Random screensaver with Linux Mint Cinnamon

If you like screensavers, probably you already installed the xscreensaver package, but in Cinnamon you don't have the option to select a random one. But we can let the crontab periodic jobs change the systems entry where the currently selected screensaver is set.

Install instructions

In a terminal launch the command

crontab -e

to edit your crontab definitions and add the following at the end of the file:

# Randomize screensaver
0 * * * * DISPLAY=:0 gsettings set org.cinnamon.desktop.screensaver xscreensaver-hack \'$(ls /usr/lib/xscreensaver | sort -R | head -n 1)\' 2>&1 | logger -t screensaver

This will change every hour the screensaver to one located in the xscreensaver package.

Change LibreOffice progress bar color

Newest LibreOffice splash screen shows a orange-redish colour bar instead of a green one like it was some versions ago. I guess they changed it to integrate better with Unity default colours. But I'm using Linux Mint, so I liked the green one more. The other day, I just stumbled about the /etc/libreoffice/sofficerc configuration file, which defines some variables for the startup and there it is, the ProgressBarColor parameter.

Install instructions

The following instructions change the color from the shell command line, but you could also just edit the file with your favourite text editor (with root permissions).

# Put the color value into a variable
pbcolor=160,195,124

sudo sed -r -i.bak "s/(ProgressBarColor=)[0-9]{1,3},[0-9]{1,3},[0-9]{1,3}/\1${pbcolor}/" /etc/libreoffice/sofficerc

# Check that everything went fine (otherwise you can restore the backup file).
cat /etc/libreoffice/sofficerc

You can find the right colors for example with the Gimp image editor.

Cinnamon Desktop

Cinnamon is a fork of the GNOME Shell, created by developers of the Linux Mint project.
It recovers the visual aspects of the old GNOME 2 desktops, but is more up-to-day, includes it's own visual effects and contains some details of GNOME 3.

Install instructions

If you are using Linux Mint, you can install Cinnamon directly from their repositories, but if you want to use the latest build and/or you want to install it in another system, use the following PPA repository.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:merlwiz79/cinnamon-ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install cinnamon

# Install the weather extension
sudo apt-get install cinnamon-extension-weather

# Install some additional themes
sudo apt-get install git-core
cd /tmp && git clone https://github.com/linuxmint/cinnamon-themes.git
cd cinnamon-themes
./test

Troubleshooting

Not every software is perfect, and sometimes it could happen that your desktop manager gets frozen, for example a window gets paint and stays in the same place even if it's already closed.
There're several options to recover full control again:

1. Use the Troubleshoot menu from the applet Better Cinnamon Settings which offers an entry Restart Cinnamon.
2. Use Alt-F2 key combination to open Cinnamons internal command terminal and type 'r' followed by return.
3. If you can't access the above two options (rare cases) you might want to restart Cinnamon from a terminal.
   
   • At this point, you might not even be able to open a terminal from the desktop, so you'll have to enter a system one with Ctrl-Alt-F1.
   • Make sure you know the display used by Cinnamon (normally it's 0, but you can verify it with 'w' command and the data in the FROM column:
     

     me~ $ w
      17:43:09 up 20:41,  6 users,  load average: 0.24, 0.23, 0.18
     USER   TTY      FROM             LOGIN@   IDLE   JCPU  PCPU   WHAT
     me     pts/0    :0.0             15:37    2:04m  0.24s 23.88s gnome-terminal

   • Export this value into the DISPLAY variable.
     

     export DISPLAY=:0.0

   • Finally, restart Cinnamon:
     

     cinnamon --replace

   • When you switch back to the desktop with Ctrl-Alt-F7 you should see an operative desktop after a while.
4. The last option, if everything else fails, might be that it's not Cinnamon, but the underlying X system which is wrong, and you can reset this with Ctrl-Alt-Backspace.
   But this way, you'll have to login again into your session, which means, all open programs got closed.
   

Application launcher Kupfer

For some time I used Gnome-Do as application launcher, for its beautiful design and huge amount of plugins which enhance its features. But there were to things which bothered me lately:

• Gnome-Do's Skype plug-in stopped worked time ago
• Some applications that I removed already, still showed up in the search results
• Icons weren't refreshed.

All recommended tips that I found in forums (remove certain folders from Gnome-Do) didn't help.
But in one of these threads they commented about another application: Kupfer.
Tried that one, and it works like a charm, connection to Skype works, almost has all plugins that I used from Gnome-Do and seems to integrate with Gnome, KDE and other systems.

Install instructions

Kupfer can be installed right away from the universal repository:

sudo apt-get install kupfer 

In it's preferences you could choose the same key-combination you used with Gnome-Do, and set it's auto-start flag.

Changing wallpapers with Wally

Years ago, I posted about tools for changing your desktop wallpaper automatically.
The best tool I found so far is Wally, which is able not only to rotate through your local wallpaper picture collection, but also obtain them from several online storages like Picasa, Flickr, remote folders, etc.
It permits to define tags to include certain sets of pictures that you like.

Install instructions

Wally can be found in the universe repository of your Ubuntu system.

sudo apt-get install wally

KUbuntu

Wally is available as desktop plugin, so you'll have to enable it in your desktop folder settings.

Ubuntu Oneiric

Ubuntu recently changed the management of the desktop wallpaper, which breaks Wally 2.3.2 (the one which can be found in the repository), it isn't able to replace the wallpaper. To repair this, you'll have to install the .deb package 2.4.3 from the developers website.

Nightly icon cache update for Gnome

Sometimes it happened on my Ubuntu system, that a newly added application didn't had its icon.
This can happen due to an not updated icon cache of GTK.
This can be fixed with the command

gtk-update-icon-cache

, which rebuilds the GTK+ icon cache.

So why don't do this automatically in the background on a daily basis (during the night)?

Install instructions

Just execute the following commands, which will put a script into /etc/cron.daily so that the cache is fixed and the missing icon appears overnight.

sudo -i
echo '#!/bin/sh
#
# 

for theme in $(find /usr/share/icons -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -type d)
do 
    if [ -f "$theme/index.theme" ]
    then gtk-update-icon-cache -f -q "$theme"
    fi
done

exit 0' > /etc/cron.daily/update-icon-cache
chmod a+x /etc/cron.daily/update-icon-cache

Screensaver for Ubuntu Karmic

Ubuntu Karmic by default has very few screensaver modules enabled.
If you're a fan of screensaver, then I recommend you the following extra packages with install you more the 300 new modules.

Install instructions

sudo aptitude -y install xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl-extra rss-glx

By the way, the rss-glx package gives you the beautiful skyrocket screen saver.

Desktop Launcher

After installing lots of programs on your system, either your application start menu and/or desktop gets crowded and filled up with lots of icons and entries.

Sometimes, you know which application you want to start, but you need minutes to find the corresponding entry or icon.

This is were desktop launchers come to be very handy.
Just press a known key-combination, then start typing some letters of the programs name (for example, fir for firefox, em for emacs) and quickly the launcher suggests which action you mean and you just have to confirm the action with Return.

Even better, you don't have to introduce exact parts of the name. For example, you could launch the firefox web browser with fir, ff or web. Maybe the first time, you'll have to search it in the offered list of possible matches, but the next time Firefox would be the first choice.

This does not only work with applications, but also with any kind of document, like sound files, text files, emails, URLs, etc.

It's worse to try out. Since I use them, I have a very small set of icons left on the desktop.

On Ubuntu

Gnome-Do allows you to quickly search for many items present in your GNOME desktop environment (applications, Evolution contacts, Firefox bookmarks, files, artists and albums in Rhythmbox, Pidgin buddies) and perform commonly used actions on those objects (Run, Open, Email, Chat, Play, etc.).

Install instructions for Ubuntu IntRepid

sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/do-core/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main
> deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/do-core/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/gnomedo.list'
# Import "Launchpad PPA for GNOME Do Core Team" public key
sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 28A8205077558DD0
sudo aptitude update && sudo aptitude install gnome-do

These instructions are supposed to install a newer version (which will be released in Ubuntu 8.10), but on one of my system fails, caused by two broken dependencies.
In that case you can install an earlier version with the following instructions:

wget http://launchpadlibrarian.net/13274945/gnome-do_0.4.0.1-0ubuntu2_i386.deb
wget http://launchpadlibrarian.net/13300449/gnome-do-plugins_0.4.0-0ubuntu2_all.deb
http://launchpadlibrarian.net/13300450/gnome-do-plugin-rhythmbox_0.4.0-0ubuntu2_all.deb
wget  http://launchpadlibrarian.net/11408966/libevolution3.0-cil_0.15.4-0ubuntu2_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i libevolution*.deb gnome-do_*.deb

Go here to see install instructions for other Ubuntu versions.

Change key binding

By default, gnome-do's panel is launched with Super-Key+Space. (Super-Key normally is the left Windows-Key).
You can check the key binding with

gconftool-2 -g /apps/gnome-do/preferences/key_binding

.
If you want to change the binding use

gconftool-2 -t string -s /apps/gnome-do/preferences/key_binding "<Super>space"

and just insert the key combination that you prefer.

Automatic launch on session startup

See my manual about avant-window-navigator, which explains how to obtain this.

On Kubuntu Hardy

Kubuntu already ships with Katapult installed by default.
It is similar to gnome-do, but its hotkey combination is Alt-Space.
In my opinion it's a bit worse than gnome-do, so just purge it and install gnome-do instead which fits well into every kind of desktop.

On Windows

Launchy is a free windows utility designed to help you forget about your start menu, the icons on your desktop, and even your file manager.

Launchy indexes the programs in your start menu and can launch your documents, project files, folders, and bookmarks with just a few keystrokes!

You bring it forward by holding the Alt-key and tapping the Space-key. You then type in a few keys of the program you are searching for and hit enter once it has been found.

Remote Desktops

UltraVNC is a powerful, easy to use and free software that can display the screen of another computer (via internet or network) on your own screen. The program allows you to use your mouse and keyboard to control the other PC remotely. It means that you can work on a remote computer, as if you were sitting in front of it, right from your current location.

UltraVNC runs under Windows operating systems (95, 98, Me, NT4, 2000, XP, 2003...). Its embedded Java Viewer allows you to connect (and make File transfers) from a simple Web Browser on any Operating system supporting Java (Linux, Mac OS...) to an UltraVNC server.

You can connect directly from your Ubuntu desktop with tsclient (Applications --> Internet --> Terminal Server Client).
Previously, you have to ensure you have the VNC Client installed as well:

sudo apt-get install vnc-viewer

Then you can select VNC as connection protocol to connect to your Windows box from Linux.

Tip: Use the special F8 key

Most of the VNC clients have a special mapping for the F8 key. A menu will open and you can

• send the F8 key to the remote desktop
• send Ctlr-Alt-Del to the remote desktop
• change the preferences of the VNC client
• and other stuff depending on the client
  

Wallpaper changer

Sick of seeing the same wallpaper over and over again?
You have a lot of nice raytracing pictures and would like to see all of them from time to time?

Change your wallpapers easily with any of the following applications.

Ubuntu

Wallpaper Tray
The application lets you add directories, wallpapers are then randomly selected at login or at a given interval. You can also search your wallpaper collection, and delete wallpapers you don't like anymore.
The tray icon changes to the actual image set as wallpaper.
This one is my first selection for changing wallpapers.
Install with

sudo aptitude install wallpaper-tray

or Synaptic.

Desktop Drapes
I used this first and has the advantage that it shows if a wallpaper fits well to your chosen screen resolution.
It's big problem is that it will not include all pictures when you add a folder to your wallpaper collection. It only supports one folder for images, but you can add single pictures as well.
Install with

sudo aptitude install drapes

or Synaptic or Applications main menu.

Webilder
Webilder delivers stunning wallpapers to your Linux desktop, directly from Flickr and Webshots. You choose what keywords (tags) to watch for, and photos are automatically downloaded to your computer. Webilder can also change the wallpaper every few minutes.
I haven't tried this one yet...

Automatic startup

Any of these applications won't start automatically when restarting your session.
Therefore, you'll have to create an entry in the list of startu programs which can be found in System-->Preferences-->Sessions
Have a look at my tutorial for the Advanced Window Manager for an example.

Avant Window Navigator

Avant Window Navigator is a dock-like navigation bar for the Ubuntu desktop that positions itself at the bottom of the screen.

It can be used to keep track of open windows and behaves like a normal window list.

Have a look here for a video to see it in action and for instructions about its installation.