How to Enable Google’s Chrome App Launcher on Linux

For those wanting more of the Chromium effect on their existing Linux desktops, you can add the Google App Launcher. See an article below on how to add it.

The Chrome App Launcher offers a super handy way to launch your favourite Chrome Apps, sift through your engorged collection of bookmarks and trigger a web search, all without having to open the browser itself.
It’s included out of the box on Chrome OS, and Windows and Mac have been able to add it for some time. On Linux the feature remains disabled by default, but getting it is easy. And we’ll show you how.

Enable Chrome App Launcher on Linux

It should be obvious, but you do need to be running the latest release of Google Chrome (any channel) to add the app launcher. Google provides Debian and RPM installers suitable for most Linux distributions. Head on over to this link to grab one.
The simplest method (assuming you’re running the latest Stable release) is to click the link below (or copy the URL into a new tab) and hit the ‘Get App Launcher’ button on the page. This will add the feature to your system.

Enable Google Chrome App Launcher

Alternatively, if for whatever reason the above step doesn’t work, you can enable it manually. To do this, paste the following address into the omnibar and then hit return/enter:

chrome://flags/#enable-app-list

Click the blue link titled ‘enable’ that is listed underneath the “enable the app Launcher” heading. Finally, relaunch Chrome when prompted to do so.

Positioning the App Launcher

After the item has been ‘installed’ you’ll be able to add it to your application launcher or desktop panel by finding the launcher item in your desktop app menu, overlay or Dash. You can place it anywhere you like: at the top of the Unity Launcher, the far left of your Cinnamon desktop panel, or slap bang in the middle of your GNOME Shell dock.

Using the App Launcher

With the launcher item now added and in place on your desktop all that’s left is to click on it.
The apps list will open in rough proximity to its icon, though this isn’t always the case. For example, on Cinnamon the launcher often appears on the right screen, despite the App Launcher icon being clicked on the left. Given that the feature is yet to be enabled by default on Linux bugs should be expected.





If you find the positioning is really off, you may want to turn on the “Enable the experimental app launcher position” flag. This experiment positions the apps list in the centre of the screen.

chrome://flags/#enable-centered-app-list

Anatomy of the launcher

We mentioned in the introduction that the Chrome App Launcher is able to do a few handy things. And while those of you on Linux won’t get to take advantage of the “Ok Google” feature available in the Chrome OS launcher, you do get most of the other features.
Folders let you group your apps into custom directories, like ‘Google Apps’, ‘Media Apps’, etc. Enabling the ‘App Folder Sync’ flag allows you to keep these groupings between desktops and OSes.
Another flag Linux users can enable to achieve parity with Windows users is ‘App Info’. This flag appends an extra entry to the menu that appears when right-clicking on apps within the list. When selected a small overlay will appear in-launcher to give brief information on permissions the app in question has access to, shortcut app opening preferences (‘Window’, ‘In Tab’, etc.), and an uninstall button to save you having to use the Extensions page.
To help differentiate between Chrome Apps (those that can run offline, in their own window and integrate with your OS) and “glorified bookmarks”, look out for the shortcut badge on icons:

Web Apps (badged) and Chrome Apps (unbadged)

The search bar at the top of the list will return results from the web, your bookmarks, installed applications, and the Chrome Web Store.




Click on the menu icon to access some app launcher specific settings (including “supervised user” access) or send feedback on it to Google.

Removing the launcher

To remove the Chrome App Launcher simply right-click on (or tear off) the list shortcut from your panel or dock. If you enabled the launcher through a flag, you can also disable it.

Source: http://www.omgchrome.com/enable-chrome-app-launcher-linux/

First impressions of Chromixium OS 1.0

Chromixium OS is a recent addition to our database of open source operating systems. The project has an interesting goal: to mix the user interface style of a Chromebook with the power and flexibility of a full featured GNU/Linux distribution. The project's website sums up its characteristics as follows: "Chromixium combines the elegant simplicity of the Chromebook with the flexibility and stability of Ubuntu's Long Term Support release. Chromixium puts the web front and centre of the user experience. Web and Chrome apps work straight out of the browser to connect you to all your personal, work and education networks. Sign into Chromium to sync all your apps and bookmarks. When you are offline or when you need more power, you can install any number of applications for work or play, including LibreOffice, Skype, Steam and a whole lot more. Security updates are installed seamlessly and effortlessly in the background and will be supplied until 2019."

At the time of writing, Chromixium provides one build for 32-bit x86 machines. The ISO we download for the distribution is 800MB in size. Chromixium's one edition provides users with the Openbox window manager and some LXDE components for the distribution's desktop environment. Booting from the Chromixium live media brings us to a graphical login screen. The default password for the live user account is "user". Signing in brings up a desktop environment with a scenic background. At the bottom of the screen we find a transparent panel. This panel is home to quick-launch buttons, an application menu and the distribution's system tray. One of the quick-launch buttons opens the project's system installer.



Chromixium 1.0 -- Default desktop and application menu
(full image size: 812kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)

Chromixium's graphical system installer has a similar style to the installer used by its parent, Ubuntu, but there are a number of small differences. The installer begins by showing us the project's license agreement. We are then asked if we would like the installer to automatically partition our hard drive or if we would like to manually divide our hard disk. Taking the manual option, I found, launches the GParted partition manager. Using GParted, we can create the partitions we want and, when we close GParted's window, the installer moves on to the next step. The following screen asks us to create a user account for ourselves and then we can optionally enable the root account and create a password for the root user. The next screen asks us to assign mount points to the partitions we created earlier. We can also select the location of Chromixium's boot loader from this screen. There is a checkbox on the page which toggles "Transfer user settings" on/off. I enabled this option and nothing happened so I'm not sure if importing or transferring user settings has been implemented yet. The system installer then formats our disk and copies its files to our computer. When it is finished we are asked to select our time zone and then confirm our keyboard's layout through a series of menus. We then select our preferred language and reboot the computer.

Our local copy of Chromixium boots to a graphical login screen. Signing into the account we created at install time brings us back to the Openbox powered interface. Opening the distribution's application menu reveals an icon for launching the Chromium web browser. There are also icons for launching a minimal Chromium browser in order to access such Google services as Google Drive, YouTube, Google Docs and Web Store. The quick-launch buttons at the bottom of the screen provide access to these same services, plus there is a quick-launch button for opening the distribution's file manager.


Chromixium 1.0 -- Desktop and system settings
(full image size: 1.1MB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)

At this point in my trial I was wondering where the usual collection of GNU/Linux applications might be found since they were not available in the visible application menu. I found that by right-clicking on the desktop I could bring up a context menu. This menu gives us access to the distribution's settings panel and an application menu. The application menu takes several seconds to load, but it does give us a classic menu tree of software, with applications sorted into categories. The applications provided in the default installation include the Chromium web browser with Adobe's Flash plugin, the Transmission bittorrent client, an image viewer and an application for retrieving data from an attached scanner. The Brasero disc burning software is included along with the Parole media player. We are given the GParted partition manager, a hardware/system information browser and an on-screen virtual keyboard. Network Manager is available to help us connect to the Internet. We find such small applications as a text editor, archive manager and calculator. The GNU Compiler Collection is installed for us too. In the background we find the Linux kernel, version 3.13.

Chromixium does not ship with multimedia codecs. However, attempting to open a media file brings up a window letting us know we are missing codecs. The system then offers to locate appropriate codecs for playing our files. During my trial Chromixium successfully found and installed the codecs I required, allowing me to play my media files. In the application menu there is a launcher for a program that will hunt down codecs and software for reading video DVDs from the Ubuntu software repositories.


Chromixium 1.0 -- Software management
(full image size: 510kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)

The distribution provides users with two graphical package managers. The first offers a web-based interface and is called Ubuntu Apps Directory. Launching this package manager brings up a website which looks and acts in a very similar manner to the Ubuntu Software Centre. We can search for packages, browse through categories of software and click on packages to bring up a summary of the selected application. Unfortunately, I found whenever I clicked on the button to download and install a package the Apps Directory displayed an error saying the package could not be found. This made the Apps Directory entirely unhelpful. Luckily there is a second graphical package manager which runs as a native application. The Synaptic package manager is present to help us locate, install, update and remove packages on our system. Synaptic worked well for me and the native package manager worked quickly. My one complaint while using Synaptic to add software to my system was that freshly installed desktop software would not appear in either of the distribution's application menus. The user needs to log out and then sign back into their account before new software is added to the context application menu. During my trial a number of software updates were made available. I downloaded 33 updated packages, totalling 70MB in size. Each of these software updates installed cleanly. Chromixium pulls software from Ubuntu's repositories. There are a number of extra add-on repositories configured on the system, but they are not enabled by default. We can enable these extra repositories via Synaptic.

I tried running Chromixium on a desktop computer and in a VirtualBox virtual machine. In both environments the distribution functioned well. My screen was set to its maximum resolution in both environments and both networking and sound worked out of the box. I found the distribution's desktop was a bit sluggish, especially when accessing either application menu. Opening the main application menu took a few seconds and opening the context application menu (where the native applications are stored) took about four seconds. Launching programs tended to be unusually slow too when compared with other Ubuntu-based distributions. In either environment Chromixium required about 290MB of memory to log into the Openbox interface. This seems like a large amount of RAM for such a light graphical interface, almost twice what Debian running the MATE desktop used earlier this month.


Chromixium 1.0 -- Browsing the application menu
(full image size: 931kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)

Conclusions

I want to make it clear I do not own a Chromebook and, unless I'm mistaken, I've never used a Chromebook computer. I mention this because one of Chromixium's goals is to provide a Chromebook-like experience and, honestly, I have no idea whether it accomplishes this goal. Assuming, for a moment, that it does, I have to admit I'm entirely outside the target demographic for such a device. A computer which deals almost exclusively in on-line web services and web applications would not be useful to me. However, for a person who wants to use their computer almost exclusively for browsing the web, watching YouTube videos, checking e-mail and social networking sites, I can see how such a simplified user interface would be appealing. In a lot of ways I think Chromixium has similar design goals to Peppermint. Both projects have minimal interfaces, a focus on web apps and use local programs to round out their functionality.

My point is that people who are likely to enjoy Chromebooks and use their computers almost solely for accessing the web will probably find Chromixium quite useful. However, while it is technically possible to access more features and off-line software through Chromixium's application menu, the process is slow and awkward when compared with other desktop Linux distributions. Granted, Chromixium is still in its early stages, it just hit version 1.0, so the standalone features will probably improve in time. For now, I think Chromixium offers an interesting web-focused environment with the fallback option of using locally installed applications. The implementation has some rough edges at the moment, but I suspect it will get better in future releases. * * * * *
Hardware used in this review

My physical test equipment for this review was a desktop HP Pavilon p6 Series with the following specifications:

• Processor: Dual-core 2.8GHz AMD A4-3420 APU
• Storage: 500GB Hitachi hard drive
• Memory: 6GB of RAM
• Networking: Realtek RTL8111 wired network card
• Display: AMD Radeon HD 6410D video card 

Source: http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20150615#chromixium

June Desktop

Gave my desktop a Chromium look this month to go along with the Chromixium review. It is nice and bright for the summer and the soft gray colors work well. Below are links where to get them. Enjoy.

You can get the GTK3 theme here:

http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php/Windows+8+modern+UI+%28metro%29?content=157024

You can get the wallpaper here:

http://chromixium.org/sources/

and below:

Ubuntu MATE 15.04 Released Today & Review - Classic Awesomeness

The Most Useful Media Converter For Linux Just Got Better: Meet The New Handbrake

There are so many different codecs out in the world — some are extremely popular, and others are barely used. While you’re using Linux, you may come across all sorts of codecs, and you might want to use some codecs rather than others.
Thankfully, the cross-platform Handbrake utility has gotten a significant update that makes it even better at converting videos between various codecs. Let’s check out all of the exciting stuff in the newest Handbrake.

Support for More Codecs

First of all, there’s lots of under-the-hood improvements in Handbrake. For instance, the utility can now use H.265 (which compresses video even better than the famous codec H.264) as well as VP8. If you don’t know much about these codecs, just know that they’re pretty modern codecs that a lot of videos will be encoded with. Transcoding videos into these codecs will save you space on your hard drive as well as keep you future proof for a good while. Besides support for more codecs, there are also a few changes on how other codecs are handled. For example, several backends that handle certain codecs have been swapped with other backends. This is done to improve license compatibility (to make everything follow the GPL) and to improve quality of the output media.

 

Improved Performance

 

In a future release, it’s also planned for Intel’s QuickSync functionality to be implemented to drastically improve transcoding times. In the meantime, you can still use AMD’s or Intel’s OpenCL functionality to somewhat improve performance via their respective GPUs. NVIDIA doesn’t support OpenCL in their GPUs at this time.

 

Modified Interface

 

Handbrake’s graphical interface also got a nice spruce up. While nothing major, you’ll now be able to access just about all possible settings straight from the GUI, making it quicker and easier to do what you’re wanting to do.

 

Presets

 

There’s also support for presets. There are several presets that come with the program that set the settings to optimized values for what you want handbrake to output.
Once you’ve changed all the settings that you want, you can also save your own presets so you can quickly get back to those same settings at a later time. Of course, you can also delete presets you no longer need.

 

How to Install

 

The latest version, Handbrake 0.10, should be available in most distributions. Ubuntu users can install it via a PPA, which makes it quick and easy. To add the PPA, refresh your package lists, and install the latest version of Handbrake, just run these three commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:stebbins/handbrake-releases
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y handbrake-gtk

Once you’ve run these commands, you should have Handbrake installed and ready to go.

 

Arista Transcoder as an Alternative

 

However, if you’re looking for a tool that has the greatest flexibility between codecs, you’d probably be better served with Arista Transcoder, as it can take advantage of the GStreamer framework to transcode videos. The GStreamer framework is plugin-based, and there are tons of plugins available that give it support for almost any codec under the sun. So, again, if you need to transcode to newer codecs, then Handbrake should be fine. Otherwise, if you need greater flexibility, try Arista Transcoder instead. Once you’ve installed Arista, you can just check your package manager for gstreamer packages — you’ll see plenty of plugins there. If you’re running a distribution like Fedora that doesn’t include “non-free” software, you may need to add third-party repositories (such as RPMFusion for Fedora) or make other similar tweaks to your system to make those packages available.

 

Handy Tools at Your Fingertips

 

Handbrake has always been an excellent tool available on Linux, and improvements like these will continue to come — all thanks to the fact that it’s open source. If you like Handbrake and want other great tools for Linux, don’t forget to check out some of the Best Linux Software out there!

Source: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/useful-media-converter-linux-just-got-better-meet-new-handbrake/

Ubuntu MATE 15.04 Vivid Vervet Beta 1 Released, Gets Official Ubuntu Flavor Status

From webupd8.org. Author: Andrew | Date: Thursday, February 26, 2015

Ubuntu MATE 15.04 Vivid Vervet Beta 1 was released today. Let's take a look at what's new since alpha 2.

Unfortunately I didn't have time to test the other flavors (and for most of them, there's not much to say anyway), so I'll only cover Ubuntu MATE for this first beta release. However, I'll add links to the other flavors' release notes (download links included), below:

• Ubuntu GNOME
• Kubuntu
• Xubuntu
• Lubuntu (download link only; the official release notes are not available yet)
• Ubuntu Kylin

You may also want to read:

• Ubuntu Flavors 15.04 Vivid Vervet Alpha 2 Available For Testing
• Ubuntu MATE 15.04 Vivid Vervet Alpha 2 Released

I should also mention that as usual, Ubuntu (w/ Unity) doesn't take part in alpha and first beta releases.

Now back to Ubuntu MATE 15.04 Vivid Vervet beta 1. The most important news is that Ubuntu MATE is now an official member of the Ubuntu family.

The first Ubuntu MATE release was 14.10, followed by 14.04 (that's not a typo, the 14.04 release was after 14.10 because the Ubuntu MATE devs wanted to provide a LTS, since non-LTS versions are only supported for 9 months), but both versions were unofficial and used PPAs to provide the latest MATE Desktop 1.8, which is no longer the case with Ubuntu MATE 15.04 Vivid Vervet beta 1.

Since Ubuntu MATE is now an official Ubuntu flavor, all the packages it ships with are now available in the Ubuntu repositories - that include MATE Menu, MATE Tweak, its default GTK theme(s) and so on.

Speaking of MATE Tweak, the tool has received a pretty important new feature, which allows switching between different panel layouts, including: Ubuntu MATE (default), Eleven (with a top panel for the menu, systray, etc. and Plank at the bottom, as the app switcher/launcher) and more:

This also means that Plank, the default elementary OS application launcher, is now installed by default in Ubuntu MATE (but it's not used by default).

+Martin Wimpress posted a video which demonstrates this new MATE Tweak feature so check it out HERE. Note that in the video there are more panel layouts than there are available in Ubuntu MATE 15.04 Vivid Vervet beta 1 by default, because it depends on the packages installed on the system and for instance, the Ubuntu Indicator Applet, which was available in previous Ubuntu MATE releases, is no longer available in Ubuntu MATE 15.04 Vivid Vervet beta 1.

The reason for this is that the default Indicator Applet / Ubuntu Indicators don't support GTK2 by default. For the previous Ubuntu MATE releases, the Indicator Applet was patched to support MATE and it was available in a PPA, but since Ubuntu MATE 15.04 is now an official Ubuntu flavor, it can't ship with PPAs enabled by default and thus, it can't use Ubuntu Indicators out of the box.

However, you can install the Ubuntu Indicator Applet along with the Sound Indicator package (patched for MATE) in Ubuntu MATE 15.04 by following THESE instructions.

Another change in the latest Ubuntu MATE 15.04 Vivid Vervet beta 1 is the addition of Folder Color by default:

Folder Color is a tool which allows changing individual folder colors (useful to organize your folders, make some important folder stand out, etc.) and besides Caja, it supports Nautilus and Nemo.

Other changes include:

• added menu categories to System > Preferences;
• LightDM GTK Greeter Settings was updated to version 1.10;
• updated the default GTK theme (Yuko) with better GTK 3.14 support;
• thanks to a GTK2 bugfix, MATE should have better multi-monitor support;
• MATE Tweak allows switching between Marco and Compiz without requiring a logout/login;
• added PowerPC as an officially supported architecture;
• updated LightDM GTK Greeter to 2.0.0 which now includes a MATE logo in the session switcher;
• merged MATE Compatibility integration into upstream Compiz .

Here are a few more Ubuntu MATE 15.04 Vivid Vervet beta 1 screenshots:

This being a beta, there are a few known issues, most importantly: MATE 1.8x is not fully compatible with glibc>=2.43.1 and while this was fixed upstream, it's not available in 15.04 yet so for now, you'll have to use a PPA to get the fixes.

Other known issues include: the notification tray crashes on first start and randomly from time to time (32bit only), live switching between Compiz and Marco is experimental and may result in missing window decorations on some old GPUs (and in VirtualBox, at least that was the case in my test) and more.

Default applications/packages

Ubuntu MATE 15.04 Vivid Vervet beta 1 ships with the following applications installed by default: Caja 1.8.2, Pluma 1.8.1, Firefox 34, Thunderbird 31.4.0, LibreOffice 4.4.0, VLC 2.2.0, Rhythmbox 3.1, Shotwell 0.20.2, Pidgin 2.10.9, HexChat 2.10.1, Transmission 2.84, Cheese 3.14.1, two terminals - MATE Terminal 1.8.1 and Tilda 1.2.2 (which can be triggered via the F12 key), and Eye of Mate 1.8.0, on top of MATE Desktop 1.8.1.

Under the hood, the first Ubuntu MATE Vivid beta ships with the Ubuntu Linux Kernel 3.18.0-13, based on the upstream 3.18.5 Linux Kernel, Xorg server 1.16.2.901 and Mesa 10.5.0 RC1 (with RC2 available in the Proposed repository).

Download Ubuntu MATE 15.04 Vivid Vervet beta 1

Download Ubuntu MATE 15.04 Vivid Vervet beta 1

The link above includes the official release notes so make sure you read them before testing the latest Ubuntu MATE 15.04 beta 1!

Up next: Ubuntu MATE (and flavors) 15.04 Vivid Vervet final beta, which should be released on March 26th. All the Ubuntu flavors as well as Ubuntu (w/ Unity) will take part in the final beta release.

Source: http://www.webupd8.org/2015/02/ubuntu-mate-1504-vivid-vervet-beta-1.html

How to enable the Composting Manager in Ubuntu Mate

I've noticed that the Ubuntu Mate Tweak utility has been removed. For anyone looking to enable the Composting Manager. Here is how to do it from the Terminal. Enjoy....

first ensure you have installed compiz:

sudo apt-get install compiz compiz-plugins compizconfig-settings-manager

Open compiz settings manager by typing  ccsm  in the terminal, or just find it in the dash.
Under EFFECTS, enable Window Decorations.

This is where I got stuck for 2 months. In most distros, this is all you have to do, but there is another step in Mate:

Open a terminal and type:

dconf write /org/mate/marco/general/compositing-manager true

You should now have compositing enabled.

Source: http://askubuntu.com/questions/536717/mate-compositing-windows-manager

Why Evolve OS could win you over to Linux and me away from Ubuntu

Jack Wallen has found the one take on Linux that could possibly move him away from his distribution of choice since 2006.

There are so many Linux distributions, each one claiming that they are the one flavor best designed for the new user in mind. Ubuntu, Linux Mint, PCLinuxOS -- all outstanding distributions and very much ready for users who want a platform built on the premise that Linux isn't nearly as challenging as many people assume.

In 2014, a new distribution appeared out of nowhere, one that cut straight to the heart of the matter and promised to deliver a Linux distribution like no other. That distribution is Evolve OS. For the longest time, the distribution was in a state of limbo, and the best you could do was download an alpha and hoped it would run. I tried a number of times and finally opted to just install the Budgie desktop on a Ubuntu distribution. That attempt gave me an idea of how Evolve OS would look, but not much more.


All of that changed last week when the beta of Evolve OS was finally released, and the distribution could finally be tested against what's considered the gold standard of user-friendly Linux distributions.
It not only fared well, it crushed the competition.
I should probably preface this by saying that I'm already a bit biased towards the Budgie interface. It's a near clone of the Chrome OS UI -- beautiful, elegant, and simple (Figure A). It makes lesser hardware sing, and it's quite stable for a beta.
Figure A

The Budgie desktop in action.

Evolve OS is built from scratch, using a fork of the PiSi package manager, and it's integrated with the GNOME stack to avoid technical debt and needless overhead.
What's underneath the hood will not concern the new user -- but what will is the complete lack of a learning curve. Any user could hop onto Evolve OS and feel right at home. At the heart of that is the similarity to the Chrome OS UI. Although the Chromebook, by nature of its design, does have limitations (I should also mention that I'm a big fan of the Chromebook), the UI is as flawless an interface as you'll ever find. Evolve OS takes perfect advantage of this and re-creates that platform, sans limitations.

Imagine the Chromebook with the ability to run full-blown applications and work seamlessly offline. That's the very heart and soul of Evolve OS. With a simple menu, notification area, and panel, Evolve OS enjoys a familiar desktop metaphor that has worked for decades with the modern, minimal twist of Chrome OS.
From the user's perspective, Evolve OS borrows the following from the GNOME stack:

• Files -- GNOME file manager
• Maps -- GNOME map tool
• Weather -- GNOME weather app

It must be said that Budgie is not a fork of GNOME 3. Budgie was built from scratch and uses its own window manager and panel. Outside of the listed apps above, most of the borrowed GNOME stack is underneath the hood.

Why Evolve?

The answer to this question is quite simple. If you're a fan of Chromebooks but long to be able to add an addition layer of usability and power on top, Evolve OS is for you. If you're looking for the epitome of elegance on a desktop, Evolve OS is for you. If you're looking for the single lowest barrier to entry for Linux, Evolve OS is for you.

Why not Evolve?

It's very important to remember that Evolve OS is in beta. This means that you'll find tiny corners that are a bit rough. Take, for instance, the Software Center (Figure B).
Figure B

The Evolve Software Center.

The Software Center is quite limited at the moment. With a minimal amount of available packages to install, you'll find yourself having to go the old-school route and install manually. Evolve OS uses the eopkg, which is a fork of the PiSi package manager. You can install a package with a command similar to:
sudo eopkg install audacity
Personally, I'll be following Evolve OS closely to see when the distribution comes out of beta. When it does, it's quite possible that I could evolve from Ubuntu to this incredibly easy-to-use take on the Linux environment. That's a fairly impressive task for any new distribution -- to take me away from my Linux distribution of choice since 2006.
What do you think? Is Evolve OS just what the Linux platform needs to win over new users? Why or why not?

Source: http://www.techrepublic.com/article/why-evolve-os-could-win-you-over-to-linux-and-me-away-from-ubuntu/

Windows 10 Theme for Linux (GTK & XFCE)

One of the great things about Linux is the ability to customize your system any way you want. I had some fun with this one. I used the Orion Theme with the Windows 8 metacity title bars and windows icons. Below are links where you can get theme. Enjoy.

 

You can get the GTK3 metacity Win8 theme here:
http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php/Windows+8+theme+By+Kunal?content=165937

You get the Orion GTK3 theme here:
http://satya164.deviantart.com/art/Orion-GTK3-Theme-281431756

You can get the Win8 icons here:
http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php/Windows+8+Icons+Theme?content=167957

You can get the wallpapers here:

http://www.windows8core.com/download-the-all-new-desktop-hd-wallpapers-from-windows-10-consumer-preview-build-9901/

You can do the same for your XFCE desktop as well....and see the links below...

You can get the XFCE theme, XFCEight here:

http://xfce-look.org/content/show.php/Xfceight?content=158227

Ambiance & Radiance Flat Themes

Many of the new themes are heavily influenced by Android & Apple phone & tablets. Minimal flat themes are increasingly being developed for Windows 8 and Linux. Below is the Ambiance Flat theme along with the Vibrancy series icons. There are several color options in the theme. They both give my linux desktop a fashionable look these days. Below are links to get the theme and wallpaper. Enjoy.

The Ambiance Flat Theme can be found here:

http://www.ravefinity.com/p/download-ambiance-radiance-flat-colors.html

The Vibrancy Icons set can be found here:

http://www.ravefinity.com/p/vibrancy-colors-gtk-icon-theme.html

The Ubuntu red squares wallpaper can be found here:

http://www.wallpapershunt.com/wallpaper/ubuntu-logo-orange-2560x1600_w2954.html