Uncomplicating the complicated, making life easier
When it comes to desktop manager for Linux, you are sure pampered with choices. Hate the Gnome desktop? You can change it to KDE, XFCE, WindowMaker, Openbox, LXDE or even Enlightenment. And there is a new kid on the block: Razor-qt.
Razor-qt is a lightweight and fast desktop manager based on Qt technologies. It strips out the bulkiness in Gnome and KDE, yet offers you a way to customize and control your own desktop. Best of all, it works great on old machine too.
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KDE has always given users the ability to add launchers to its panel, and it has always had a very usable task manager. Until recently, however, there has not been a comprehensive and well-designed merging of the two. The Icon Tasks widget has changed all of that. It is a robust plasma widget that includes support for task-oriented launchers and even the Ubuntu Unity API.
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I seldom review music player app because most of them are the same. Some are lightweight, some are heavy with tons of features, but generally, most of their functionalities are the same. However, when I come across Nuvola Player, a music player that supports Google Music, Groovesharks and several other cloud services, it immediately catches my attention.
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One of the reasons that many hated the Unity desktop in Ubuntu is because there is a lack of customization option. People switched from Windows/Mac to Linux is mainly because Linux offers them an environment where they can customize everything to their liking. When Canonical reduced your ability to do what you want with your desktop, many people start to grunt about it and some even switched to Linux Mint.
MyUnity is a tweaking tool for the Unity desktop that allows you to tweak and customize your Unity desktop to your liking. While it doesn’t cover every possible tweaks under the sun, it does make the Unity desktop more customizable and easier to use.
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Few days ago, Laura discussed how you can use the Splashtop app to access your Windows/Mac remotely from an iOS device. The bad thing is, it only works on Windows and Mac (though the app is available for Android too). If you are using Linux, or more specifically, Ubuntu, the remote desktop client is already installed by default and you can easily turn it on to allow remote access from another device. Here’s how it works.
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Being the default file manager in Gnome and Ubuntu, Nautilus has done its job well. You can add bookmarks to your frequently used folders, view folders in tabs, connect to a remote server, right-click to extract zipped files, synchronize with Ubuntu One and many other useful stuff. However, sometimes you may find that it is a a bit lacking in some areas, like the ability to open folder in terminal, run file as administrators, mount ISO file etc. This is where Nautilus Action Extra comes into action.
Nautilus Action Extra is an action script for Nautilus that adds plenty of useful options to the context menu (the window that pop up when you right-click your mouse). Once installed, you will get feature like “Open file in terminal”, “open file as administrator”, “repair filename”, “check sum” and many other advanced options easily accessible from the context menu.
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Previously, we have shown you how to encrypt your files before upload to the Dropbox server. The method described in that article is using the Encfs method, which requires you to dabble with the command line. While you can use the same method to encrypt/decrypt your Ubuntu One folder, there is a simpler way to do.
The Ubuntu One Encrypt/Decrypt script is a simple Nautilus script that allows you to encrypt/decrypt your files and folder from the context menu. It is easy to use and doesn’t require any configuration.
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KDE icons are generally very easy to customize, and there is a complete graphical interface in System Settings for choosing an icon theme or installing a new one. One thing you might notice, however, is that the standard KDE tray icons are all monochrome. When you start using non-KDE apps or lesser-known KDE apps that do not have monochrome icons, it kind of ruins the look. Of course, for those who dislike monochrome icons, the look is also ruined.
Fortunately, some KDE users have taken the initiative to create monochrome icons for those programs that did not already have them and even some alternative tray icon sets for users who want a different look from the standard Air desktop theme set. This brief tutorial will show you how to quickly and easily install tray icons for your KDE Plasma desktop theme.
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If you are using the Gnome desktop and have played with the wallpaper (Appearance) settings, you will discover that there is an inbuilt slideshow feature that you can use to change the wallpaper at regular interval. While this is a useful feature, it is rather limited since it can only rotate among the default wallpapers and not your custom collection of wallpapers. For those who wish to create your own slideshow and don’t want to have a third-party wallpaper changing app running in the background, here’s how you can do it in Ubuntu.
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Setting up your own web server can be a fun thing, simply because you can customize the things you want and optimize it to perform at the highest level. Previously, we have shown you how to install a LAMP server in your Ubuntu machine, but that is using a GUI and it won’t work if you are administering a remote host. Here’s how you can setup a Ubuntu web server on a remote host.
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