matthew Helmke: Drowning out what I want to hear. While not a tech post, Matthew has written a must read article on how to present your viewpoints, whether the subject be technical, religious or political. This is an article that should be bookmarked at the very least, and printing it out for future reference wouldn’t be a horrid idea.
• Stefano Forenza: LifeHacker’s Ubuntu Wishlist. LifeHacker has some things they’d like to see in Ubuntu, and it turns out the Ubuntu devs are already working on the first item. It turns out that LifeHacker has some very nice words for Mac4Lin, and Jono Bacon has written a very well thought out response to LifeHacker’s wishlist.
• Kees Cook: uninstall sun-java6. The vrms meme that’s been going around the ‘net has brought out an important reminder that there’s a very good open source replacement for Sun’s Java. I need to look into that to see if I could kick some non-free software on my system to the curb. And yes, I know I have two versions of Java installed. There’s a good reason I did that but I don’t recall what it was at this point.
• Jono Bacon: The Art of Community Available for Free Download. Jono wrote a great book about how to build a community of like minded people. While it’s not explicitly a tech book it does look at things that Jono discovered in the open source community. Now you can get a free PDF of the book, although Jono does recommend buying a printed copy of the book (and not just to put some money in his pocket). Whether you pay for your copy or not he asks that you write a review of it on Amazon.
• Christoph Haas: Tired of Nagios and Cacti? Try Zabbix. If you run network monitoring software, or even think you may want to run some, Christoph found an open source app that you should definitely consider.

There are a few more things I definitely want to post before I hit the Publish button. First off, as I mentioned above, the sixth alpha version of Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala has been released. It’s likely to be the last alpha release, and I’ll try to post when it gets it’s first beta release, but feel free to start taking a look at what’s coming in the new release. The devs are working on a countdown banner that I’m hoping to add to the sidebar here once they have a version that will play well with WordPress.com blogs.

On a lighter note, if you saw the Emmy awards last night you know that the show was taken over temporarily by Dr. Horrible. If you missed it then thank the good people over at the SciFi Wire because they have the video posted so we can enjoy it.

That’s almost it for today but I have one more thing to post that deserves a post all of it’s own. I trust tomorrow’s first day of fall brings you some decent weather.

paso 1
tener el usplash y usplash-dev
paso 2
$ sudo update-alternatives –config usplash-artwork.so
(elegir el deseado)
paso 3
$ sudo update-initramfs -u

En la parte 1 de este tutorial, obtuvimos los programas necesarios para crear nuestra Usplash, en la parte 2 hicimos como tal una Usplash, sin embargo por default, seguramente la barra de carga “apareció” en la parte superior derecha, para cambiar esta configuración es necesario meternos a algunos archivos que se encuentran dentro de la carpeta TUM que creamos.

Así que comencemos:

1. Abrimos la carpeta TUM (si siguieron los pasos de la parte 1 está en nuestra carpeta personal).

2. Abrimos el archivo “TUM.tar.gz”

3. Abrimos la carpeta “workinprogress”

4. Abrimos el archivo “usplash-theme-ubuntu.c”

5. Bajamos dentro del archivo que se abre y encontraremos algo como esto:

struct usplash_theme usplash_theme_1024_768 = {
.version = THEME_VERSION,
.next = &usplash_theme_1280_1024,
.ratio = USPLASH_4_3,/* Background and font */
.pixmap = &pixmap_usplash_1024_768,
.font = &font_helvB10,

/* Palette indexes */
.background = 0,
.progressbar_background = 7,
.progressbar_foreground = 50,
.text_background = 0,
.text_foreground = 100,
.text_success = 100,
.text_failure = 120,

/* Progress bar position and size in pixels */
XXXXXX .progressbar_x = 675, /* 1024/2 – 216/2 */
XXXXXX .progressbar_y = 15,
.progressbar_width = 230,
.progressbar_height = 15,

/* Functions */
.init = t_init,
.clear_progressbar = t_clear_progressbar_1024_768,
.draw_progressbar = t_draw_progressbar_1024_768,
.animate_step = t_animate_step_1024_768,

El valor de la “x” es la ubicación de la barra dentro del eje de las “x” (es decir sobre una línea horizontal); y obviamente el valor de la “y” es la ubicación de la barra sobre el eje de la “y” (es decir sobre una línea vertical).

6. Lo que tienen que hacer aquí es experimentar con los valores, el mismo autor del tutorial es lo que recomienda, se encontrarán con que existen valores para “x” y “y” para diferentes resoluciones, la verdad no se bien cual es la resolución que sale por defecto para las usplash, pero tal vez depende del “pixelaje” de la imágen que selecionamos, repito eso no lo sé.

Lo que yo hice fue experimentar con todos los valores hasta obtener el resultado que yo quería (y logré poner la barra de carga en el centro y más o menos abajo de la usplash), así que aquí no hay de otra, cambiamos los valores de “x” y de “y”.

7. Una vez que cambiamos los valores, sólo damos guardar, cerramos el archivo “usplash-theme-ubuntu.c” y repetimos todo el proceso de creación de la usplash.

Listo, con eso ya podemos cambiar la ubicación de la barra de carga.

Ahora para cambiar el color de la barra tenemos que hacer lo siguiente:

1. Abrimos nuevamente la carpeta TUM

2. Abrimos la carpeta TUM.tar.gz y ahi abrimos el folder “usplash”

3. Abrimos ahora el archivo “throbber_fore.png” con GIMP

GIMP es el editor gráfico por defecto en GNOME, si alguna vez has utilizado Photoshop o alguna aplicación parecida, puedes seguir, si no, te recomiendo algunos tutoriales de GIMP como este.

De hecho para lo que vamos a hacer no se necesita gran tutorial de GIMP, pero si quieren aprender sobre este programa, no creo ser la persona adecuada jaja.

4. Una vez abierto throbber_fore.png en GIMP, damos click en Archivo>Nuevo, saldrá una ventana que pide que configures el nuevo archivo, en tamaño le damos (si no es que ya está) 216 x 8 (este es el tamaño en pixeles de la barra de carga).

5. Con cualquier herramienta para pintar, como la “cubeta” o el “pincel”, rellenamos la nueva barra del color de nuestra preferencia.

Nota: el autor dice que no ha experimentado con degradados y efectos muy locos en el relleno de la barra, que ha usado sólo colores sólidos (al igual que yo), si quieren experimentar, háganlo y escriban si les funcionó.

6. Una vez que terminamos de rellenar nuestra barra, la guardamos con el mismo nombre de la barra original y en la misma ubicación, es decir: throbber_fore.png, esto para que el archivo de la carpeta “usplash” (paso 2. de esta sección) se modifique.

Una vez que terminamos, guardamos, salimos y volvemos a experimentar haciendo nuestras usplash.

Como ven tal vez la creación de una usplash tal y como la queremos, nos puede llevar un poco de tiempo, sin embargo una vez que tenemos configurados los “settings” como queremos, pues todo se resume a tomar una imágen que nos guste para transformarla en Usplash.

Espero esta traducción les haya sido de utilidad y si quieren manden sus Usplash (si gustan con sus configuraciones de la barra) para ver cómo les quedaron.

O pueden subirlos a Gnome-Look.

Nos vemos, hasta el siguiente post.

Saludos.

Bueno, continuemos con este pequeño tutorial:

Nos quedamos en que ya tenemos todo listo para poder crear nuestra propia Usplash (si no tienes ni idea de lo que hablo da click aquí).

1. Buscamos un wallpaper que nos guste (de preferencia no muy loco ya que la Usplash está limitada a 256 colores @ 8 bit y una resolución de 1024×768 para que funcione mejor) Si no sabes donde encontrar wallpapers Gnome-Look es un buen lugar para buscar.

2. Copiamos el archivo de imágen a nuestro Escritorio.

3. Damos click derecho sobre el archivo de imágen y nos vamos a la parte que dice “Scripts”, ahí seleccionamos “Make Usplash 1.04″

4. Saldrá la siguiente pantalla:

Damos click en Ok o Aceptar

A continuación saldrá esta pantalla:

Aquí debemos fijarnos en que todas las casillas estén seleccionadas tal y cómo parece en la imágen anterior.

Al dar click en Aceptar comenzará a procesar nuestra Usplash, saldrán varias pantallas y aparecerán varios archivos en nuestro Escritorio y una vez que termine el proceso esos archivos se transformarán en uno sólo, con el mismo nombre que la imágen que elegimos pero con una extensión .so

Está es nuestra pantalla Usplash, para ponerla sigue los siguientes pasos:

1. Abrimos Start up manager Sistema>Administración>Administrador de Arranque (Si no lo tienes instalado puedes verlo en la entrada anterior), recuerda que debemos tener cuidado con lo que hagamos en este programa.

2. Puedes guardar tu archivo en una carpeta a parte (Yo tengo una carpeta especial para mis Uspalsh, Wallpapers, Packs de Iconos, etc. esto lo recomiendo para que tengas organizados tus archivos y en el futuro puedas modificar lo que quieras mucho más rápido) bueno el caso es que nos vamos a esta ventana del Start up:

3. Damos click en el botón “Administrar temas de Usplash”, aparecerá una ventana en la que daremos click en “añadir”, seleccionamos la ubicación de nuestro archivo Usplash (recuerda, es el que tiene la extensión .so)

4. En la misma pantalla del Start up, ahora selecionamos el botón donde dice: “Tema Usplash” y seleccionamos nuestro Usplash, cerramos el Start up y saldrá una ventana de post-configuración, dejamos que termine y listo, ya está instalado nuestro Usplash personalizado.

5. Si queremos ver que todo anda bien con nuestro Usplash, nos vamos a la terminal y escribmos lo siguiente:

sudo usplash -c

Con esto veremos nuestro Usplash en acción.

Nota: para salir de ahí apretamos las teclas Super+F7 (La tecla Super en muchas computadoras es la que tiene el logo de Windows y se encuentra entre las teclas Ctrl y Alt)

Bueno con esto concluyo con la segunda parte (de tres) de este tutorial, en el siguiente post, veremos cómo modificar ciertos aspectos de la Usplash tales como la ubicación y color de la barra de carga.

Saludos.

Hola a todos, hoy andaba cabilando por la web y me encontré en kaeltas blog una entrada en la que describen (en algunos no tan breves pasos) como crear tu propia pantalla usplash.

La pantalla usplash es la pantalla que sale cuando prendes tu computadora o después de elegir tu sistema operativo (si tienes más de uno); vamos pues, que es la pantalla de carga de tu sistema operativo (la que tiene la barrita).

Al seguir el tutorial acabé haciéndo una usplash bastante bonita (bueno para mí lo es), sin embargo el tutorial está en inglés así que decidí traducirlo para que sea más fácil para la banda que no domina tan bien el inglés.

Primero, antes que cualquier otra cosa, les advierto que deben ser cuidadosos con algunos programas (sobretodo el startupmanager), porque si “mueven” algo que desconocen y no se dan cuenta, puede provocar ciertos problemas al iniciar la computadora, así que no digan que no les advertí.

Para comenzar necesitamos el “Startup manager”, para ello abrimos una terminal (si no sabes qué es o cómo se abre la terminal da click aquí), en la terminal escribimos lo siguiente:

sudo aptitude install startupmanager

Una vez instalado podrás encontrar el Start up manager (Administrador de arranque) en: Sistema>Administración>Administrador de Arranque

Nota: Cada vez que abras este programa te pedirá la contraseña, esto es debido a que cualquier acción, necesitará de tu permiso, como les mencioné arriba hay que tener cuidado con lo que movemos aquí. Después haré un breve tutorial con más funciones del startu up)

Ok, ya tenemos el start up, ahora necesitamos el programa creador de las Usplash: TUM 1.04

Una vez que lo bajemos, necesitaremos instalarlo, este programa no se instala como otros que he reseñado anteriormente, para instalarlo:

1. Damos doble click sobre el archivo tar.bz2

2. Se abrirá una nueva ventana con dos archivos, “arrastrámos” los archivos hacia nuestro escritorio

3. Abrimos una terminal y escribimos lo siguiente:

sudo apt-get install libusplash-dev libbogl-dev libc6-dev make gcc

Donde install libbusplash… son ciertas librerías que necesitamos para que pueda “correr” correctamente el programa.

4. Una vez que termine, cerramos la terminal.

5. Vamos a nuestro directorio Home, está en Lugares>Carpeta Personal

6. Una vez abierta la ventana tecleamos Ctrl+h, este comando hará que aparezcan todas las carpetas ocultas

Ahí, buscamos la carpeta .gnome2 y dentro de esa carpeta entramos a nautilus scripts

7. Damos doble click en la carpeta make Usplash 1.04.tar.gz que está en nuestro Escritorio (paso 2.)

8. Arrástramos el único arhivo, hacia la carpeta de nautilus scripts (o si lo prefieren Ctrl+c para copiarlo y Ctrl+v para pegarlo), y cerramos la ventana de nautilus scripts.

9. Regresamos a nuestra carpeta Home (Paso 5.) y ahí creamos una nueva carpeta (para hacerlo damos click derecho en cualquier parte de la ventana y damos click en “Crear una carpeta”), le damos el nombre de TUM y la abrimos.

10. Ahora arrástramos el archivo TUM-DATA.tar.gz de nuestro escritorio hacia la carpeta TUM.

Listo con eso ya tenemos instalado el “creador de Usplashes”

Por el momento me tengo que ir, en el siguiente post, ahora sí le entraremos de lleno con la creación de una pantalla Usplash.

Saludos.

i was pretty bored with the simple yet not-so-cool boot screen of Ubuntu (to see what i am talking about click here).i wanted to change it .now there are 2 ways to change your boot screen.

1.install usplash and start-up manager.

2.install splashy.

but i wanted to go a step further…i did not want to be dependent on other theme sites for my boot screens,i wanted to create my own.this proved to be quite a pain with usplash,so i switched to splashy.it’s so simple to create your own splash screens with splashy.splashy is a boot splash program that does not require patching the linux kernel.it’s simple and easy to use.so go ahead and install it.

here’s how:

32-bit machine – libsplashyl_0.3.10-1_i386.deb, spalshy_0.3.10-1_i386.deb (i will be placing links for 64 bit machines soon)

In the terminal, type the following command to install the splashy-themes:

sudo apt-get install splashy-themes

now we will install gsplashy which is a GUI tool to create and set your boot screens

first install the dependencies

sudo apt-get install libglade2-dev libsplashy1-dev build-essential

download gsplashy to your desktop from here.

now compile the code

cd ~/Desktop/gsplashy0.1 (change the path if you have extracted gsplashy in another location)
./configure
make
make install

that’s it.you can start gsplashy by typing in a terminal

sudo gsplashy

this will pop up a window like this:

you have to specify boot skins for resume,shutdown,boot,hibernate and suspend.the picture should be a .png format.

for progress bar specify dimensions of X:250 Y:690width=512 height=15.feel free to experiment with all dimensions.

after installing a new theme do in a terminal

sudo update-initramfs –u

also change your vga settings:

gksu gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

add vga=792 at end of line after splash.

that’s it..enjoy the new look of your ubuntu.

THE ABOVE METHOD MAY NOT WORK FOR YOU.IF SO,DO LET ME KNOW I WILL DO EVERYTHING TO HELP YOU.

DON’T FORGET TO COMMENT ON THIS.

Una de los primeros objetivos que se marcaron en las líneas generales de desarrollo de Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala fue el de modificar sustancialmente el aspecto general del sistema operativo, aspecto que en mi opinión, se viene necesitando desde hace tiempo. Acaban de aparecer unos mockups en la wiki de Ubuntu algunos de ellos espectaculares, como los que podéis ver más abajo:

Más abajo tenéis algún ejemplo más, aunque a mi el que más me gusta es el de arriba

]]> http://andrealazzarotto.com/2009/07/15/cambiare-lusplash-e-avere-la-tty-a-risoluzione-piena/ Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:56:15 +0000 Lazza http://andrealazzarotto.com/2009/07/15/cambiare-lusplash-e-avere-la-tty-a-risoluzione-piena/

Mi piace configurare ogni dettaglio della distribuzione. Ho cercato quindi dopo avere installato Ubuntu, come cambiare l’usplash (cioè il caricamento in fase di boot) e come impostare le tty (cioè le console virtuali raggiungibili con i tasti ctr+alt+F[1-6]) perché avessero la risoluzione del mio monitor (un amplissimo 1680×1050). Se volete sapere come fare, continuate a leggere. Eccovi un assaggio di come appare ora la mia tty:

Altro che 80 caratteri di larghezza…

Cambiare l’usplash e impostarne la risoluzione

Una cosa per volta. Usplash è ciò che rappresenta graficamente il boot in moltissime distribuzioni Linux (compresa Ubuntu). Non è la tecnologia migliore, infatti pare Ubuntu cambierà nella versione 9.10 (o 10.4) seguendo le orme di Fedora. In ogni caso per ora funziona ed è bella la possibilità di cambiarne l’aspetto. Oltre a ciò, si può anche impostarne la risoluzione (che quasi sempre non è corretta, viene tenuta a 1024×768 o 800×600 per questioni di compatibilità).

La prima cosa da fare è procurarsi un bel tema usplash. Su Gnome Look ce ne sono moltissimi (basta cercare il termine usplash), e bisogna assicurarsi che il tema supporti la risoluzione che vogliamo, in caso contrario dovremmo usarlo ad una risoluzione inferiore. Io ho scelto Hardy Colors usplash che fornisce temi in colorazioni differenti. In generale comunque un tema usplash viene distribuito come una libreria in formato .so. Per l’esempio, userò il tema human-ubuntu.so presente nell’archivio di cui sopra.

Da terminale, una volta entrati nella cartella che lo contiene, provvedete a copiarlo dove deve andare:

sudo cp human-ubuntu.so /usr/lib/usplash

Ora dovete creare il nuovo collegamento allo splash screen. Pertanto il comando da dare sarà:

sudo ln -sf /usr/lib/usplash/human-ubuntu.so /etc/alternatives/usplash-artwork.so

Prima di terminare, modificate il file responsabile della risoluzione del vostro usplash:

sudo nano /etc/usplash.conf

Inserite i valori appropriati (la vostra risoluzione, o quella supportata dal tema) e poi premete F2, Invio, F3. Non resta altro che aggiornare l’initramfs:

sudo update-initramfs -u

Impostare la risoluzione delle tty

Per ricavare le informazioni utili che adopererete, dovrete installare il pacchetto hwinfo. Fatelo col gestore di pacchetti. Nel terminale date quindi il comando:

sudo hwinfo --framebuffer

Tra le ultime righe c’è quello che interessa, in particolare nel mio caso:

Mode 0x0368: 1680x1050 (+1680), 8 bits
Mode 0x0369: 1680x1050 (+6720), 24 bits

Ricordate che se il vostro è un monitor economico (molti di quelli nei portatili lo sono) allora non avrete la possibilità di impostare la piena risoluzione che usate. Potete sceglierne comunque una maggiore di quella che state usando in quel momento per le tty. Io ho la possibilità di ottenere la risoluzione 1680×1050 a 24 bit usando la modalità 0×0369. Mi segno pertanto il numero, dimenticandomi dello zero dopo la x. Ciò che mi serve pertanto è 0×369. Voi segnate il vostro numero e poi modificate il file di avvio di grub:

sudo nano /boot/grub/menu.lst

Cercate la riga delle kopt, probabilmente sarà simile alla seguente:

# kopt=root=UUID=********-****-****-****-************ ro

Voi limitatevi ad aggiungere in fondo il parametro vga come segue, sostituendo naturalmente il valore trovato (ricordate che è tutto su una riga):

# kopt=root=UUID=********-****-****-****-************ ro vga=0x369

Ora l’ultima cosa da fare è aggiornare grub:

sudo update-grub

Per ora è tutto. Dal prossimo avvio della macchina (lo spegnimento potrebbe vedersi male, tranquilli) sarà tutto perfetto. Godetevi il vostro boot a tema ed a risoluzione piena, e la vostra nuova immensa console.

Fonti e spunti:

• Framebuffer 1680×1050
• Dell Inspiron 1525 – Gentoo Linux Wiki
• How To Create And Install Your Own Usplash Theme In Ubuntu
• Cambiare lo splash di boot su Ubuntu Gutsy (USplash)
• Bug #154781 in usplash (Ubuntu): “Out of Range message and usplash not displayed in Gutsy”

Per chi non lo sapesse, il BootSplash non è altro che la barra di caricamento che vediamo all’avvio di Ubuntu. Questa non fa altro che nasconderci la procedura di boot che visualizza tutto ciò che viene caricato all’avvio del sistema operativo. Nativamente su Ubuntu, è Usplash ad occuparsi di questo. Quest’ultimo è personalizzabile, ma con Splashy possiamo sbizzarrirci molto di più! E a noi piace tanto complicarci la vita per delle frivolezze simili
Splashy è sicuramente più bello e accattivante, ma Uspash resta più affidabile e sicuramente più veloce… quindi non mi senti di consigliarne la sostituzione per chi utilizza computer datati o comunque poco potenti e a chi non piace smanettare.

Allora, per chi avesse deciso di dare un tocco di originalità al BootSplash, per prima cosa procuriamoci Splashy. Quest’ultimo non lo troveremo nei repository ufficiali di Ubuntu, ma è reperibile qui. Una volta scaricata la versione adatta alla nostra architettura, procediamo col rimuovere il meta-pacchetto ubuntu-desktop. Non abbiate timore, in quanto meta-pacchetto, la sua disinstallazione non causerà problemi. Da terminale diamo quindi:

sudo apt-get remove ubuntu-desktop usplash

Come potete notare, anche Usplash è da rimuovere in quanto va in conflitto con Splashy. Alla fine del processo di rimozione, non ci resta che installare il pacchetto .deb pocanzi scaricato con gdebi cliccandoci sopra due volte. Terminata l’installazione, procediamo a crearci una copia di sicurezza del file menu.lst nel caso qualcosa vada storto:

sudo cp /boot/grub/menu.lst /boot/grub/menu.lst.old

così da poterla ripristinare in qualsiasi momento. Passiamo ora ad editare il file menu.lst col nostro editor di testo preferito (nell’esempio userò gedit in quanto uso GNOME):

sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

individuate la riga (simile a questa) “kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/hda1 ro quiet splash” relativa al kernel in uso e aggiungetene alla fine “vga=792″. Dovremmo avere questo risultato finale (esempio):

kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/hda1 ro quiet splash vga=792

Ora, procuriamoci qualche nuovo tema a questo indirizzo oppure direttamente su kde-look. Una volta scaricato il tema, scompattiamolo e copiamo l’intero contenuto nella cartella di Splashy in questo modo:

sudo cp -a ubuntu/ /etc/splashy/themes

e potremmo scegliere il nuovo tema da visualizzare al boot del sistema operativo.

You can get enlightenment 16 via the synaptic package manager – since its the latest stable version. It’s actually quite a bit old, I had a play round with it and didn’t like it that much. You want e17.

People have made debian packages for e17, however most of the links are broken, and all the ones I personally tried failed to install. I suggest going for a SVN version.

Caveat: E17 is the milestone at which the development community is striving for. The SVN repositories are tagged with versions that begin 0.16.999.x and will be eventually become 0.17 on stable release – which is really confusing since e17 is a complete rewrite of e16!

You can try and install an SVN version via synaptic package manager by following the steps in this comprehensive forum: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=916690. However that failed for me.

Step 1: Get easy-e17.sh

First get the famous bash script called easy-e17.sh from here. This is sooo helpful. It painlessly automates the installation and update process for you.

Step 2: Install dependencies

You must install some development tools like automake and svn. When you run bash script, it will tell you if your missing any tools before it tries anything (errr, so if it does, install them! – e.g. run “sudo apt-get install svn to install SVN).

This forum mentioned to install CVS as well, because of some old package that is still using CVS. I don’t think that’s necessary, but what the hey, install it anyway (run “sudo apt-get install cvs).

Step 3: Preparation for installing e17 login manager

Before you go willy-nilly and run the script, your gonna want to do some configuration first. The easy_e17 script doesn’t install everything, and if your a bit of a perfectionist like me, you might want to include e17’s graphical login manager in the installation. By default Ubuntu uses GNOME’s login manager called GDM. We will switch them later (if you choose).

You can run “bash easy_e17.sh --help“. This will show you all the options you can use with this magnificent script. Note you can run this anywhere so keep it in a logical place – you might want to use it later for updates etc. You can also specify where you want your source to live. Personally I chuck it all in a /usr/lib/easy_E17 directory.

If /etc/easy_e17.conf does not exist, create it:

sudo touch /etc/easy_e17.conf

Then set the contents to become:

--skip=enhance,exml,imlib2,edb,edje_editor,edje_player,edje_viewer,emotion,eclair,evfs,evolve,elicit,elitaire,emphasis,empower,engycad,entrance_edit_gui,entropy,ephoto,estickies,expedite,exquisite,extrackt,engage,enthrall,exalt-client,exhibit,rage,emu,flame,moon,news,penguins,rain,snow,language,photo,efm_path,efm_nav,e_phys,mpdule,notification,b_and_w

This is the standard config with “entrance” and “esmart” removed in the –skip list. “Entrance” is E17’s login manager, and it depends on “esmart.”

Note: easy_e17 lets you define your own path to a config file, however I would stay away from that because it will fist look for the /etc/easy_e17.conf, then one in ~/easy_e17.conf, then one in the current directory… the changes of your config to be used is small and can cause you some headaches.

Step 4: Download and Install

Run the script:

sudo bash easy_e17.sh -i

It will download the source and compile it and install it! Yay!

The first time I ran this it actually failed because I missed some steps above. If it does fail, try and install it via the debian-svn package in this forum. If that fails, then try installing it via the easy_e17 script again and it should work. It worked for me. I think the debian package installed some hidden dependancies the easy_17 script wasn’t picking up.

Step 5: switching from GNOME to E17

In order to access e17 session, you need to create a file that describes it. Create the file:

sudo touch /usr/share/xsessions/Enlightenment-0.17.desktop

Then set its contents to contain:

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Enlightenment 0.17
Comment=
Exec=/opt/e17/bin/enlightenment_start
Icon=
Type=Application

Now its time to try it. Logout (e.g. CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE), then in “Options” or “Sessions” (depending on what GDM your using) select Enlightenment 17 for the next session. Then login..

Step 6: Switching to the Entrance login manager

This was a mission. Ok first create the following symbolic link:

sudo ln -s /opt/e17/etc/init.d/entrance /etc/init.d/entrance

Now we need to switch from GDM to Entrance by editing the run level configurations. I suggest using BUM. First install bum if you don’t have it:

apt-get install bum

Then invoke bum (Now that’s a weird sentence):

sudo bum

Once its loaded scroll down to the “entrance” item and check it. Also, uncheck GDM, otherwise it will try and attach itself to the XDM after entrance has done so and funny things will happen! click the apply button at the top of the window in bum and exit. It might logout after closing bum, if not, logout to check out entrance

Note: Disabling GDM from the bootloader loading it up will save resources, it avoids running two window managers simultaneously.

Step 7: Complete the package: An enlightenment USpash

To make your setup complete and consistent, you might want to install an e17 splash screen when loading the Ubuntu OS (aka bootscreen). Ubuntu uses usplash for displaying its splash screen.

I found one for e17 here, which is for specifically for Elbuntu (e17 with Ubuntu 7). Personally I didn’t like this one, also the screen resolution support is bad (on my setup I get a large black area around the splash). I tried looking for others but they weren’t the flavor I was looking for. So I created my own. Here’s a screenshot:

To get this theme download it here (it’s GPL licensed – I based it on the Xubuntu source). Extract it, then move the binary “usplash-theme-e17clean.so” into /usr/lib/usplash/:

sudo mv usplash-theme-e17clean.so /usr/lib/usplash/.

Next remove your current usplash theme:

sudo rm /usr/lib/usplash/usplash-artwork.so

Then link in the e17 clean theme:

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/usplash/usplash-theme-e17clean.so /usr/lib/usplash/usplash-artwork.so

Then to properly apply the changes:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure linux-image-`uname -r`

Step 8: Icing on the cake: change your GTK theme

At this point, any application using GTK will look really crude. You may want to change the GTK theme to suit your selected e17 theme. For example if you use the “black and white” e17 you may want to try this theme. If you are using applications that are based on qt, it goes without saying that you probably will want to update your Qt theme to.

Usually you would use gnomes’ “gnome-appearance-properties” application to switch the GTK theme, this is not available within e17 (if you’ve disabled GDM from running simultaneously to e17’s window manager – see step 6). To switch the GTK theme you are going to need to install the gtk-theme-switch package (if you don’t already have it):

sudo apt-get install gtk-theme-switch

This will install two programs: “gtk-theme-switch” and “gtk-theme-switch2,” where the latter is used for switching GTK2 themes (what you want).

When you download a GTK theme it will usually be in a compressed tarbell form. Uncompress them to you “~/.themes” directory. Make sure that the top-level folder of the extracted theme contains a “index.theme” file. Then invoke:

gtk-theme-switch2 ~/.theme/TOP-DIR-OF-YOUR-THEME

You should see the changes apply straight away!

Note: If you decide on a dark theme, like the current default black and white theme, not all GTK applications will look nice. For example Firefox uses Mozillas XUL engine for rendering not just the various HTML forms, but also all its chrome. XUL always renders black for its text in the buttons etc.. which you will need to manually configure yourself.

You may also want to change your icon theme to go with your GTK/E17 Themes too.

Step 9: Extras

Ok I promise I’ll stop. But there are more quirks you may want to know:

File manager
E17’s integrated file manager is still in development. It’s buggy and I personally find it very annoying to use. You can use nautilus, Ubuntu’s file manager used with GNOME. I personally recommend getting Thunar, it seems faster and has the same feel as nautilus anyway. Here are the commands:

sudo apt-get install thunar
sudo apt-get install thunar-volman
sudo apt-get install thunar-archive-plugin

Note: You may be able to find a later stable release than ubuntu’s apt sources.

Now in the main enlightenment menu, goto Settings->Modules. Then unload the filemanager (Notice in its about info it says that it’s under construction!). You will lose file-management on your desktop… a small price to pay i say. It will also remove the “files” menu in the main enlightenment menu.

If you choose to disable E17’s file manager and want to have shortcuts to common places like “home” and “documents,” then you will have to manually create them. There is a “places” module that I believe provides shortcuts to directories on the menu which can be easily configured to use thunar, but mine was bugging out. E17 does not let you create custom menus (errr, without have to delve into their code!). You can edit the applications menu and also the favorite-applications menu.

You could use the favorite-applications menu. To do so, first you need to create applications for your shortcuts, yes, this is a hacky approach (please let me know if you find a better way). Go into the main menu: settings->settings-panel. Go into the apps view. For each directory you are wanting to add, follow these steps:

1. Click New Application
2. Name: … e.g. “Home”
3. Executable: thunar “PATH-TO-DIR”
4. If your pedantic like me, add a icon that fits

Then in that same settings window, goto the Menus view, then click on the Favorites Menu. Then add your “applications” hahaha.

A note on GNOME
By default Ubuntu will have lots of GNOME based apps installed. Some things are a little slow at starting up since they have to pull in some GNOME desktop libraries in order to launch. (which is usually loaded, but if you disabled GDM to save resources/use Entrance then the libraries wont be). You may want to switch to using alternative apps, for example using xzgv for viewing images rather than “eye of gnome.” Or if your feeling real adventurous you can keep on configuring your Linux scripts to preload GNOME and GTK2 libraries etc… But if your going to do that you should just use a dist like OpenGEU which does all the hard work for you!

And your done! Enjoy your e17 experience!

Hace tiempo busaba algo así y finalmente me tope con este arículo que explica muy bien que es Epidermis y como hay que instalarlo

Tuve problemas al instalarlo pero gracias al comentario de “calico” en el post anterior resolví mis problemas

yo he conseguido hacerlo funcionar

1) desinstalar

2) borrar la carpeta /usr/share/epidermis

3) borrar la carpeta ~/.local/share/epidermis

4) INSTALAR LA VERSIÓN 0.22 NO la 0.23

suerte

i was pretty bored with the simple yet not-so-cool boot screen of Ubuntu (to see what i am talking about click here).i wanted to change it .now there are 2 ways to change your boot screen.

1.install usplash and start-up manager.

2.install splashy.

but i wanted to go a step further…i did not want to be dependent on other theme sites for my boot screens,i wanted to create my own.this proved to be quite a pain with usplash,so i switched to splashy.it’s so simple to create your own splash screens with splashy.splashy is a boot splash program that does not require patching the linux kernel.it’s simple and easy to use.so go ahead and install it.

here’s how:

32-bit machine – libsplashyl_0.3.10-1_i386.deb, spalshy_0.3.10-1_i386.deb (i will be placing links for 64 bit machines soon)

In the terminal, type the following command to install the splashy-themes:

sudo apt-get install splashy-themes

now we will install gsplashy which is a GUI tool to create and set your boot screens

first install the dependencies

sudo apt-get install libglade2-dev libsplashy1-dev build-essential

download gsplashy to your desktop from here.

now compile the code

cd ~/Desktop/gsplashy0.1 (change the path if you have extracted gsplashy in another location)
./configure
make
make install

that’s it.you can start gsplashy by typing in a terminal

sudo gsplashy

this will pop up a window like this:

you have to specify boot skins for resume,shutdown,boot,hibernate and suspend.the picture should be a .png format.

for progress bar specify dimensions of X:250 Y:690width=512 height=15.feel free to experiment with all dimensions.

after installing a new theme do in a terminal

sudo update-initramfs –u

also change your vga settings:

gksu gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

add vga=792 at end of line after splash.

that’s it..enjoy the new look of your ubuntu.

THE ABOVE METHOD MAY NOT WORK FOR YOU.IF SO,DO LET ME KNOW I WILL DO EVERYTHING TO HELP YOU.

DON’T FORGET TO COMMENT ON THIS.