Avant Window Navigator is docking application for Linux and is one of my favorites amongst others. With lucido theme, it looks pretty neat. Let’s see how to install Avant Window Navigator Lucido on Ubuntu.

1. If you are using the stable version of AWN, then you should remove it first before installing the trunk version. To do so, type the following commands in Terminal.

sudo apt-get remove avant-window-navigator avant-window-navigator-data awn-settings awn-applets-c-core libawn1 vala-awn
sudo apt-get autoremove

2. Now add the Lucido PPA to your software sources

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:albyrock87/lucidoppa

3. Update your software sources

sudo apt-get update

4. Add official AWN applets PPA

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:awn-testing/ppa

5. Update

sudo apt-get update

6. Install AWN Lucido

sudo apt-get install avant-window-navigator-trunk avant-window-navigator-data-trunk python-awn-trunk awn-settings-trunk awn-applets-python-core-trunk python-awn-extras-trunk awn-applets-python-extras-trunk awn-applets-c-core-trunk awn-applets-c-extras-trunk

Once installed you can find it under Applications > Accessories > Avant Window Navigator
Following is how it looks on my machine.

The wait is over and Spotify is now available for Linux. Following is how you can install spotify in Ubuntu 10.04.

Note: Because they are not able to run ads on this client, this service is only available for spotify premium users. But we can safely assume that it’s coming soon to free users as well.

1. Add repository to your software sources

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Add the following line at the end of the file

deb http://repository.spotify.com stable non-free

2. Open the terminal window and paste the following command to add the spotify public keys

gpg --keyserver wwwkeys.de.pgp.net --recv-keys 4E9CFF4E
gpg --export 4E9CFF4E |sudo apt-key add -

3. In the terminal paste the following command

sudo apt-get update

4. Type the following command to install spotify

sudo apt-get install spotify-client-qt

5. Once installed you can run it using the run prompt (ALT+F2) and typing spotify.

Let’s see a step by step guide to install NetBeans 6.9 on Ubuntu 10.04. But before we start with the installation process let’s see what NetBeans is:

The NetBeans IDE is an award-winning integrated development environment available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Solaris. The NetBeans project consists of anopen-source IDE and an application platform that enable developers to rapidly create web, enterprise, desktop, and mobile applications using the Java platform, as well as JavaFX, PHP, JavaScript and Ajax, Ruby and Ruby on Rails, Groovy and Grails, and C/C++.

Release overview of NetBeans 6.9

NetBeans IDE 6.9 introduces the JavaFX Composer, a visual layout tool for visually building JavaFX GUI applications, similar to the Swing GUI builder for Java SE applications. Additional highlights include OSGi interoperability for NetBeans Platform applications and support for developing OSGi bundles with Maven; support for JavaFX SDK 1.3, PHP Zend framework, and Ruby on Rails 3.0; as well as improvements to the Java Editor, Java Debugger, issue tracking, and more.

Following is an Overview video of NetBeans 6.9 release.

Installation

In order to install NetBeans, you will need Sun Java installed on your machine. Make sure you have JDK installed before you begin the installation process.

1. Download NetBeans 6.9 from NetBeans download page

You can select the version you want. I selected the complete version.

2. Once you have downloaded Open a terminal window and navigate to your Download directory (where you downloaded NetBeans installer script). Once you are at your download directory, type the following command to begin the installation.

sh netbeans-6.9rc2-ml-linux.sh

3. This should initiate the installation process.

Once installed you can find it under Applications > Programming > NetBeans IDE 6.9

Following is a short guide to installing Google’s infamous open source Chromium browser which is said to be the fastest browser on planet.

Chromium is the open-source project behind Google Chrome. We invite you to join us in our effort to help build a safer, faster, and more stable way for all Internet users to experience the web, and to create a powerful platform for developing a new generation of web applications.

Following is how you can install Chromium on OpenSuse 11.3

1. Go to http://software.opensuse.org

2. Search for Chromium

3. Look for “Chromium is the open-source project behind Google Chrome.” and click 1-Click Install.

This should install chromium on OpenSuse. Enjoy speed browsing.

This post is specific to enabling 3d (desktop effects) in fedora 13 running on Nvidia graphics. I struggled to enable the desktop effect in Fedora 13. But eventually I managed to enable the desktop effects using the following steps.

Note: This is a 3 steps process. Please follow all the steps to enable desktop effects in Fedora 13

1. Install Nvidia drivers ( if you have 4Gb of RAM or more you will probably have a PAE kernel [32bit only] so follow the PAE part )

su
rpm -Uvh  http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm   http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm
yum install kmod-nvidia xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-libs.i686

If you use a PAE kernel

su
rpm -Uvh  http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm   http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm
yum  install kmod-nvidia-PAE

2. Edit the Grub File

su -
sed -i '/root=/s|$| rdblacklist=nouveau|' /boot/grub/grub.conf
mv /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r).img /boot/initramfs-$(uname  -r)-nouveau.img
dracut /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r).img $(uname -r)

3. Reboot

Once you have rebooted go to System > Preferences > Desktop Effects

Sometimes there is a need to benchmark your machine in order to report bugs or to troubleshoot. In Linux it’s fairly easy to benchmark your system. HardInfo is a small tool which will help you benchmark your system in Fedora 13.

HardInfo can gather information about your system’s hardware and operating system, perform benchmarks, and generate printable reports either in HTML or in plain text formats.

In order to install Hardinfo in Fedora 13, open a terminal window and type the following command:

su
yum install hardinfo

Once installed you can find it under Applications > System Tools > System Profiler and Benchmark

Following is how it looks.

You can perform various benchmarks for your system.

Transmission is one of the P2P torrent client for Linux and Mac. The interface is quite intuitive and user friendly. Following are some of the features of Transmission 2.0.

• “Local Peer Discovery” for finding peers on the local network
• Optimize download requests for the bandwidth available
• Smarter heuristics when deciding the order to connect to peers
• Faster verification of local data
• Faster startup
• Support more blocklist file formats
• Use IEC standard units (KiB, MiB, GiB) instead of (KB, MB, GB)
• Better handling of 404 tracker errors

In order to install transmission 2.0 torrent client type the following commands in a terminal window:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:transmissionbt/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install transmission

Once installed you can find it under Applications > Internet > Transmission

Home Page

Conky is a system monitoring tool for Linux. However, it’s a great tool to bring immense amount of information right on your desktop. You can flaunt off some really geeky looking desktop to all your friends stuck with Windows (though there are ways to achieve the same in Windows as well).

Conky is a free, light-weight system monitor for X, that displays any information on your desktop. Conky is licensed under the GPL and runs on Linux and BSD.

This is how my conky setup looks like (Click on the image to see the complete screenshot). This is how my conky flaunted desktop looks like:

Following is how you can install conky:

sudo apt-get install conky

Once installed all you have to do is to bring up run prompt (Alt+F2) and type conky to bring up conky. Though it might look ugly.

Let’s see how to customize conky to look something like the one on my screen. Create a new document in your home drive and name it .conkyrc (this will be a hidden file in your home drive). Paste the following code in the file and save and close the file. Your new conky should look like the one above.

background yes
use_xft yes
xftfont Zecton:size=8
xftalpha 0.5
update_interval 1.0
total_run_times 0
double_buffer yes
no_buffers no
own_window yes
own_window_transparent yes
own_window_type override
own_window_hints undecorate,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager
minimum_size 500 5
maximum_width 200
draw_shades yes
draw_outline no
draw_borders no
default_color lightgrey
alignment top_right
gap_x 15
gap_y 50
uppercase no
override_utf8_locale yes

TEXT
${color white} ${font PizzaDude Bullets:size=16}V${font :size=10}   Date&Time $hr $font $color
${goto 1000}${time %l:%M}${font}${time %p}
${time %A, %e %B %Y}

${color white}${font OpenLogos:size=18} I${font :size=10}   SYSTEM $hr $font
$color $font$sysname: ${alignr} $kernel ($machine)
$color Battery: ${alignr}$battery_time

${color white} ${font StyleBats:size=16}V${font :size=10}   CPU $hr $font $color
$color ${font}CPU@${freq}MHz: ${cpu cpu1}% ${alignr}${cpubar cpu1 8,60}
$color ${top name 1} $alignr ${top cpu 1}%
$color ${top name 2} $alignr ${top cpu 2}%

${color white}${font StyleBats:size=16}E${font :size=10}   MEMORY $hr $font $color
${color}${font}RAM: $mem/$memmax $alignr $memperc%
$color ${membar}
${color}${font}Swap: $swap/$swapmax $alignr $swapperc%
$color ${swapbar}
$color ${top_mem name 1} $alignr ${top_mem mem 1}%
$color ${top_mem name 2} $alignr ${top_mem mem 2}%

${color white} ${font PizzaDude Bullets:size=16}K${font :size=10}   HDD $hr $font $color
$color root: ${fs_used /}/${fs_size /} $alignr ${fs_free_perc /}%
$color ${fs_bar /}
$color home: ${fs_used /home}/${fs_size /home} $alignr ${fs_free_perc /home}%
$color ${fs_bar /home}
$color windows: ${fs_used /media/sda1}/${fs_size /media/sda1} $alignr ${fs_free_perc /media/sda1}%
$color ${fs_bar /home}
$color stuff: ${fs_used /media/sda5}/${fs_size /media/sda5} $alignr ${fs_free_perc /media/sda5}%
$color ${fs_bar /home}

${color white} ${font PizzaDude Bullets:size=16}@${font :size=10}   NETWORK $hr $font $color
$color Local IP: $alignr${addr wlan0}
$color Public IP: $alignr${execi 1 ~/.conky/ip.sh}
$color Download: ${downspeedf wlan0} KB/s $alignr ${totaldown wlan0}
$color Upload: ${upspeedf wlan0} KB/s $alignr ${totalup wlan0}

${color white} ${font Arial Black:size=16}@${font :size=10}   GMAIL $font $color${alignc}${execi 60 ~/.conky/gmail.sh}

${color white} ${font PizzaDude Bullets:size=16}@${font :size=10}   Weather $hr $font $color
$color Skies are: ${alignr}${weather http://weather.noaa.gov/pub/data/observations/metar/stations/ EFTP cloud_cover}
$color Winds from the: ${alignr}${weather http://weather.noaa.gov/pub/data/observations/metar/stations/ EFTP wind_dir}
$color Winds speed: ${alignr}${weather http://weather.noaa.gov/pub/data/observations/metar/stations/ EFTP wind_speed} km/h
$color Humidity: ${alignr}${weather http://weather.noaa.gov/pub/data/observations/metar/stations/ EFTP humidity}% relative humidity
$color Temperature: ${alignr}${weather http://weather.noaa.gov/pub/data/observations/metar/stations/ EFTP temperature}C

Feel free to modify the file. The original setup is inspired by didi79

Have you have suffered from color issues on videos in Ubuntu 10.04. Say for example you start playing a video and you see high amounts of blue tinge while playing a video. I ran into this problem today and it wasn’t too much of difficulty to fix it back to normal. The issue at hand looks something like this:

Let’s see how to fix this on the default movie player Totem Movie Player on Ubuntu 10.04 and also VLC media player.

Fix color issues in Totem Movie Player on Ubuntu 10.04

In Totem Movie Player go to Edit > Preferences. On the the Display tab you will notice that Hue slider is on extreme left. Something like the one below:

All you have to do is click the Reset to Defaults button and this should fix the issue. Following is how it should look:

Fix color issues in VLC Player on Ubuntu 10.04

On VLC Player go to Tools > Preferences and click the Video tab. Change the Output format from Default to X11 video output. It should look like something like this:

All you have to do is to restart the video and it should look just fine. Following is the final result.

Hope it works out well for you!

Do you work with many window and want to see all of them at a glance before you choose them then X-Tile is the solution for you.

X-tile is a gnome applet for your panel (or optionally a standalone application,working with kde as well) that allowsyou to select a number of windows and tile them in different ways.

You can download the Deb package from here. For other distros you can check the page here.