Ubuntica - The ultimate Ubuntu guides, resources and tutorials » Applications

Easily Customize Your GDM Login Screen

admin — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 12:37:33 +0000

Ubuntu has always been an easily customizable desktop operating system, from complete icon themes to window decorations. Unfortunately with the release of the latest version of Ubuntu Karmix Koala, the GDM (login screen) customization section was removed as the boot up process was changed significantly. Thanks to a new application called gdm2setup, effortless customization ability is now once again possible.

Garth Johnson and Nick Glynn, two kind Ubuntu users have developed this application in the hopes that it will help Ubuntu users overcome the frustration of no longer having the ability to change the look and feel of their login screen.

You can get this utility for your Ubuntu PC from it’s project page here

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Gnomenu – A Shiny Main Menu Alternitive

admin — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 16:59:25 +0000

Gnomenu is a good looking and extensively customizable alternative to the standard Gnome menu available on the Ubuntu Operating system. The default Gnome menu is by all means extremely functional and easy to use, however it does lack a distinct aesthetic signature most commonly found on other operating system main menus.

It in true open source spirit Gnomenu is extremely customizable, and there is an array of community contributed themes available at Gnome-Look.org. The Gnome Menu is essentially a panel applet that easily attaches to your gnome panel. Many tasks can be done via the Gnome menu, such as quickly opening your network connections to powering down your PC.

Furthermore, Gnomenu themes support transparency which greatly adds to the eye candy potential of this powerful main menu applet. The default theme is Lancelot (KDE main menu theme), but switching themes is quite simple as Gnomenu comes with a dozen more pre installed. Unfortunately however Gnomenu does not support drag and drop, therefore adding and removing items is not as intuitive as the default Gnome menu

Installing Gnomenu in Ubuntu is quite simple in fact, as it’s already in the Ubuntu repositories, simply copy the command bellow into your terminal and your done!

sudo apt-get install gnomenu

Once installed simply right click on your Gnome panel and add the Gnomenu aplet.

http://gnome-look.org/index.php?xcontentmode=189

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Moovida, A Media Centre for Ubuntu

admin — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 14:40:21 +0000

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Getting Skype On Your Ubuntu Computer

admin — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:36:40 +0000

Skype is undoubtedly a world leader in internet telephony. Skype offers free Skype to Skype calls and also has the ability to call out to standard phones, around the world. Installing and using Skype on your Ubuntu machine is no longer a hassle as Skype has being putting effort into their Linux version of their Internet softphone.

There are two ways of installing skype on your PC, The graphical user interface method, or a quick terminal method.

Graphical User Interface Method:

1. Head over to Skype.com and download the Skype .deb package for Ubuntu

2. Double click the downloaded package and follow the installation prompts

Via The Terminal

1. Download the Skype package

“wget http://www.skype.com/go/getskype-linux-beta-ubuntu-32″

2. Install the Skype package

“sudo dpkg -i skype-ubuntu-intrepid_2.1.0.81-1_i386.deb”

This will install the downloaded skype package onto your system

The Skype package also resides in the Medibuntu repository, if you would prefer to have the system’s software package manager deal with the skype installation and update it automatically, you may install it via the Synaptic Package Manager, you will, however, need to add the Medibuntu repository to your software sources.

1. Open a terminal and enter the following

“sudo wget –output-document=/etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/$(lsb_release -cs).list && sudo apt-get –quiet update && sudo apt-get –yes –quiet –allow-unauthenticated install medibuntu-keyring && sudo apt-get –quiet update”

This will add the Medibuntu Repository to your system and also it’s required GPG key

2. Install Skype:

“sudo apt-get install skype”

The system will download and install Skype, creating a launcher under Applications > Internet

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Installing The Gnome Device Manager on Ubuntu

admin — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 12:21:24 +0000

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Mozilla Firefox Web Browser

admin — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 09:43:12 +0000

Firefox delivers safe, easy web browsing. A familiar user interface, enhanced security features including protection from online identity theft, and integrated search let you get the most out of the web.

Installations

Already installed by default

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Mozilla Thunderbird, Email and News Client

admin — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 09:41:12 +0000

Thunderbird is a lightweight mail/news/RSS client, based on the Mozilla suite. It supports different mail accounts (POP, IMAP, Gmail), has an integrated learning Spam filter, and offers easy organization of mails with tagging and virtual folders. Also, more features can be added by installing extensions.

Installation

sudo apt-get install thunderbird

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Empathy Multi Protocol Instant Messenger

admin — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 09:40:30 +0000

Instant messaging program supporting text, voice, video, file transfers
and inter-application communication over many different protocols,
including: AIM, MSN, Google Talk (Jabber/XMPP), Facebook, Yahoo!, Salut,
Gadu-Gadu, Groupwise, ICQ and QQ.

Installation

Installed by default

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Evolution Mail, Calender and Address Book Client

admin — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 09:39:28 +0000

Evolution is a groupware suite which integrates mail, calendar,
address book, to-do list and memo tools.extensions.

Installation

Installed by default

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Avant Window Navigator

admin — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 13:09:22 +0000

The avant-window-navigator is a MacOS X like panel for the GNOME Desktop written in C. In addition to launchers that can be dragged onto the bar, it features a taskbar that behaves similarly to the Mac OSX dock. The window navigator uses the composite extension for transparency and other effects.

Installation

Click here for installation guide

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