Ubuntu Gnome Remix 12.10

I've written some about the decision to stop the Gnome Shell Remix. Well the folks at Ubuntu heard the call for a gnome desktop and the result is Ubuntu Gnome Remix 12.10. It is basically Ubuntu without unity which is what I prefer. Standard browser is Ephiphany but you can download Firefox and Chromium. It includes a nice Software Library applet. Not as nice as the Ubuntu Software Store or Synaptic. But you can download Synaptic. Initial memory used was just 196MB which is pretty lean. It comes with Abiword and Gnumeric spreadsheet, Rhythmbox, Dconf Editor, Ubuntu Tweak, and the Tweaking Tool.  I installed the Shimmer Theme package and put Grey Bird on it for a nice clean OSX look. Overall, a nice Ubuntu gnome desktop if you want to save time from all the tweaking necessary for Ubuntu 12.10.

What's Included

• The Ubuntu GNOME Remix ships with GNOME 3.6. Please see the GNOME Release Notes to see what's new in 3.6.
• GNOME Shell 3.6.1 and GDM 3.6.1. Among other improvements, the login and lock screen have been redesigned.
• Web (epiphany-browser).
• Abiword for word processing and Gnumeric for spreadsheets.
• Evolution as email client.
• Software (gnome-package-kit), which also includes its own update manager. You can install updates by opening Software and clicking Check for Updates in the Software app menu.
• GNOME Classic (gnome-panel 3) is included but GNOME Shell is the default session if your hardware supports it.
• Tweak Tool and dconf Editor are provided for customizing advanced settings.
• Cheese is a fun webcam app.
• Gwibber allows you to easily connect via social media.
• The complete GNOME Games collection.
• Rhythmbox is the default music player.
• Shotwell is the default photo manager.
• Useful utilities like Simple Scan and Transmission.

What's Not Included

• Some GNOME apps will not be upgraded to 3.6 for the 12.10 release. If you want these, try the GNOME3 PPA. Affected apps include Aisleriot, Nautilus, System Settings, and Totem.
• Web does not support Flash in Ubuntu 12.10 (904505). If you need Flash, try Firefox or Chromium.
• Boxes is not included as it wasn't working earlier in the release cycle (1038763) . Also, qemu-linaro (qemu-kvm-spice) doesn't built on i386 in Ubuntu. qemu-kvm with spice support does build in Debian though on i386. (928432)
• Documents is not included as it currently depends on LibreOffice, at least as packaged in Debian & Ubuntu.
• LibreOffice is a more powerful office suite.
• Ubuntu One is not included by default as it doesn't feel like a GNOME app.
• If you want the GNOME Classic with-effects session to work, install compiz.
• If you want Ubuntu-style notifications in GNOME Classic, install notify-osd.

You can download Ubuntu Gnome 12.10 here:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuGNOME/ReleaseNotes/12.10

8 GTK 3.6 Compatible Themes Available In PPAs For Ubuntu 12.10

Posted: 13 Nov 2012 06:41 AM PST GTK themes need to be updated to work with each new major GTK version, and because of this, some beautiful themes available for GTK 3.2 or 3.4 like Zukitwo and others, don't work with the latest GTK 3.6 available in Ubuntu 12.10 and other Linux distributions. There are, however, a few cool themes which work with the latest stable GNOME / GTK (3.6).Below you'll find 8 GTK3.6 compatible themes which are available in PPAs / repositories for Ubuntu 12.10 and work with both GNOME Shell and Unity. Greybird, the default Xubuntu theme, includes a Xfwm4 obviously, as well as GTK3 and GTK2 themes, so it can be used in Unity or GNOME Shell too and not just in Xfce: Ubuntu 12.10 users can install Greybird theme from the official Ubuntu repositoriesusing the following command (the package contains some other themes, like Bluebird as well): sudo apt-get install shimmer-themes For Ubuntu 12.04 (GTK 3.4) and other Linux distributions, see THIS article. Adwaita X Dark is a GTK theme based on Adwaita, which includes GTK2, GTK3, Mutter/Metacity and Xfwm4 themes: Install Adwaita X Dark theme in Ubuntu: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/themes sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install adwaita-x-dark-theme Adwaita X Light is a light variant of the Adwaita X Dark theme: Install Adwaita X Light theme in Ubuntu: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/themes sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install adwaita-x-light-theme For other Linux distributions, Adwaita X Dark/Light can be downloaded via Gnome-Look. Evolve is a minimal light theme that works with GTK 3.6 and includes a GTK2 theme as well as an Xfwm4 theme: Install Evolve theme in Ubuntu: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:satyajit-happy/themes sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install evolve-gtk-theme For other Linux distributions, Evolve can be downloaded via Gnome-Look. Gnomish Beige is a beautiful, beige theme based on Adwaita. The pack comes with GTK2/3 (GTK 3.6 compatible) themes as well as a GNOME Shell theme: To install Gnomish Beige theme in Ubuntu, use the following commands: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/themes sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install gnomishbeige-theme For other Linux distributions, Gnomish Beige can be downloaded via Gnome-Look. Gnomish Dark looks the same as Gnomish Beige theme, except it uses dark colors. The pack, just like Gnomish Beige, comes with GTK2/3 as well as GNOME Shell themes: To install Gnomish Dark theme in Ubuntu, use the following commands: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/themes sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install gnomishdark-theme For other Linux distributions, Gnomish Dark can be downloaded via Gnome-Look. Gnomish Grey is yet another theme from the "Gnomish" series, which uses silver gray as the main color: To install Gnomish Gray theme in Ubuntu, use the following commands: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/themes sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install gnomishgray-theme For other Linux distributions, Gnomish Gray can be downloaded via Gnome-Look. Faience is a new GTK theme released by the Faenza designer. The pack includes GTK2, GTK3 (compatible with GTK3.6) and GNOME Shell themes: To install Faience theme in Ubuntu, use the following commands: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:tiheum/equinox sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install faience-theme For other Linux distributions, download Faience theme from Gnome-Look. To apply any GNOME theme, use GNOME Tweak Tool, Ubuntu Tweak, Unsettingsor other such tools. And a final, important note: in Ubuntu 12.10, there's an overlay-scrollbar bug which causes some themes to display black widget areas. The only way around this bug so far is to remove the "overlay-scrollbar" package. Some of the themes in this post are available for GTK 3.4 / Ubuntu 12.04. Originally published at WebUpd8: Daily Ubuntu / Linux news and application reviews.

Two Linux Distros Bring Back the Gnome 2 Desktop

SolusOS and Funduntu are bringing back the classic Gnome 2 desktop to their distros. No doubt for all the linux users who prefer this OSX-ish desktop, for which I also favor. People do not want their linux desktops to look like their tablets or cell phone, as the Unity desktop does. And rumours that Ubuntu will no longer offer the Gnome Shell option, others are developing alternatives. Below are 2 articles from PCWorld.

Meet 'Consort,' a brand-new classic Linux desktop

Katherine Noyes @noyesk, Jan 17, 2013 5:22 PM

There seems to be no end in sight to the enduring popularity of the classic GNOME 2 Linux desktop, and this week afforded yet more evidence.

Following hard on the heels of the launch last week of the classically minded Fuduntu 2013.1, the SolusOS Linux project on Wednesday launched a new fork of GNOME Classic. 

“Well, it's official,” wrote Ikey Doherty, the SolusOS project's founder and lead developer, in a blog post  on the topic. “We’ve forked GNOME Classic (fallback).
“The reasoning for the name is very simple,” Doherty added. “The desktop always accompanies you.”
Nautilus becomes Athena
Linux fans may recall that SolusOS was already focused on offering a classic GNOME experience, even before this latest move.
The distro's first release featured the GNOME 2.30 desktop, and it planned early on to go with GNOME Classic, which is a custom version of GNOME 3.4.
More recently, however, the project team decided to fork GNOME Classic altogether rather than just modifying it. In particular, SolusOS has forked gnome-panel to create consort-panel; Nautilus, creating Athena; gnome-session-fallback, to become consort-session; and Metacity, creating Consortium.
'Virtually identical'
The primary rationale for the fork, Doherty wrote, was “to protect the users of our desktop components.
“Pinning patched packages higher than underlying packages proves far too tricky,” he explained. “The amount of patches in each component qualifies fork-status anyway, so it was time to admit it.”
The result, he added, is the ability to offer an experience “virtually identical” to GNOME 2 while also improving on it without requiring hardware acceleration. Classic old GNOME 2 features being brought back include right click-interaction on the panel and GNOME 2 applet support.
Modern components
The project team is also writing a new wrapper API that will allow Python GNOME 2 applets to run natively on consort-panel, Doherty noted.
Meanwhile, by using modern components, Consort will maintain total compatibility with the current GNOME suite.
SolusOS 2 Alpha 7 will be the first to feature Consort—the software is currently in its sixth alpha version—but users of other distros with GTK3 will be able to install it as well, Doherty said.

Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2025526/meet-consort-a-brand-new-classic-linux-desktop.html

Calling all GNOME 2 fans: Meet Fuduntu Linux 2013.1

Katherine Noyes @noyesk, Jan 7, 2013 4:05 PM

It's no secret that mobile-style interfaces such as Unity, GNOME 3, and even Windows 8's Modern UI have met with only a lukewarm reception among many desktop PC users.
That's why we've seen such a flurry of workarounds spring up for users of Windows 8, and it's why we've seen efforts like SolusOS and the MATE desktop emerge on the Linux side.
It's also why I unofficially crowned the old, traditional favorite—GNOME 2—king of the Linux desktop  once again for 2012.
I've already looked in some depth at GNOME 2-minded SolusOS, but on Monday fans of the classic desktop gained a new compelling Linux option: Fuduntu 2013.1, which made its official debut today.
A rolling release distro
Fuduntu was born back in 2010 as a Fedora-based Linux distribution. It was forked about a year later, however, and now aims to offer a desktop experience “somewhere in-between Fedora and Ubuntu,” as I noted in a story last fall.
Even more compelling, Fuduntu uses GNOME 2 to deliver what it calls a “classic desktop experience.”
Fuduntu is a rolling release distribution, and it's also optimized for computing on the go; in fact, users may realize battery life improvements of 30 percent or more over other Linux distributions, its creators say.
Netflix and Steam
2013.1 is the Linux distribution's first quarterly release of this new year, and it includes some particularly notable additions.

 

 

 

 

Fuduntu Linux uses GNOME 2 to offer a classic desktop experience (Click image to enlarge.)

On the entertainment side, both Netflix and Steam are now available, for instance. Fuduntu also now supports Nvidia optimus  technology, and Cairo is included as the new dock for the software.
Sudo is now enabled for all new installs, and Wine has been upgraded to version 1.5.18, complete with Windows codec improvements, fixes for OLE database support, improvements to system parameters management, improved XML support, and more.
Also included in Fuduntu 2013.1 are Linux kernel 3.6.9, Gimp 2.8.2, Thunderbird 17, Firefox 17, Chromium 23.0.1271.97, VLC 2.0.5, and X.org 1.12.
Enduring popularity
Is there any end in sight to GNOME 2's ongoing popularity?
I'm not so sure. Not only has the GNOME project itself given into the need for a “legacy” mode option in the upcoming GNOME 3.8, but Fuduntu lead developer Andrew Wyatt reportedly plans to maintain GNOME 2 for the distro himself, if necessary.
In the meantime, you can download Fuduntu Linux 2013.1 yourself for free in 32- and 64-bit versions from the Fuduntu site.

Source:  http://www.pcworld.com/article/2024002/calling-all-gnome-2-fans-meet-fuduntu-linux-2013-1.html

Beautiful MediterraneanNight GTK 3.6 Theme Pack Updated

MediterraneanNight is a pack of 3 darkish GTK3 themes based on Gnome Cupertino available for both GTK3.4 (Ubuntu 12.04) and GTK3.6 (Ubuntu 12.10 and 13.04) as well as for Xfce.

The beautiful theme pack has been updated yesterday, getting some interesting changes, but only for the GTK3.6 version:

• new switches,
• more rounded buttons,
• improved Rhythmbox sidebar color,
• Nautilus 3.6 changes: pathbar better spacing, improved icons sidebar color, changed the style of tabs (better readability),
• many fixes and details like fixed OSD widget, checkbox and radiobutton symbols in menus, fixed Synaptic GTK3 toolbar and more.

Below you can see a few screenshots featuring the latest MediterraneanNight, MediterraneanDark and MediterraneanLight for GTK 3.6:

As you've can see in the screenshots above, Nautilus 3.6 uses a different toolbar with smaller buttons and rounded pathbar (like Gnome Cupertino), but you can get the old style back using the configuration script I've packed with the theme, which you can use to customize any of the three Mediterranean themes. To do this, simply run:

sudo mediterranean-config

Then select the theme you want to customize, and when you reach the "Select style for Nautilus" step, select "3" which is "Nautilus 3.4 with light sidebar and pathbar" and even though the description says it's for Nautilus 3.4 it should work with Nautilus 3.6. Then, restart Nautilus (sometimes a logout is required to fully apply the changes):

nautilus -q

And you should have the old MediterraneanNight toolbar/pathbar for Nautilus 3.6:

Install MediterraneanNight themes in Ubuntu

The theme pack is available in the WebUpd8 Themes PPA so to add the PPA and install the MediterraneanNight themes in Ubuntu 12.10 or 13.04 (for Ubuntu 12.04, the version is slightly older), use the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/themes
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mediterraneannight-gtk-theme

Once installed, apply the theme using a tools such as GNOME Tweak Tool, Ubuntu Tweak or Unsettings and if you want to tweak the themes, don't forget to use our configuration script, especially since you'll have to select the desktop environment style (with or without a global menu), so once you've installed the themes, run:

sudo mediterranean-config

You can also download it directly from Gnome-Look.org below:

 http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php/MediterraneanNight?content=148398 

For other Linux distributions, get MediterraneanNight from Gnome-Look.

Source: http://www.webupd8.org/2013/01/beautiful-mediterraneannight-gtk-36.html

January Desktop - Ubuntu 12.10

Installed Ubuntu 12.10 on my Dell Core2-Duo 6750 test machine and it is running fine. Installed Gnome Shell classic desktop, Synaptic Package Manager, Chromium, Pidgin, Deluge, Screenlets, Docky, Picasa, Gmusicbrowser, Audacious Player, VLC video player, Advanced Settings Tweak Tool, Restricted Extras, and Wine. It is only using 260 mb of memory. The wallpaper is from OSX Lion and the theme is the wonderful Grey Bird theme available in the Shimmer Themes pack in Synaptic. Most of the tweaks are from my prior December post below. Removed overlay scroll bars. Below are links to where you can dress up the distro to look like mine. Happy Holidays....

Other suggested themes  - Get the Gnome Cupertino theme here:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/themes
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gnome-cupertino-gtk-theme

or here:
http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php/Gnome+Cupertino?content=147061

Below are some of my favorite theme libraries:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/noobslab/themes/ubuntu quantal main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/noobslab/themes/ubuntu quantal main

=======================
The GrayDay theme and can be downloaded here:

http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php/GrayDay?content=149310

The Elements-GS Gnome 3.x theme:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/themes

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install elements-gs-theme

Source: http://www.webupd8.org/2011/10/4-beautiful-gnome-32-compatible-gtk.html

========================

You can add the Elementary and Evolve PPA repositories below:

Then just search for Evolve theme from the Synaptic package manager.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/themes

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install evolve-gtk-theme

==========================

To get the updated Ambiance and Radiance light themes

type the following on a terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:victored/light-themes-evolved

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

You can also go into Synaptic and search for "light themes" to avoid upgrading everything.

=========================

The MAC OSX Lion "Mt.Fuji" wallpaper can be found here:
http://osxdaily.com/2011/02/24/mac-os-x-10-7-lion-fuji-mountain-wallpaper/