GNOME 3, Windows 95 Disconnected

June 13, 2013 by Leave a Comment

The Register’s story was almost believable and anyone who was taken-in by this telling could certainly be forgiven. The writer played straight into the paranoid fears of many in the GNU/Linux crowd and did a good job of seamlessly integrating his tale of Microsoft misdeeds into the facts as they are known. It was easy to read this and think you were having a genuine “aha” moment. All of us, or many of us anyway, had already been scratching our heads over GNOME. Some of us were surprised when they made big changes to the UI at all, especially following the grief KDE went through several years back with the advent of KDE 4.
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RHEL 7 Linux To Use GNOME 3 Classic Mode

June 13, 2013 by Leave a Comment

For those not out in Boston this week for the 2013 Red Hat Summit, new details on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.0 have emerged…
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GNOME 3.9.2 Is Now Ready for Testing

June 8, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Javier Jardón Cabezas from the GNOME Release Team announced a couple of days ago that the second development release of the upcoming GNOME 3.10 desktop environment is ready for download and testing. This is the first release of the GNOME desktop environment without any GConf dependency, which means that the team did a great job cleaning up the code. The release is available for download right now from the main GNOME FTP server. GNOME 3.9.2 brings numerous updated core components and libraries, as well as several improvements to basic applications, and the usual bugfixes and updated translations.
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New X DRI3 Extension Starts Working On GNOME, KDE

June 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Keith Packard has announced that the first of two new DRI3 (DRI3000) extensions for X.Org is working and the new extension can cooperate with the loading of the complete KDE and GNOME desktops…
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GNOME Boxes 3.9.2 Fixes Fedora 19 Issues

June 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment

The development team behind the GNOME Boxes project announced a few days ago the second unstable release of the upcoming GNOME Boxes 3.10 application, a GNOME utility that allows users to manage remote or virtual systems.
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Highly Configurable GNOME Shell Theme `Elegance Colors` Sees New Release

June 4, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Elegance Colors, a highly customizable, chameleonic GNOME Shell theme, has reached version 2.2.0, bringing some major configuration UI changes, new theme customization options, performance improvements and more. Since our last article, the theme has also got support for GNOME Shell 3.8 (it now supports both 3.6 and 3.8).

Elegance Colors GNOME Shell theme

Elegance Colors is a GNOME Shell theme that can automatically change its colors based on the current GTK theme or wallpaper. But that’s not all: the theme comes with a configuration GUI that lets you change most of the GNOME Shell theme elements, so you can basically make brand new themes using it.

The configuration GUI lets you change the panel text color, border color and width, change the gradients for the background, search entry and more, change the buttons colors, set the theme roundness, enable or disable drop shadows, set the transition duration and many other settings.

Further more, the theme comes with some default presets (which change the theme look completely): Google, Numix, Pantheon, Gaia, Dark Shine, Clear, Matte, Tron Legacy and Ubuntu Phone. You can also export or import presets from the Elegance Colors Preferences.

Changes in Elegance Colors 2.2.0 since our previous article:
  • supports GNOME Shell 3.6 and 3.8;
  • major UI changes with better organized options in the GNOME Tweak Tool style;
  • undo/redo abilities;
  • many new options to customize the theme;
  • the text color of highlighted elements is now automatically adjusted
  • 5 new presets (there are 10 presets now);
  • you can now use symbolic colors and add custom CSS and images in the configuration file/preset (this isn’t available via GUI);
  • performance improvements.
Note: don’t confuse this with the GTK theme: only the GNOME Shell theme, meaning the top panel, the Activities Overview, some dialogs like the shutdown dialog and Dash are part of a GNOME Shell theme so the GTK theme won’t change its colors!

Here are a few more Elegance Colors screenshots:

Elegance Colors GNOME Shell theme

Elegance Colors GNOME Shell theme

Elegance Colors GNOME Shell theme

Install Elegance Colors in Ubuntu

Before installing the theme, make sure you’ve installed the GNOME Shell User Theme extension. This is a part of the official GNOME Shell extensions pack which you can install it in Ubuntu using the following command:
sudo apt-get install gnome-shell-extensions
Then, install Elegance Colors GNOME Shell theme in Ubuntu (for GNOME Shell 3.6 and 3.8, so Ubuntu 12.10 and 13.04 only) using the following commands:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:satyajit-happy/themes
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gnome-shell-theme-elegance-colors
Once installed, start the Elegance Colors process, required only once (it will then start automatically when you log in):
elegance-colors
And finally, use GNOME Tweak Tool to change the current GNOME Shell theme to “Elegance Colors”. This can also be done via command line:
gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.user-theme name 'elegance-colors'

For other Linux distributions downloads or more info, see Elegance Colors @ DeviantArt or GitHub (includes Fedora / openSUSE and Arch Linux packages).

Originally published at WebUpd8: Daily Ubuntu / Linux news and application reviews.


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Cinnamon 2.0 in Linux Mint 16, no GNOME back-end

June 4, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Cinnamon 2.0 will be a completely independent desktop environment, Clement Lefebvre reveals to Linux User & Developer in an exclusive interview. He went on to indicate that most importantly, recent developments have caused the team to finally move to making the code base independent of GNOME, so basically, in [Cinnamon] 2.0 you won’t be running GNOME at all.
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Freedreno Running On Nexus 4 With The GNOME Shell

June 3, 2013 by Leave a Comment

The Freedreno Gallium3D graphics driver that’s a reverse-engineered incarnation of the Qualcomm Snapdragon driver, has support for the A320 graphics core coming along quite well. The A320 found in the Nexus 4 is now running the Freedreno 3D driver and can even handle bearing the load of the GNOME Shell desktop…
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User-Facing Features Coming To GNOME 3.10

May 30, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Many user-facing features coming to the GNOME 3.10 desktop are starting to see the light of day. This article lists some of them…
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User-Facing Features Coming To GNOME 3.10

May 30, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Many user-facing features coming to the GNOME 3.10 desktop are starting to see the light of day. Here’s some of them…
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Pinguy OS 13.04 (Final, Yet Beta) Released With GNOME 3.8

May 24, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Pinguy OS 13.04 (based on Ubuntu 13.04) beta has been released recently, this being basically the final 13.04 version because Pinguy has decided to keep the 6 month releases as betas and only the LTS will be considered stable.

The non-LTS releases will be using bleeding edge software, like XBMC 13.0 alpha or GNOME 3.8 / GNOME Shell 3.8 that’s included in Pinguy OS 13.04, which isn’t included by default in Ubuntu 13.04 and so, it isn’t considered fully stable in Ubuntu. According to a recent Pinguy OS blog post, the 6 month releases are usable, but they might not include features that will be available in the LTS:

“The 6 month Pinguy OS releases will be missing features that will be in the final LTS, but the release will be very usable. It just won’t be at a stage where I am happy to call it stable due to missing features or things not quite working as they should. The goal of the 6 month releases is to help give users insight and influence on where Pinguy OS is heading and help shape the LTS release”

Pinguy OS

For those not familiar with Pinguy OS, this is an Ubuntu remaster with lots of applications installed by default as well as tweaks that you won’t find in any other distro, at least by default.
Pinguy OS 13.04 beta uses GNOME Shell 3.8 by default and the first things you’ll notice when you log in are a Docky instance displayed at the bottom, used as a taskbar / app launcher, and a simple but stylish Conky setup displayed at the top, under the GNOME Shell panel. There’s another Docky instance on the left, used for quickly accessing various folders, but it uses autohide so you may not notice it at first.

For the GTK theme, Pinguy OS uses a modified elementary theme and for the icons, it uses the beautiful Faience Azur icon theme, but more GTK / icon themes are available by default so you can easily change them if you don’t like the defaults.

As usual, Pinguy OS comes with many little things that make your life easier as well as under-the-hood optimizations and tweaks such as ZRam and Preload installed by default, aimed at providing a better default experience.

GNOME 3.8

Pinguy OS 13.04 screenshots
GNOME Control Center 3.8

Even though Ubuntu 13.04 has GNOME 3.6, Pinguy OS uses GNOME 3.8 with GNOME Shell by default, customized with quite a few extensions as usual. For 13.04, Pinguy uses Gno-menu extension by default instead of Cardapio (which is no longer being developed and is looking for new maintainers), but you can also use Slingshot App Launcher or the GNOME appmenu extensions instead, both being installed (but not used) by default.

Pinguy OS 13.04 screenshots
Gno-menu extension
Pinguy OS 13.04 screenshots
Messaging Menu extension

Besides Gno-menu, Pinguy OS 13.04 includes quite a few GNOME Shell 3.8 extensions by default, such as:
  • Activities Configurator: lets you configure the Activities button (text, padding, hide text or icon, hot corner sensivity, etc.);
  • Alternatetab: ALT-Tab replacement that allows you to cycle between windows and doesn’t group by application;
  • Alternative status menu: replaces the GNOME Shell Status menu with one that displays Suspend / Hibernate and Power Off as separate items;
  • AppIndicator Support: the extension we wrote about a while back that adds Ubuntu AppIndicator support to GNOME Shell, though you need to set the indicators placement in panel from its settings (via GNOME Tweak Tool) for it to work;
  • Default minimize and maximize: displays minimize and maximize buttons on windows, which isn’t available by default in GNOME Shell;
  • Frippery move clock: the clock is moved to the right;
  • Media player indicator: Ubuntu Unity-like sound indicator;
  • Messaging Menu: Unity-like messaging menu;
  • Move-free Message Tray: Returns the Message Tray to pre-3.6 behavior where your whole screen doesn’t move;
  • more.

Just like in the previous releases, because it uses a custom menu, the Activities button isn’t available by default but you can enable it if you want, by using GNOME Tweak Tool, which is included by default in Pinguy OS (or simply use the Super key to access the Activities Overview).

Pinguy OS 13.04 screenshots

Pinguy OS 13.04 screenshots

Default applications

Pinguy oS 13.04 screenshots

Besides some new GNOME Shell extensions, Pinguy OS 13.04 beta comes with Netflix Desktop by default, along with its usual default packages such as XBMC, codecs, Adobe Flash, G-talk plugin and so on.
Also, the Spotify and Google Chrome repositories are added by default so it’s very simple to install either of these applications.
Pinguy OS 13.04 beta ships with the following default packages: Firefox 21, Nautilus 3.8.1, LibreOffice 4.0.2, Empathy 3.8.2, GNOME Control Center 3.8.2, Deluge 3.6, Docky 2.2.1, Friends 0.1.3daily13.04.17.1, Skype 4.1.0 (but an update to 4.2 is already available through the Update Manager), TeamViewer 7, Thunderbird 17.0.6, Pinta 1.4, Shotwell 0.14.1, Rapid Photo Downloader 0.4.5, Xchat 2.8.8, Arista Transcoder 0.9.7, Cheese 3.8.1, Clementine 1.1.1, GNOME Mplayer 1.0.8, OpenShot Video Editor 1.4.3, DeVeDe 3.23, VLC 2.0.6, XBMC Media Center 2.13.0 alpha, Gloobus Preview 0.4.5, Boot Repair 3.199, Gedit 3.8.2, Gparted 0.16.1, Ubuntu One, GNOME Tweak Tool 3.8.0+git, Wine 1.5.30, PlayOnLinux 4.1.1, Synaptic 0.80, Y PPA Manager 0.0.9.8, Shutter 0.90, Ubuntu Software Center 5.6.0 and more, all on top of GNOME 3.8.
Like Ubuntu 13.04, Pinguy OS 13.04 beta uses the 3.8.0 Ubuntu Linux kernel, based on the upstream 3.8.8 Linux kernel, comes with MTP support by default and so on.

Download Pinguy OS 13.04 beta

For support, visit the Pinguy OS forums.

Originally published at WebUpd8: Daily Ubuntu / Linux news and application reviews.


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Gnome Encfs Manager: Cryptkeeper Alternative With Ubuntu AppIndicator Support

May 21, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Gnome Encfs Manager (GencfsM) is a tool to manage EncFS filesystems. The tool is a great alternative to Cryptkeeper (but with some extra features), which can’t be used in Ubuntu 13.04 unless you install a patched Unity to support the old systray whitelist.

gnome encfs manager

EncFS provides an encrypted filesystem in user-space and the files are encrypted using a volume key stored encrypted in the source directory. This can be used, for instance, to encrypt a folder with confidential data in your Dropbox (because for instance, Dropbox doesn’t encrypt the data on your computer) – more about this, HERE.

Gnome Encfs Manager can be used to create, mount and unmount EncFS folders and comes with GNOME Keyring and Ubuntu AppIndicator support. Also, the applications can mount EncFs folders at startup, useful if you use EncFS with cloud sync / storage services such as Dropbox or Ubuntu One.

gnome encfs manager

Other Gnome Encfs Manager features include: allow other users to access the stash, unmount after a certain number of idle minutes, as well as some advanced options like post mount or pre mount commands, set the encfs config file and more.

Install GNOME Encfs Manager in Ubuntu

To add the official GNOME Encfs Manager PPA and install the application in Ubuntu, use the following commands:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gencfsm/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gnome-encfs-manager

To download the source code, report bugs and so on, see the Gnome Encfs Manager Launchpad page.

Originally published at WebUpd8: Daily Ubuntu / Linux news and application reviews.


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