Exaile 0.3.1.2 Has Been Released [Linux Music Player]

Exaile 0.3.1.2 has just been released, this being a bug-fix only release.

Among the changes in this version are:

• Full python2.5 compatibility was restored
• A bug resulting in unexpected duplicate playlist entries was fixed
• Several stability and interface issues were resolved

Exaile 0.3.1.2 is not yet available in its PPA but you can install it via WebUpd8 PPA (for Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala and 10.04 Lucid Lynx):

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8 && sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install exaile

AWN Lucido Merged Into AWN Trunk Builds

This is a small update to let you know that AWN Lucido has been merged into AWN trunk, meaning you can now simply use the AWN testing PPA to install AWN Lucido.

If you've used our PPA (which we'll remove soon), simply either remove the packages and reinstall from the AWN PPA or wait until the AWN packages will superseed (will get a higher version number) than the currently installed packages - this should happen soon.

Fix Intel GMA500 "Poulsbo" Graphics In Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx [PPA]

I recently came upon an Ubuntu 10.04 PPA with Intel GMA500 "Poulsbo" packages which you can use to get everything working. Well, almost everything as only 2D will work, 3D unfortunately is not supported.

This PPA aims to port the Mandriva patches for the psb driver to Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx in order to enable GMA500 support in Xorg 1.7.x.

Before adding the PPA and installing the packages, please note that I don't own an Intel GMA500 graphics card anymore so I didn't test this!

Add the PPA in Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx and install the Intel GMA500 Poulsbo packages using the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gma500/ppa && sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install poulsbo-driver-2d poulsbo-driver-3d poulsbo-config

Then reboot.


Note: because 3D won't work, Compiz will be removed!

Specific netbooks instructions

On Asus and Sony Vaio add the following workaround:

-run this in a terminal:

sudo nano /etc/default/grub

And find the line that begins with "GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT" and modify it so that it looks like below:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash mem=2000mb acpi_osi=Linux"

Then update your GRUB:

sudo update-grub

On Acer 751h, to fix battery status, add this to startup (System > Preferences > Startup Applications):

cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT1/info

Opera 10.60 Alpha 1 Released (Linux Builds Included)

There won't be any stable Opera 10.5x for Linux because Opera already reached version 10.60 alpha 1. But there is some good news for the Linux users: Opera 10.60 aims to synchronize across all desktop platforms meaning that when the Windows stable build will be released, we'll also have a stable version for Linux and of course the Linux version will benefit from all the improvements since 10.5x.

Opera 10.60 comes with lots of improvements, including: speend optimizations (yes, even more speed!) for JavaScript, DOM and CSS, Speed Dial facelift, improvements to the menu (which now actually says "menu" so the users will know what the button in the top left corner actually does)

Download Opera .deb, .rpm and .tar.gz for Linux | for Windows and Mac, see the original announcement.

Download And Rename Photos/Videos From Digital Cameras Using Rapid Photo Downloader [Version 0.2.0 Released]

Rapid Photo Downloader is an application for downloading photos from digital cameras, memory cards and portable storage devices. It can download from multiple devices in the same time so for example if your camera has two card slots, Rapid Photo Downloader can transfer the photos from both of them in the same time.

Other features include: rename camera generated file names using EXIF metadata, automatically create download folders and even backup the photos and videos as they are downloaded.

Rapid Photo Downloader 0.2.0 which was just released finally enables you to the download videos. This new version also brings thumbnails for Nikon RAW files, and other manufacturers whose RAW files include multiple thumbnails (requires pyexiv2 >= 0.2.0).

To install Rapid Photo Downloader in Ubuntu, simply use the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:dlynch3/ppa && sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install rapid-photo-downloader

The PPA is available HERE in case you want to manually download the .deb files. For other Linux distributions, see the DOWNLOAD page.

Microblog-Purple (Twitter In Pidgin Plugin) 0.3 Has Been Released [Linux, Windows]

Microblog-Purple (MBPurple) is a Pidgin plugin for Windows and Linux which integrates Twitter, Identi.ca and Status.net server through the conversation windows.

Microblog-Purple version 0.3 with OAuth support for Twitter has just been released. The package is not yet available in its official PPA, but you can install 0.3 in Ubuntu Karmic and Lucid via Frasten PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:frasten/ppa && sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install pidgin-microblog

To enable the plugin in Pidgin, go to Tools > Plugins and enable "Twidgin". Then simply add a new account and on the account type select Twitter, Identi.ca or Status.Net.

Using the plugin is very easy: you have a "rt" button, you can reply by clicking a username and so on.

You can also use the following commands in the conversation window:

/replies - to get all replies to you

/refresh - get new tweets instantly

/tag, /btag, /untag - automatically tag all your message, good for tagging messages with some hash tag (Example: #ubuntu)

For more commands, type "/help".

For other Linux distributions and Windows, download microblog-purple from HERE.

Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat NotifyOSD Counter

maverickm is a script which notifies you how many days there are until the release of Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat. The script displays the number of days each time you log in and also in the release day, it will check for the release every 60 minutes.

You can also check how many days there are until Ubuntu 10.10 is released by simply typing "maverick" in the terminal (after installing it).

To use it, download the script from HERE and rename it to "maverickm" (mandatory). Then right click it, select "Propreties" and on the "Permissions" tab, check the "Allow executing file as program". Finally, simply double click the maverickm file and select "Run".

The script will set the notifications to autostart every time you log in.

To uninstall, simply double click the "maverickm" script and select "Uninstall".

New AWN Lucido Version Released And Ubuntu PPA Available [Avant Window Navigator]

Update: Lucido has been merged into AWN 0.4.1 so use THESE instructions to install it.

AWN Lucido is an amazing new style for Avant Window Navigator which you saw in action HERE.

A new version of AWN Lucido has been released:

• refresh bugfixes
• background caching for all styles for better performance (not only Lucido)
• a smarter way to handle expanders (try to change bar align (position) to left or right position in expanded mode).

For example, in the AWN settings (Preferences tab), drag the "position on the screen" slider to the left or right and you'll get something like this:

Dragging it to the center you'll get something like this:

There's more good news for AWN Lucido fans: there's now an AWN Lucido PPA for Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala and Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx.

Before installing, here's a video with the latest AWN Lucido in action:

(you can also watch this video in HTML5 w/ WebM @ YouTube)

Important: to install AWN Lucido you have to remove AWN from the Ubuntu official repository (if installed from there):

Update: the installation instructions in this post were no longer up to date and were removed. See: How to install AWN with Lucido.

Ready. Now restart Avant Window Navigator! Then in the Avant Window Navigator preferences, choose the "Lucido" style. Then to actually get the Lucido style, check the "Expand the panel" box from the Preferences tab, then on the Applets tab, add some expanders (which can be found under the "Utility" category) between the AWN task manager and notification aread, main menu and so on.

Update: AWN Lucido is now a part of AWN so all you have to do is add the AWN testing PPA to get Lucido.

LightSpark (OpenSource Flash Player) 0.4.0 Released!

LightSpark 0.4.0 - an open source Flash player implementation - has been released. This version focuses on stability so most crashes should be fixed. But unfortunately YouTube still doesn't work with LightSpark. However, YouTube is supposed to be supported in the next stable release - 0.5.0.

If you want to try LightSpark, there's an Ubuntu PPA available (Lucid only):

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:sssup/sssup-ppa && sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install lightspark

More info on LightSpark 0.4.0 release, HERE.

Special thanks to Nguyễn Hồng Quân for the tip!

Install An Updated Light-Themes Version In Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx (Bonus: Extra Equinox Themes) [PPA]

There is currently a lot of work going on to improve the Ubuntu light themes: Ambiance and Radiance. Unfortunately all these changes are not even available in Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat.

But if you want to install the Ubuntu latest light themes, I've created a PPA with packages for Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx. Read on!

To mention only a few of the changes: there is a new theme called "Ambiance Dark" (but these variation of the theme seems to have a bug in Nautilus) (Update: Ambiance Dark has been renamed to Eclipse), the Ambiance Metacity uses new buttons and many many fixes:

Also, the Ubuntu Light Themes now use both Murrine and Equinox engines (Equinox available in the PPA).

Unfortunately Radiance didn't get new Metacity buttons:

How to install the latest Ubuntu Light Themes

Please remember these are testing packages so there might be bugs!!!

To install the latest Ubuntu Light Themes (Ambiance, Eclipse and Radiance), use the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/light-themes && sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gtk2-engines-equinox light-themes gtk2-engines-murrine

In the same PPA I've also uploaded some amazing Equinox themes:

(Equinox theme)

(Equinox Radiance Glass theme)

You can install them using the following command:

sudo apt-get install equinox-theme

If you only want to install the Equinox themes but keep the original Light Themes, you can either manually download the .deb file from HERE (remember to download both the Equinox themes and the Equinox GTK engine) or use the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/light-themes && sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install equinox-theme gtk2-engines-equinox

Then go to System > Administration > Software Sources, on the "Other sources" tab and remove the line that says "http://ppa.launchpad.net/webupd8team/light-themes/ubuntu lucid main".

Then:

sudo apt-get update

Reverting the changes (use the original Light Themes and Murrine Engine)

To revert the changes made by the PPA and use the Ubuntu Light themes from the official Ubuntu repositories (as well as the latest Murrine engine), you can use PPA Purge:

wget https://launchpad.net/~nilarimogard/+archive/webupd8/+files/ppa-purge_0.2.6~webupd8~lucid_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i ppa-purge_0.2.6~webupd8~lucid_all.deb
sudo ppa-purge ppa:webupd8team/light-themes

Update: these are not official after all, this has been confirmed on the Ayatana mailing list (I can't find the link to that post right now)!

Last Week's Top Posts (Week 21, 2010)

1. GNOME Shell 2.31.2 Released [Screenshots]
2. Install Linux Mint Main Menu (MintMenu) In Ubuntu From A PPA
3. Install Linux SopCast Player 0.4.0 In Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx
4. How To Upgrade To Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat
5. The Default Nautilus Will Soon Look A Lot Like Nautilus Elementary
6. New Wave Lock-Dialog Theme For Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala And Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx
7. Gnome Shell Login Screen And Lock Screen Mockups
8. MeeGo 1.0 (Moblin + Maemo) - Linux Based OS By Intel And Nokia - Has Been Released! & MeeGo 1.0 Hands On Review
9. GetDeb, PlayDeb Repositories Down - What To Do? Use This Mirror!
10. Application Menu (Global Menu) For Ubuntu Netbook Edition 10.10 Is Available For Testing

Browse all the weekly top posts.

Finally An Ubuntu PPA For Talika Gnome Panel Applet

Talika is a GNOME panel applet that lets you switch between open windows using icons, similar to DockBar or DockBarX.

Talika .deb files are available, but not a PPA to stay up to date. Because I got lots of emails to create a PPA for Talika, here it is:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/talika && sudo apt-get update

Then install Talika with:

sudo apt-get install talika

And finally, add the Talika applet to a GNOME panel.

The PPA currently maintains Talika for Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala, 10.04 Lucid Lynx and 10.10 Maverick Meerkat. Talika is also available in the WebUpd8 PPA - all the packages we maintain will also be available in the WebUpd8 PPA.

Script To Fix The Panel For All Themes At Once [Linux w/ GNOME]

Like you saw in our last post, the GNOME panel looks very ugly for some themes if you try to increase its height, make it transparent or want a vertical panel.

WebUpd8 reader Whise wrote a Python script to fix the panel for all the GNOME themes you currently have installed - as long as they don't use a custom name for the panel background.

What the script does it remove the panel background from the gtkrc file of every theme. However, the backgrounds are still available in each theme's folder so you can manually set a background for any theme if you want to. Using it, you can finally use large / vertical / transparent GNOME panels with almost any theme.

To download it, simply paste this in a terminal:

wget http://webupd8.googlecode.com/files/theme_bg_patcher2.py && chmod +x theme_bg_patcher2.py

Or you can manually download it from HERE.

Then to fix all the themes installed in /usr/share/themes, use the following command:

sudo python -u theme_bg_patcher2.py

Or, to fix the themes installed for the current user (in ~/.themes), run the same command but without sudo:

python -u theme_bg_patcher2.py

Credits for the script (and many thanks!): Whise

Fix Transparent, Vertical And Large Gnome Panel In Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx (For The Ambiance And Radiance Themes)

The new light themes in Ubuntu 10.04 don't like you changing the GNOME panel in any way. If you increase the panel size, want a vertical panel or try to make a panel transparent, it looks very ugly:

(large Gnome panel height)

(vertical Gnome panel)

(transparent Gnome panel)

You can fix this by using another theme, or fix the Ambiance and Radiance themes. Here is how to fix Ambiance and Radiance.

Type this in a terminal:

gksu nautilus /usr/share/themes

This will open Nautilus with admin privileges so you can edit the theme files. Then double click on the folder for theme you want to fix (Ambiance or Radiance) and open the "gtkrc" file inside the gtkrc-2.0 folder.

Then search for this line:

bg_pixmap[NORMAL] = "panel_bg.png"

And comment it (put a "#" in front of the line - without the quotes), then save the file. Then log out and log back in.

Here is how a transparent background will now look:

If you still want to use a background for an horizontal panel and you panel is not larger than 30 pixels, Ambiance comes with an alternate panel background you can use. Right click a panel, select "Properties", on the "Background" tab select "Background image", then browse for /usr/share/themes/Ambiance/gtk-2.0/panel_bg_30.png and set this as your panel background. Unfortunately if you want a panel larger than 30px, you can't use this image. But you can edit the image using GIMP. Or you could use these Gnome panel backgrounds.

Wine 1.2 Release Candidate 2 Available For Download

Wine 1.2 release candidate 2 is out! There are no new features in RC2 obviously, since WINE is in code-freeze, however lots of bugs have been fixed.

Installation instructions for WINE 1.2 RC 2 (from the WINE PPA as well as for WINE with PulseAudio support) can be found in our WINE 1.2 RC1 post.

Handy Backup Pro License Giveaway Winners Announced

The Handy Backup Pro License Giveaway is over.

For the draw I've used http://mytexttools.com/Random-Line-Picker.html.


The winners are:

1. Øyvind Skogmo Hansen
2. Lars
3. Fixt


They will receive their licenses in a few minutes.

Automatically Import All Missing Launchpad PPA GPG Keys [Ubuntu .deb]

Almost a year ago, we posted a script created by an Ubuntuforums user (blackgr) which automatically imports Launchpad GPG keys in Ubuntu for all the PPAs you have added to your software sources.

We didn't talk about it much since then because meanwhile, the "add-apt-repository" was introduced in Ubuntu - a command which adds a PPA via command line and also imports the GPG key. But if you add a PPA when the Ubuntu keyserver is down, the key is not added. And if you add multiple PPAs when this happens, it can be quite annoying to search for and manually import the GPG keys for every PPA. For instance, when Ubuntu 10.04 was released, the Ubuntu Keyserver was down so a lot of people possibly have some missing GPG keys.

When a GPG key is missing, an error similar to this is displayed when you run an update:

W: GPG error: http://ppa.launchpad.net lucid Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 5A9BF3BB4E5E17B5
W: GPG error: http://ppa.launchpad.net lucid Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 3B22AB97AF1CDFA9
W: You may want to run apt-get update to correct these problems

For this reason I've created an Ubuntu .deb package for the script I was talking about which you can install via the WebUpd8 PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install launchpad-getkeys

Once installed, to import all the missing GPG keys for your PPAs, simply use the following command:

sudo launchpad-getkeys

That's it!

In a future release, I might add some mirrors for getting the GPG keys to make sure the server launchpad-getkeys tries to access is not down. We'll see...


Update: I've released a new Launchpad Getkeys version which uses port 80 by default so it will now also work for those behind a firewall. Futher more, you can now specify the keyserver it should use for importing the GPG key. See this post: Import Missing GPG Keys, Even Behind A Firewall (Port 11371 Closed) [Launchpad PPAs]

Guayadeque Music Player Accepted In Debian, Will Be Available In Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat Repositories

Guayadeque, an amazing music player for Linux has just been accepted into Debian which means it will be available in Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat official repositories. Finally!

In case you're not familiar with Guayadeque music player, here is a quick features info:

• Supports mp3, ogg, flac, wma, aac, etc
• Label support. You can add as many labels as you want to any artist, album or track
• Cover fetching from google, amazon, last.fm
• Tag editor with Musicbrainz support
• Gapless play support
• Replaygain support
• Automatic Lyrics fetch and save to tracks
• Shoutcast or User defined radios support
• Podcasts support with automatic download with filters
• Dynamic/Static playlists
• Show Last.fm information
• Smart play mode that suggest music based on the actual track
• Customizable layout
• VU Meters
• Crossfading
• a lot more!

You can of course already install Guayadeque in both Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala and Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx using a PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:anonbeat/guayadeque && sudo apt-get update

There are 2 Guayadeque versions in the PPA:

-stable:

sudo apt-get install guayadeque

-latest SVN version:

sudo apt-get install guayadeque-svn

Gnome Media Player 0.1.3 Released [Ubuntu PPA]

Gnome Media Player is a very young Linux application which although it doesn't come with many features, it's amazing under-the-hood as it supports the VLC, Xine and Gstreamer engines for playing media - you can either choose the engine manually or allow Gnome Media Player to automatically select the best one for the video you're trying to view.

Like we told you a while back, Gnome Media Player has been included in Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat official repositories.

Today, a new version of Gnome Media Player has been released: 0.1.3 which doesn't bring any new features but only bug-fixes.

If you didn't give Gnome Media Player a try, you really should. Among it's features are:

• has a GNOME/GTK interface
• does double-click fullscreen
• can use the mouse scroll wheel
• uses libvlc, xine-lib or libgstreamer
• a playlist that loops
• middle mouse button pause
• can deinterlace (not available on the libgstreamer engine)

Install Gnome Media Player in Ubuntu Karmic and Lucid using the following PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gnome-media-player-development/development && sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gnome-media-player

Dropbox (Experimental) Finally Gets Selective Sync

The latest experimental Dropbox build finally adds selective sync support.

So what is selective sync?

Selective sync allows you to choose the folders you want synced to your computer. Selective Sync gives you the ability to have more control over what is synced to your devices through the Dropbox Desktop Application.

Here's an example: imagine your Dropbox folder is about 10 GB in size (you can get up to 10 GB for free only by referring people to use Dropbox) and you want to sync some files with your netbook where you only have 5 GB of space left on the HDD. Here's where selective sync kicks in: using the latest version of Dropbox (experimental) you can select which folders to sync for each computer where Dropbox is running. That means that you can choose to only sync a folder you need on your netbook, and not all the folders you have in your Dropbox. Obviously this feature is not just for when you don't have enough space, but for a lot more various reasons - that was just an example.

More info on selective sync, HERE.

Other 2 great features which are not present in the stable Dropbox are available in the experimental builds for quite some time: AppIndicator support for Ubuntu as well as customizable notification area icons.

You can download the latest Dropbox Experimental from HERE. For Linux, you can simply paste this in a terminal to upgrade to the latest Dropbox experimental build:

32bit:

dropbox stop && cd ~
wget http://dl-web.dropbox.com/u/17/dropbox-lnx.x86-0.8.64.tar.gz
tar -xvf dropbox-lnx.x86-0.8.64.tar.gz
dropbox start

64bit:

dropbox stop && cd ~
wget http://dl-web.dropbox.com/u/17/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-0.8.64.tar.gz
tar -xvf dropbox-lnx.x86_64-0.8.64.tar.gz
dropbox start

In case the above links don't work anymore, manually download the latest experimental Dropbox from HERE.

There's also a bash script for Linux you can use to stay up to date with the latest Dropbox experimental builds.

Poll Results: Best Linux Backup Tool / Software

The best Linux backup software poll is over. This is the first time since we started our weekly poll that a command line utility wins over all GUI alternatives.

You guessed it, the winner is: rsync (34.67%), with Back In Time (25.83%) on the second place, these 2 applications getting more than 60% of the total number of votes. However, Grsync was also mentioned quite a few times in the comments as being used with rsync so not everybody who voted for rsync uses it from the command line.

Here are the exact results for the "best linux backup tool / software" poll:

There were quite a few votes for other software (80), but scattered over many apps, most notable being:

-Bacula (8 votes)

-Grsync (5 votes)

the rest getting 2-3 votes each.

Browse all our weekly polls.

Application Menu (Global Menu) For Ubuntu Netbook Edition 10.10 Is Available For Testing

The Global Menu for Ubuntu Netbook Edition 10.10 has just been uploaded to a PPA (it's still building, but should be ready in a few minutes). The new "global menu" is called "Application Menu" and it can be installed in Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx already (both in GNOME and KDE). Here's how.

For GNOME

1. Add the Unity PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:canonical-dx-team/une && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

2. Install required packages:

sudo apt-get install appmenu-gtk libqtgui4 indicator-applet-appmenu indicator-appmenu

3. Right click on the panel, and add the "Indicator Applet Appmenu" applet. Nothing will be displayed on the panel after adding it (see step 4!).

4. Now to load an application using the Global Menu - now called Indicator Applet Appmenu, add this in front of the application command:

GTK_MENUPROXY="libappmenu.so"

Example: to run Gedit with the Application Menu, enter this in a terminal (or create a shortcut):

GTK_MENUPROXY="libappmenu.so" gedit

For KDE (Kubuntu)

1. Add the Unity PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:canonical-dx-team/une && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

2. Install the required packages:

sudo apt-get install libqtgui4 plasma-widget-menubar

3. Add the "Window Menubar" applet to your panel.

4. Start any Qt/KDE application, the menu should be embedded in the panel. You can enable double menus by setting the APPMENU_DISPLAY_BOTH env. variable. Example:

APPMENU_DISPLAY_BOTH=1 dolphin

Note: for now, running an application using the Application Menu will result in having both the normal menu for each application as well as the Indicator Applet Appmenu on the panel - that's because this is the very first public version of Application Menu so it's for testing purposes only!

Eventually, the application menu will be dropped and the menu will only be available on the panel:

Also, many applications won't work with the Application Menu. More info @ Ubuntu Wiki.

MeeGo 1.0 Hands On Review

MeeGo 1.0 was released today so I decided to give it a try on my Asus EeePC 1005HA netbook. Here's a small review with some stuff I've noticed running it.

By default, MeeGo will use a BTRFS filesystem. If you want to partition the HDD manually, you'll need to create the usual "/" (root) and swap partitions as well as a /boot (of ~200 mb) partition because you cannot boot from a BTRFS parition. The installation on my netbook took about ~5-10 minutes (really, I didn't even notice when it was over) and after rebooting you have to enter some basic settings such as keyboard and so on.

The good

- Almost everything works right out of the box: wireless and wired connections, graphics and so on but not the Fn keys unfortunately.

- The boot time was pretty decent too: aprox. 14 seconds until the desktop and 20 seconds (total) until everything was loaded.

- Empathy and Evolution Express are really nice integrated into the desktop as you can see in the official MeeGo screenshots.

Regarding the performance, the guys @ Phoronix did some tests and it seems MeeGo beats Ubuntu & Co.

The overall look, feel and speed were great, if only there wasn't for the annoying things below...

The bad

After setting up everything, I plugged in my network cable and wanted to enable the wired network (manual configuration), only to discover that ConnMan doesn't allow the user to specify the DNS manually. I could fix this however, by editing the /etc/resolv.conf file and entering the DNS' manually.

Making the resolv.conf file read-only didn't help preventing it to be overwritten on each restart.

Now the internet was working but then I was struck by a bug: Chromium was freezing if it was started from any place except "My Zone". So starting Chromium from the "Internet" tab or via the Applications menu, it freezes.

There are only a few extra applications available in the Garage (think of it as Ubuntu Software Center but with only 20 or so applications) such as: Totem, Rhythmbox, The GIMP and a few other. For me at least, this is a very big inconvenience. You can't even install Google Chrome if you downloaded MeeGo with Chromium and not Google Chrome for instance (MeeGo .img file comes in two versions: with Chromium or with Google Chrome).

And finally, there is no shutdown / restart button. Basically you can only shut down the netbook and to do this you'll need to press the power button at which point a dialog will pop-up asking you if you want to shutdown (restarting the netbook is impossible it seems).

Overall, MeeGo is a decent Linux distribution right now as long as you're confortable with the default setup and don't want anything extra. But it's only version 1.0 so all these will hopefully improve. Also, I've only been using MeeGo for about 2 hours so I haven't tested everything yet.

Haguichi: Nice Hamachi GUI That Integrates Into The GNOME Desktop

A few days ago we posted an update to the script that installs Hamachi and 2 alternative GUIs in Linux, but the graphical user interfaces in that script don't integrate too well into the GNOME desktop.

But I've just discovered Haguichi and I recommend you give it a try. The first public release was launched just a few days ago but it's already very usable.

Before using it, make sure you have Hamachi installed (try our script which does everything automatically!).

Download Haguichi (Ubuntu .deb download included)

Giveaway: 3 Handy Backup Professional Licenses For WebUpd8 Readers

A while back we offered 3 Handy Backup Pro licenses to WebUpd8 readers. Well, it's time to do it again! Read on!

Firstly, what is Handy Backup? Well, it's an automatic backup application which you can use to backup data on CD/DVD-RW devices, LAN and remote FTP servers. While Handy Backup only runs on Windows, it can also be used in Linux with the help of Wine - especially since the supported filesystems include: NTFS, FAT16, FAT32, Ext2, Ext3, ReiserFS, Reiser4 and others.

Handy Backup Professional also includes Disk image backup which allows you to back up a full had drive with an OS installed (including all application settings and so on) which can later be fully restored, and also it includes database backup - allows you to back up database tables without stopping the service (hot database backup), using ODBC connectivity.

Handy Backup also comes with a server backup version (Download Handy Backup Server - trial for 30 days) but that's not included in the Professional package we'll be giving away. However for personal use, the Pro version should be enough!

The contest: 3 Handy Backup Professional Licenses Giveaway

Here's what you must do to get a Handy Backup Professional license (each license is worth $99 but you'll get it for free): simply comment to this post using a valid email address (so don't comment with a Twitter account and such, just using your email address so we know where to send the license) until Saturday morning (10 A.M. GMT+3) - that's in less than 2 days. Then I'll make a draw and send the winners the Handy Backup Pro license. That is all (not a real contest, I know).

Note: this is not a paid post, I didn't win anything by publishing it (other then the posibility to give you a license) - I didn't even get a license myself.

You can download Handy Backup from HERE.

GetDeb, PlayDeb Repositories Down - What To Do? Use This Mirror!

GetDeb is a website which comes with a repository for easily installing lots of Ubuntu applications which are not available in the official Ubuntu repositories (mostly updates). PlayDeb is the same as GetDeb, but for games.

Both the GetDeb.net and PlayDeb.net websites are currently down but if you want to use the repositories, there is a mirror you can use instead of the original GetDeb / PlayDeb repository.

To replace the GetDeb / PlayDeb repositories with a mirror, open the sources.list file:

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Then search for the lines which include both "getdeb" and "apps" an replace them with one of the following GetDeb mirror:

deb http://mirrors.dotsrc.org/getdeb/ubuntu lucid-getdeb apps
deb-src http://mirrors.dotsrc.org/getdeb/ubuntu lucid-getdeb apps

For the PlayDeb repository, replace any line which includes "getdeb" and "games" with this mirror:

deb http://mirrors.dotsrc.org/getdeb/ubuntu lucid-getdeb games
deb-src http://mirrors.dotsrc.org/getdeb/ubuntu lucid-getdeb games

For both: if you're not using Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx, replace "lucid" with "karmic" and so on.

When you're done, save the file and run this in a terminal:

sudo apt-get update

MeeGo 1.0 (Moblin + Maemo) - Linux Based OS By Intel And Nokia - Has Been Released!

MeeGo is an open source, Linux operating system based on Moblin (by Intel) and Maemo (by Nokia). MeeGo 1.0 targets mainly netbooks and supports most Intel Atom-based netbooks but MeeGo v1.0 Core also supports ARM-based Nokia N900 and Intel Atom-based in-vehicle - see the update at the end of the post regarding Nokia N900. MeeGo doesn't work on netbooks with GMA-500, Nvidia or ATI Graphics chipsets.

The following netbooks are listed as supported on MeeGo's webpage: Asus EeePC 901, 1000H, 1005HA, 1008HA, EeePC 1005PE, Eeetop ET1602, Dell mini10v, Inspiron Mini 1012, Acer Aspire One D250, AO532-21S, Revo GN40, Aspire 5740-6025, Lenovo S10, MSI U130, AE1900, HP mini 210-1044, Toshiba NB302 but those are not the only ones supported.

MeeGo for netbooks comes in two versions: one with Google Chrome (closed source) and one with Chromium (open source). For a media player, MeeGo comes with Banshee 1.0 for MeeGo (which has just been released):

(Banshee 1.0 for MeeGo)

As an email client, MeeGo is using Evolution Express, a new Evolution interface especially designed for small screens:

(Evolution Express)

For VoIP, IM, and presence functionality, MeeGo uses Telepathy. Telepathy is a D-Bus based framework that unifies all supported protocols of real time communication, including, but not limited to, instant messaging, IRC, voice and video over IP, and cellular calls.

(Meego File Manager)

Other useful technical info: MeeGo uses BTRFS as the default filesystem (but you can use a different filesystem if you want), PackageKit for package management, Tracker for indexing, meta-data extraction, and search capabilities for a variety of data types, including media files, and documents and PulseAudio for the sound.

(MeeGo Network Panel)

ConnMan (which is sponsored by both Intel and Nokia) is used for connection management - application which Ubuntu will also use for its 10.10 Netbook Edition, as well as Telephony APIs (oFono) for telephony services.

I didn't try MeeGo for now but I'll definitely try it out tonight on my netbook. I'll probably update the post with any interesting info I'll find.

Download MeeGo | Image credits: meego.com

Update: No official MeeGo 1.0 for N900 for now:

Moving away from the update and to look at MeeGo and the Nokia N900. Many of you have been asking whether the new MeeGo platform will be supported on the N900 once it’s device-ready. Although Nokia N900 devices are being used for platform development and testing purposes by those involved in the MeeGo project, we don’t have plans for a full scale commercial MeeGo upgrade on the Nokia N900. The reason? It’s really about ensuring that you have the best possible experience designed for the features on your Nokia N900 device. Nokia realises this news may be a disappointment for some, rest assured that Nokia will continue to support the core Maemo software on your Nokia N900, as evidenced by the PR 1.2 (V10.2010.19-1) update available today.

GNOME Shell 2.31.2 Released [Screenshots]

GNOME Shell 2.31.2 was released yesterday, bringing some exiting new features such as support for inline chatting in the IM notifications which now use Telepathy, an initial application menu in the top panel (for the moment it only holds a "Quit" option), restyle user status menu to match application menu and many others.

Other significant changes in GNOME Shell 2.31.2:

• A magnifier has been added to the shell; this is mostly meant for accessibility, but also will be useful for general use.
• The clock is now configurable via GConf and add a simple preferences dialog (gnome-shell-clock-preferences)
• A performance event log has been added that tracks events (such as frame paints), and statistics such as malloc'ed memory.
• and more

A complete changelog can be found HERE.

Here are some screenshots with a few of the changes in GNOME Shell 2.31.2:

- IM notifications inline chatting:

This is something a lot of Ubuntu users want: to be able to at least open the chat window when clicking a NotifyOSD IM notification bubble, but apparently Mark Shuttleworth doesn't agree.

- Application menu in the top panel (like I told you in the beginning of the post, only a "Quit" option is available for now):

- New status menu style:

The status menu looks a lot like the "possible" status area changes for Gnome Shell we posted a while back so finally some Gnome Shell mockups become reality (well, only the status menu for now).

- Magnifier preferences:

Want to try out Gnome Shell in Ubuntu? Simply add the Ricotz resting PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ricotz/testing && sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gnome-shell

Don't worry about the version numbers in the PPA, it's actually the latest Gnome Shell 2.31.2!

See also:

• Gnome Shell 2.29.0 Released [What's New And Screenshots Inside]
• The First Ever Gnome Shell Themes
• Gnome Shell Might Add Real Multiple Desktops
• Gnome Shell Login Screen And Lock Screen Mockups

DockBarX Adds Zeitgeist Integration [Ubuntu .deb Download]

DockBarX 0.39 was just released, bringing a great new feature: it now shows a list of most used / recently used files when right clicking a running application / group, using Zeitgeist (make sure you install Zeitgeist first!). For instance, open a text editor, right click its icon in DockBarX and you should see 2 new items: Recent and Most Used:

Other features in DockBarX 0.39:

• Drop a file on a group button and DockbarX will try to launch that application with that file.
• DockBarX preferences can now be accessed via the Applications > Accessories > DockBarX Preference menu.

Also, the changelog also states that DockBarX 0.39 works with Avant Window Navigator 0.4, however it didn't work for me (but I've used the latest AWN development build (0.4.1) and not the version in the official Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx repositories so that might be causing this). If you want to try using DockBarX with AWN, download the source file from HERE and see the instructions in the README - it's very easy, you just have to copy a folder to AWN's applets directory.

The latest DockBarX version from the DockBarX PPA failed to build but I've created some Ubuntu .deb packages (which are also available in the WebUpd8 PPA) which you can install using the commands below:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8 && sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install dockbarx

If you want to install it from the source yourself or don't use Ubuntu, download DockBarX from HERE.

Network Menu + Connection Manager (ConnMan) Now Available For Testing [PPA]

ConnMan is a project to get the Network Menu and Connection Manager to Ubuntu Netbook Edition 10.10. The project is in its very early stages, but there is already a PPA for testing (for Lucid and Maverick):

Ubuntu will integrate ConnectionManager (a.k.a. ConnMan), with a human interface — a settings window and a network menu — designed to cover networking in general, including network setup, proxy, and firewall settings.

There is a lot of work to do. For now, this is how it looks like:

While this is the desired final design:

Quite a difference, huh? :)

If you want to try it out, see installation instructions @ Ubuntu Wiki.


Note: For now only wired and wireless work, 3G modems are currently unsupported and ofono will be used for that (which is also available in the PPA).

Battery Status 0.1.1 Fixes Lots Of Issues With The First Release

Battery Status is a GNOME panel applet that shows information about laptop battery state - but has a lot of extra features compared to GNOME's Power Manager icon.

Battery Status 0.1.1 was just released, fixing lots of bugs in the initial release (which we just talked about last week). If when you first tried Battery Status it didn't work, you should really give it another shot as it's an amazing application.

Bugs fixed and improvements in Battery Status version 0.1.1:

• fix hard-coded addresses of power devices
• fix distribution detection
• fix empty serial number of battery field in battery status dialog
• fix gnome-power-statistics dialog call in indicator
• improve AC detection
• improve packages detection for best integration
• improve applet/indicator main icon behavior on critical dialog

The Ubuntu PPA has been updated and now includes the latest 0.1.1 version. See our initial post for more info on Battery Status as well as installation instructions.

New Wave Lock-Dialog Theme For Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala And Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx

Last week we presented New Wave 0.90 beta 1. Well, here is also a lock-dialog theme to go with New Wave which works for Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala and Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx:

Of curse, you can use this lock-dialog theme without the New Wave theme if you want.

To install it, download the package from HERE, then extract the archive contents to /usr/share/gnome-screensaver:

sudo tar -C /usr/share/gnome-screensaver -xzf 125281-newwave-lock-dialog.tar.gz

Then you need to set the New Wave lock screen theme using the gconf-editor. This can be done easily by simply pasting this in a terminal:

gconftool-2 --type string --set /apps/gnome-screensaver/lock_dialog_theme newwave

If you want to reset it, paste this in a terminal:

gconftool-2 --type string --set /apps/gnome-screensaver/lock_dialog_theme default

Yasst Cross-Platform Twitter Client Gets Many Improvements [Linux, Windows, MacOS X]

Yasst is an amazing cross-platform (runs on Linux, MacOS X and Windows) Twitter client coded in Qt (don't worry - it looks great in GNOME!) which we initially covered HERE (including a video).

Yasst features multiple tabs with columns, multiple Twitter accounts, saved searches, lists, themes and many more.

Since we last wrote about Yasst, it got a lot of nice features and improvements, such as: many improvements to the Lists support, lots of Linux improvements (UI), drag columns to reorder, auto complete for user names and known hash tags and a lot more.

Download Yasst (For Linux, Windows and MacOS X)

Running Yasst in Linux is very easy: simply download and extract it, then double click the "Yasst.sh" file.

Thanks to Linux Freedom For Live for the update!

Nautilus Script To Compress PDF Files

Ricardo Ferreira (who sent us quite a few tips before) wrote a nice Nautilus script which comes with a GUI (Zenity) to compress and optimize PDF files called Compress PDF.

The script currently comes in multiple languages: English, Spanish*, French*, Czech* and Portuguese (but you can translate it into your language if you want - there are only 10 short lines to translate) and you can choose between 5 different compression levels: Screen-view only, Low Quality, Hight Quality, High Quality (Color Preserving) and Default:

As an example: compressing a PDF using the "Default" preset, the file size was reducced from 4,6mb to 3,3mb with no visible quality lost.

To "install" this Nautilus script, simply paste this in a terminal:

sudo apt-get install zenity ghostscript #dependencies
cd ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts
wget http://launchpad.net/compress-pdf/1.x/1.1/+download/Compress-PDF-1.1.tar.gz
tar zxvf Compress-PDF-1.1.tar.gz

Then to use it, simply right click on a PDF file and select "Compress-PDF" from the "Scripts" menu:

Credits for this script (and many thanks!): Ricardo Ferreira

*Spanish translation by Eduardo Battaglia
*French translation by astromb
*Czech translation by clever fox

Many thanks to all who translate the script!