customising life

I went back to Edgy.

Sorry for the misleading title.  I just couldn’t get anywhere with Feisty, and I’d had enough.
Down-grading was an issue-and-a-half too; a week full of frustration.

I went for my Ubuntu Edgy CD, but after installing was unable to log into a GNOME session, the screen froze before anything had loaded. I tried the same thing with my Xubuntu Edgy CD and was able to log into a XFCE session, but not a GNOME one.

After squeezing my home folder into some backup space, I re-installed this time starting with the /home folder fresh. This time there was no problem getting into GNOME so I assumed there was some configuration issue.

After copying back most of my /home folder, save any .gnome, .gnome2, etc folders, I proceeded to re-install all the programs I need, only to find the same freeze on starting a GNOME session.

Rather than re-installing (I was getting pretty hot around the collar), I worked my way through each configuration file; finally resting on my ALSA sound configuration file; .asoundrc.

I don’t know what’s wrong with it, as it hasn’t changed since I got my sound card working a while back. I do miss surround sound, but for now I’m just happy to have a working, non-freezing PC.

I bought and assembled my parent’s new PC yesterday. I got them a 19in widescreen LCD, which looks gorgeous. I want one!

This was the first time I’ve installed Ubuntu onto a completely fresh machine, no Windows here. Almost flawless setup, except for my bungling of the partitions, and it took next to no time.

Downloading updates over ADSL was not so quick.

Now all I need to do is identify and install any packages that they may need. First important thing is to setup the ability to browse a Windows network, as that is how they will be getting their old data off their old PC. I’ve never done that before, so I will need to work on that. SAMBA I guess??

The only other thing I need to consider is their printer, a problem which I have never had, seeing as I almost never print things out (only PDF printing).

I’ve already installed all the necessary codecs and things to play .mp3’s, .avi’s and DVD’s. Other than that Ubuntu seemed pretty complete for applications. I don’t want to install too much, so I can give my parents a demo of how Synaptic works.

I also think I’ll install some different window managers to give my parents the choice. With the release of XFCE 4.4.0, I think I’ll install xfwm at least (love that native transparency).

I recently went through some RSS feeds checking out some new Beryl features, which look rad. I think my dad was quite interested in Beryl, so I might include that too.

And I also am thinking of putting Metisse on there as well. I’m hoping to give the Mandriva 2007 One Live CD a go today.

Hopefully I’ll have everything just working by the time I take it over, for a seamless transition from Windows to Ubuntu.

I’m quite proud of myself.

Over the course of the last year and a quarter (since I’ve been into Ubuntu), I have slowly been introducing my parents to FLOSS; I’ve already sold them on Firefox/Thunderbird and then OpenOffice.org.

Recently my Dad has been more than impressed with how you can style your computer to your likes and needs; backgrounds, panels, icons and Beryl. But I think the selling point, was when I was able to breathe life into his sound card using the Xubuntu LiveCD; he had been unable to hear sound for many months, due to a broken and stubborn Windows driver.

Now they are after for a new PC, and with the success of my brothers, have commissioned me to make one for them.

And they want to use Ubuntu.

I’m almost decided on the hardware, and want to get it assembled as soon as possible, and then give it to them with Ubuntu pre-installed. Because I think the crucial part in this endeavor, is making sure that they have everything they need. Once I hand it over, it’s got to just work.

I most definitely don’t want them getting frustrated, because MP3s won’t play, can’t organise their photos, blah, blah, etc. Simple things in the grand scheme of things, but key to ensuring my parents are happy with Ubuntu/GNU/Linux.

So far I’ve only got a short list of things to do and install …

What applications do you think a PC with Ubuntu pre-installed needs?

I was getting tired of having to wait until I could update to the latest version of Beryl, since it was announced on the 26th of December.

Turns out I had little bit extra in the line for the Beryl repository, which was keeping me from getting any updates. Perhaps it changed after the Beryl site was taken down?

If you’ve been following this post, you may have the same problem. Or you may be smarter than me and decided to act on this a lot earlier.

Anyway, long story short; the correct repository to get the latest version of Beryl is

deb http://ubuntu.beryl-project.org/ edgy main

Not that which I had previously (deb http://ubuntu.beryl-project.org/ edgy main-edgy)

Edit: If you also want to ensure that the packages are authentic, you’ll need the updated GPG key

wget http://ubuntu.beryl-project.org/root@lupine.me.uk.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

With the new version of Beryl you get a nicer and more organised settings manager, and some new plugins/toys.

Kayee likes the snow and water effects.

And the 3D desktop effect (as in the windows are 3D off the desktop) is great too.

But seeing as I am just wrapping up watching the entire Stargate series, I just love the ‘beam-up’ animation!

Sadly it doesn’t lend itself to screenshots

(I had a similar problem with the sidekick animation when I first installed Beryl)

So this is a follow on from my last post, where I used a simple bash script that will resize JPEG pictures into 1024×768 resolution (or whatever resolution you wish).

I want to customise this a little more, and incorporate it into Thunar’s Custom Actions. People do similiar things for Nautilus.

The first thing to do is create a folder for the script. I decided to put it in the configuration folder for Thunar, under a freshly made scripts folder.

When mousepad opens, just paste in the script. Don’t forget to set the script to executable.

mkdir ~/.config/Thunar/scripts
mousepad ~/.config/Thunar/scripts/resize1024×768 &
chmod +x ~/.config/Thunar/scripts/resize1024×768

Next fire up Thunar, and choose the Configure Custom Actions item from the Edit menu.

From there choose to add a new custom action.

When the next dialog appears, fill out the Name and Description fields to your liking.

Next step is to enter in the command to use for this custom action. Obviously we want to run our script, but in addition we also need to specify a command parameter that Thunar uses when executing the custom action.

For this action I decided to use the parameter %N, which passes the selected filename(s) (without the path). This way I can convert one file, or multiple files.

/home/liam/.config/Thunar/scripts/resize1024×768 %N

The last thing is to set the Appearance Conditions, which specify when Thunar will display the custom action. Remembering Linux is case-sensitive, the string I used was

*.JPG;*.jpg;*.JPEG;*.jpeg;

Once that’s done, you can close the dialog, and right-click the nearest jpeg picture and resize it!

You can find other useful scripts on the page dedicated to Thunar custom action.

After even further digging in the Ubuntu forums, I found someone who made a Zenity script to resize their pictures. So that’s next in line to do. It looks really quite nice!