Posts tagged desktop

Well Hello MATE!

327 days
by in Sabayon Linux

The other day we got a new Sabayon daily ISO to try out and use. This iso is for the MATE desktop environment. So you can head to your favorite mirror and download Sabayon_Linux_DAILY_amd64_MATE.iso and make yourself a live bootable disc or usb device.  I had previous tested out MATE by just installing it via limbo repo, which you can do also.  It’s  good to test the live iso and installing via entropy on an installed system.  Keep in mind that this is a young and new project so it may take some time to gain some features.  It’s also meant to be minimal stuff included.  You won’t find firefox or chromium as Midori is the default browser.  Feel free to give feed back on the Sabayon dev mailing list.  So lets take a look at this ISO: (click images for larger version)

Sabayon MATE Edition Default

On boot I was presented with the Login window so I selected MATE from the session type and typed in sabayonuser as username and than hit enter and this is what one will be presented with.  Notice there is a top panel, but it is blank.  You can simple add the items you want on the panel by right clicking on it.

Sabayon MATE Edition

As you can see in the above pic I added the menu, window list, clock, and a run application as there is no Alt + F2.  This is all personal preference as to what you want. Editing the background and themes is as easy as right clicking on the desktop and choosing change background.

Sabayon MATE Edition

Hey it’s getting better looking all the time. I had to use equo and install the faenza-icon-theme to get the icons with the theme.

Sabayon MATE Edition

So now I am liking how things are setup and was very simple and quick to do.  No need to hunt down or install crazy extra apps to change things around.

Sabayon MATE Edition

One thing still bugging me was the icons on the desktop.  In Linux mode, I do not like icons on my desktop, no matter what desktop environment.  With windows, I have icons all over my desktop, strange, but seems more of a windows thing to me. So I wanted to get rid of my icons. I had to install mate-extra/mate-conf-editor with equo.  I think personally this should be a default application as it allows customization.  Now my icons are gone, woot!

Sabayon MATE Edition

So there we are, remember to keep in mind that this is minimal so things like flash and java aren’t even there.  You can simple add what you need via entropy after install.  How about we make it bit more special and add in compiz fusion?

Sabayon MATE Edition

So I fired up equo and issued a command line:

equo install x11-wm/compiz-fusion x11-wm/compiz x11-plugins/compiz-plugins-mainx11-plugins/compiz-plugins-extra x11-wm/emerald x11-themes/emerald-themes x11-apps/fusion-icon

I than added fusion-icon and emerald  - -replace to the Startup Applications under System – Preferences.  One thing you will need to do is fire up CCSM and make sure Window Decoration is checked otherwise you will loose your window decorations.  You will need to check other things also like move window and all that good stuff.  After that I logged out of the desktop environment and restarted xdm by doing  Ctrl +Alt + F1 at the login screen.  Once I logged back in, I had all the eye candy greeting me.  Wobbly windows, emerald, and cube of course.

Sabayon MATE Edition

So if you don’t like the new Gnome or KDE and miss the old gnome, this is about as close as you’re gonna get.  Download the ISO and give a test run or install it via entropy.  We would love to hear your input on it.

Enjoy!

 

 

Sabayon – KDE 4.0.3

1870 days
by in Sabayon Linux

Finally getting around to posting KDE 4.0.3 screenshots. I am surprised at how fast 4.0.3 hit portage. You can visit the changelog to see what has changed. I’m not noticing much difference in stability, but haven’t used it a lot yet either. I noticed the taskbar was kinda flaking out and amarok would mess up playing mp3s at random. I decided to go ahead and build the latest svn compiz-fusion with the kde4 USE flag to enable it. Some of the effects you see are from compiz-fusion being enabled.



Sabayon – Howto e17 Window Manager

1882 days
by in Sabayon Linux

I’ve never seriously give enlightenment a serious look before, but you can’t help but wonder with everyone talking about e17 to take a look at it. Nobody seems interested in e16 and e17 has been in production for as long as I can remember it seems like. Maybe some year they will release a stable version. I will go through a howto install e17 on Sabayon Linux

Thanks to bearbonez on the Sabayon Linux forum for providing the links to get one started in the right direction. The first thing we need to do is create a folder in your home directory, I called mine e17.

  1. Open terminal or konsole, should be in your home directory and use $ mkdir e17
  2. $ cd e17
  3. $ wget http://omicron.homeip.net/projects/easy_e17/easy_e17.sh
  4. now we need to change to root in terminal/konsole so su and enter your root password
  5. # chmod +x easy_e17.sh
  6. Now before we run the script, make sure you have libmpd installed first, if not:: # emerge media-libs/libmpd
  7. than continue as normal
  8. # ./easy_e17.sh -i let it do it’s thing – this will take some time to perform. You will get a message when it is done.

It took me about hour and half to compile all those packages, they go quickly. After that I was faced with how to get it to work with gdm/kdm. The solution:

  1. # nano /usr/share/xsessions/e17.desktop
    • add the following:
    • [Desktop Entry]
      Encoding=UTF-8
      Name=e17
      Comment=Log into e17
      Exec=/opt/e17/bin/enlightenment_start
      TryExec=/opt/e17/bin/enlightenment_start
      Type=Application
      Icon=/opt/e17/share/enlightenment/data/images/enlightenment.png
  2. Save and close the file
  3. #/etc/init.d/xdm restart
  4. Under Session manager on your GDM or KDM login select e17

An Alternative is to use entrance which will replace your GDM or KDM and is actually pretty nice, you just need to add DISPLAYMANAGER=”entrance” to /etc/rc.conf It’s your choice

To keep yourself updated just run # ./easy_e17.sh -u

I found it very easy to work with, just got to explorer a bit to find the stuff. It’s easier to configure than fluxbox and has more eye candy than fluxbox. It does animated backgrounds OTB and you can even download animated backgrounds through the background configuration. I can still run my gnome applications and kde applications in it. There is even a way to get compiz-fusion working with it. You can even grab themes for it also.

Sabayon – KDE 4.0.2

1894 days
by in Sabayon Linux

I actually got KDE 4.0.2 compiled a couple days of go and I had to jump to something else before I could get screen shots posted. The pictures below is Sabayon 3.5 Loop1 that is world updated with KDE 4.0.2. It does bring stability and one can now have control over the task bar. I noticed if I put it on the tiny setting part of the task bar showed at the top of my screen and cause the kicker to act really weird. I found setting the task bar on small helped that, so it looks like it still needs work done on it. I’m still getting a KDE crash handler on logout, it goes by so fast I can’t even see what is crashing. I tried mixing up the screen shots with various things. Like you can see how superkaramba uses the internet to get new widgets. You can see how changing the wallpaper allows installing new wallpaper directly from kde-look.org. I also included a shot of the configuring of effects that you can apply to windows. One of the effects you can see is the transparency of dragging a window around on the desktop. I still wouldn’t want to use it as my main desktop manager, but it’s improving. More and more 4.1 code will continue to get built into the next releases too. I would imagine that Entropy will be getting 4.0.2 as soon as lxnay gets time. Look for Loop2 soon! Do keep in mind that KDE4 will not be in Sabayon Linux till final version, but Entropy or Portage will always have the ability to install it.

Sabayon – New Gnome Look?

1896 days
by in Sabayon Linux

Alright, we all know that Sabayon Linux is KDE eccentric, but it doesn’t mean we can’t make the gnome side look better. I know some have liked my dark themes that I have posted on the forum as screenshots and have asked for dark themes, so I’ve been slowly working on a nice dark look. There is just so much artwork out there done by many talented people and sifting through it all takes time. I’m not a fan of the 3.5 Red colors, actually burns my eyes. I like Red, but not in over-usage like that. I like to keep with dark neutral colors for as much time as I stare into the screen I don’t need my eyeballs on fire. Below is what I would like to see as a default gnome install.

Sabayon – KDE 4.0.1 – Screenshots

1900 days
by in Sabayon Linux

I read today that KDE 4.0.2 is out so it won’t be long before portage updates the ebuilds and entropy gets new packages. I was doing some screenshots of sabayon linux 3.5 loop 1 so I thought I would share a couple of KDE 4.0.1 running on Sabayon Linux 3.5 Loop1:

4.0.1 brought some stability to 4.0.0 and I hope 4.0.2 will bring even more. At least in 4.0.2 a person is going to have more options with that ugly huge taskbar. I do believe once KDE 4 is final it will make a lot of people happy, but don’t expect that any time soon. It looks like it will be fall before I would expect the final release of KDE 4. I do not use the present KDE4 as a daily desktop, it’s just too flaky. I don’t see myself changing from gnome once the final KDE is out either. I’m not huge into all this eye candy stuff, but I will have it installed along side my gnome. There are just some applications I prefer in KDE.

The easiest way to install KDE4 is to add the KDE overlay and use autounmask to unmask all the packages and emerge it. If you want to use entropy you can follow these directions. Do note with entropy directions, you will need to change it a bit, change the version number 4.0.0 to the version you want.

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