Ailurus

Ailurus is a helpful add-on to Ubuntu, giving hints of the day and information on hardware, along with third-party repositories and applications that are not available in the official Ubuntu repositories – and many more options. It is a good bit different from Ubuntu Tweak. This has led me to have both of them on my computer.

When Ailurus first loads, it brings with it a tip of the day window (which can be disabled). The tips range from simple commands that can easily be typed in the terminal and do not need a whole lot of explanation, to those that require more knowledge of the command line. There is something there for everyone.

Some options that Ailurus includes are:

to install or remove applications that are not in the official repository;
to enable or disable some third-party repositories (some that are not included by Ubuntu Tweak);
to display information about BIOS, motherboard, CPU and battery;
to show or hide Computer, Home folder, Trash and Network icons on desktop;
to configure GNOME auto-start applications.

The easiest way to install Ailurus is from the PPA repository. You just need to open a terminal window (Applications > Accessories > Terminal). Then type in the following:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ailurus
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ailurus

If you are using a version of Ubuntu that does not have the command add-apt-repository, you can still install Ailurus. Type the following command into your terminal:

sudo apt-key adv –recv-keys –keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 9A6FE242

Then go to System > Administration > Software Sources > Other Software, click on Add and type in

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/ailurus/ppa/ubuntu hardy main

deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/ailurus/ppa/ubuntu hardy main

(of course, you can replace hardy with intrepid, jaunty or karmic – whichever one you use.)

Side note – I have come to appreciate Lucid because of the ease of the command add-apt-repository (which works for PPA repositories, those at ppa.launchpad.net). It pulls in the necessary signature keys as well as adding the correct repository for your version – all of this automatically.Technorati Tags: Ailurus, Linux, Ubuntu, Lucid, Karmic, Jaunty, Intrepid, Hardy

Ubuntu Tweak 0.4.9 Has Been Released

Ubuntu Tweak 0.4.9 was released Saturday, September 12, 2009 after more than one month’s development.  The new version covers Karmic (still in development) as well as Hardy, Intrepid and Jaunty.

One thing the latest version of Ubuntu Tweak will do is to make your sources.list file more manageable.  By default, Ubuntu Tweak will save its third party sources into its own file under /etc/apt/sources.list.d/

When you open the Source Editor, Ubuntu Tweak will show you the main sources.list in the window.

You can also select the drop down menu to view or edit other list files. They are stored under /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ (If you don’t use Separated Sources, you can disable it in the Preferences Dialog:

A lot of PPAs (third party sources) have been added. These are aMule, Google Testing Repository, GmChess (Chinese Chess), Smplayer Testing, GIMP Testing, Back In Time (a backup tool), Geany, SpiceBird, Moblin Testing, PlayOnLinux, RedNotebook, Breathe Icon Theme, Qt, Mono, Exaile, Clutter, Ubuntu X Unstable, and Gloobus, as well as the themes Arc-Colors, Gnome-Colors and Shiki-Colors.

In addition, Ubuntu Tweak has added a notification in the notification area when you enable a source. In addition, once you click Refresh to update and the update is done, a window will come up showing you what new applications can be installed and what updates can be applied.

One more thing to note: from this version forward, Ubuntu Tweak will have different packages for i386 and amd64. You can download the correct package for this version at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu-tweak/0.4.x/0.4.9.Technorati Tags: Ubuntu Tweak, Ubuntu, Karmic, Jaunty, Intrepid

Themes for Ubuntu

A couple of weeks ago, while I was in Salt Lake City helping out at the UMCOR (United Methodist Committee on Relief) depot that has just started up there, Ubuntu Geek ran a beautifully detailed article on the new repository of Zgegblog themes for Jaunty and Intrepid. I won’t quote much of the article, except to say how to get these themes into your sources.list and onto your computer.

First for the sources.list. This will require you to open up System > Administration > Software Sources, go to the Third-Party Software tag, click on add and add the line

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/bisigi/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main (or Intrepid if that is your version).

The following command will add the GPG key to let your computer know the repository is signed and safe for your use:

sudo apt-key adv –recv-keys –keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 1781bd45c4c3275a34bb6aec6e871c4a881574de

Then, once you update, you can type sudo aptitude install zgegblog-themes. (They can also be installed separately.)

Even though I am running Karmic, I installed these themes without a hitch. Here is my favorite of the group, Balanzan.

Karmic Koala also has a group of new themes, available right in the repository. These are based on the brave (blue), wine, noble (purple), wise (green), dust and human themes. There are wallpapers to go with them. Here is the shiki-brave theme with the arc-brave wallpaper:

To install these themes, type in your terminal or Alt+F2 window,

sudo aptitude install shiki-human-theme shiki-brave-theme shiki-noble-theme shiki-wine-theme shiki-dust-theme shiki-wise-theme arc-human arc-noble arc-wise arc-dust arc-wine arc-brave