Open View

A stage for inner voices, opinions, ideas and experiences

Boot screens for Ubuntu

Posted by Harish at Sunday, August 24, 2008
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Every time you boot your machine, the logo of Ubuntu comes up with a loading bar. This is called the boot screen. This can be changed and also recreated (if you are ready to spend some time with it). 
1. To change the boot screen, you need a software called 'StartUp-Manager'. You can get it using Synaptic. 
2. Use GOOGLE and search for usplash themes. I would suggest you to visit http://www.gnome-art.org where you can get some really cool usplash themes. Once you have downloaded some themes. 
3. Extract them to a folder and you can see the files with extension .so
4. Copy all the files to /usr/lib/usplash.
5. Open up System -> Administration -> StartUp-Manager and select the Appearance tab.
6. Here you can choose your favourite splash screen using the drop down menu.

Enjoy!!!

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Installing GOOGLE Apps and SKYPE

Posted by Harish at Saturday, August 23, 2008
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The common myth that GOOGLE Apps and Skype aren't available for Linux is now broken! That's right. You can install GOOGLE Apps and Skype right from your package manager after you add these two repositories. For addding a repository, goto System -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager -> Preferences -> Repositories and follow the instructions in the links given below

For the GOOGLE Apps use this link

http://www.google.com/linuxrepositories/ubuntu704.html

For Skype, use this

http://www.medibuntu.org

Medibuntu means Multimedia, Entertainment and Distractions in Ubuntu. It's repositories has softwares which are not included in Ubuntu repos for many issues like copyright, security etc. Also these aren't supported by Ubuntu community. So any bug found cannot be reported to them. However, I would recommend you to give it a shot :-)

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Desktop Managers. Window Managers. What are these?

Posted by Harish at Friday, August 22, 2008
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Desktop Manager
These are responsible for presenting your Desktop to you. In simple terms, it does the function of explorer.exe in Windows. There are many types of desktop managers. Some popular ones are GNOME, KDE, CDE and XFCE. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Window Manager
The window manager is responsible for the looks of your Desktop. It is like the theme manager in Windows. Every window manager has its own unique feature. Some like compiz and beryl are definite eye candies. They have several inbuilt features like animations etc.

Ubuntu uses GNOME Desktop Manager with Compiz Window Manager. However, these can be changed to our need.

To know more about any desktop manager or window manager do a simple GOOGLE search. I will post a list of the popular desktop and window managers along with the link in my next blogs. Till then, c ya!!!

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Download Manager for Ubuntu!!!

Posted by Harish at Wednesday, August 20, 2008
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I was often wondering whether we have download managers in Ubuntu like those in Windows. A download manger should be capable of resuming broken downloads, have retry facility, and try mirror downloads. Windows has many of these download managers. So I searched for similar ones in Ubuntu and found that a download manager is pre-installed in Ubuntu! It is wget. So I searched for a GUI version of it and got gwget. Now I need to integrate it with my firefox. What best addon I will I use other than FlashGot :-). So now I have installed gwget and flash got an my download managers are working like a charm. Here is how you can configure these in your UBox.

1. Get FlashGot form here
2. Open up terminal and type sudo apt-get install gwget
3. Once everything is installed open Firefox and try downloading something
4. Your download window should provide an option for downloading with gwget using Flashgot
5. In Gwget, many columns wont be displayed first, to activate them goto Preferences -> Columns and add whatever you want
6. Enjoy downloading! :-) 


Harish.R.

http://openview-harish.blogspot.com

Don't design your character as a garden where everyone can walk
Design it as the sky where everyone will aspire to reach

 

An Interesting Thing To Note in Package Installation

Posted by Harish at Monday, August 18, 2008
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Have you ever wondered what happens when you install a software in Ubuntu using Synaptic? You see some extra files also getting downloaded along with the software you want to install. What is the mystery behind these? Even after downloading so many packages why hasn't my harddisk space reduced much? Well, here is the answer to all of these questions!
When ever you install some software like VLC Media Player using Synaptic, here is what happens
1. The object file of VLC Player which is the raw compilation of the source code is downloaded. 
2. In order to get the object code functioning, it needs to be linked with the essential libraries. So they are also downloaded. These are the extra files you see.
3. Now during the installation, the required libraries are searched for in the computer. This is called 'dependency checking'. Once all the essential libraries are found the object file is linked with the essential libraries and the package is installed in your computer.
Now you download some other software which uses the same libraries as VLC Player. Guess what will happen? Only the object file will be downloaded and installed using the libraries available already. So there is literally no file will be present more than once. This increases the storage efficiency and the efficiency of the OS. Ubuntu Rocks!!!

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Installing Fonts in Ubuntu 8.04

Posted by Harish at Saturday, August 16, 2008
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Linux operating systems are popularly known for the poor font collections and also for the lack of facilities for installing fonts directly. You may have a collection of over 2000 fonts but without knowing how to install them is pathetic. Here are a couple of methods for installing fonts.
Method 1: 
1. Log in to your account and press Ctrl+L.
2. Now type gksudo nautilus.
3. Enter the administrator password.
4. In the address bar type fonts:// and press enter
5. Add whatever fonts you have to this and your new fonts are installed!
Method 2:
1. Log in to your account and open the home folder.
2. Now create a folder called 'fonts' (without the quotes).
3. Copy all your font files to this folder.
4. Open up terminal and type mv fonts .fonts and press enter.
5. Restart the applications you are using and viola!!! Your fonts are installed!!!
That's it for now folks!!! Ba bye!!!

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Installing Fonts in Ubuntu 8.04

Posted by Harish at
0 Comments

Linux operating systems are popularly known for the poor font collections and also for the lack of facilities for installing fonts directly. You may have a collection of over 2000 fonts but without knowing how to install them is pathetic. Here are a couple of methods for installing fonts.
Method 1: 
1. Log in to your account and press Ctrl+L.
2. Now type gksudo nautilus.
3. Enter the administrator password.
4. In the address bar type fonts:// and press enter
5. Add whatever fonts you have to this and your new fonts are installed!
Method 2:
1. Log in to your account and open the home folder.
2. Now create a folder called 'fonts' (without the quotes).
3. Copy all your font files to this folder.
4. Open up terminal and type mv fonts .fonts and press enter.
5. Restart the applications you are using and viola!!! Your fonts are installed!!!
That's it for now folks!!! Ba bye!!!

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Happy Independence Day!!!

Posted by Harish at Friday, August 15, 2008
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Happy Independence Day!!! This is what a nation of over 100 million people
shout today. 61 years ago, many brave Indians sacrificed their lives for us
their future generation to breathe in an independent country. Today is the
day we stand proud among all the other nations as the world's largest
independent democratic country, the country whose work force fuels every
country in the world, the country which is developing in every field and
also the country where bomb blasts still prevails, the country where the
power hungry leaders prevail,  the country where untouchability and caste
discrimination still exist, the country where uneducated people form a great
percentage of the population, the country which is struggling to win even a
single gold in the Olympics and the country which is rated in the top ten
for corruption. Today my friends I request you all to promise yourself. To
our country. To contribute to its development by spreading the knowledge we
have to fellow Indians and make them educated, to prevent corruption at any
cost and to make our country a clean and a better place to live. Let us
contribute to our motherland first. We the students, the future of our
nation have the power to change the present course of our country and show
how big a super power can be when we, the 100 million people become one.
Only then we can proudly say "Happy Independence Day!" Jai Hind!!!

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Changing the Logon Screen

Posted by Harish at Wednesday, August 13, 2008
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As I said, I will posting some cool customizations for Ubunutu. So lets start with something very simple and primitive as changing the logon screen. Open up System -> Administration -> Logon Window. It will ask for the admin password. After it loads up you can see some good logon screens which you can choose from. The best part is you can choose multiple boot screens and Ubuntu will choose one randomly everytime from your list. For getting more logons do a simple GOOGLE search or try www.gnome-look.org and download GDM Themes. Put all the logons you downloaded in some folder and do not extract them. Open up Logon Window (System -> Administration -> Logon Window), select the Local tab and press Add. Now select the files you downloaded one by one and enjoy an array of cool logons. :-) Here is a screen shot of how it looks

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My First Day with Ubuntu

Posted by Harish at Saturday, August 9, 2008
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This is my first day with Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron in my laptop. For the entire day, I did not use Vista. Anyways, the day started very early for me at 6 AM!!! I got up from my bed with bubbling with enthusiasm to try out the new OS. So I just roamed around the OS. The first thing I tried was to change the wallpaper. I got only four wallpapers along with the OS out of which 3 are amazing and the other is a plain colour. Then I tried to use wifi. Because of poor connectivity, wifi was very slow. But anyways, I tried to install some packages in the evening using the package manager and things worked out fine. Here some of my points which can be improved in the OS
1. More wallpapers need to be given.
2. Try bundling Combiz and Wine with the usual setup
3. Firefox 3 (Onyl Firefox 3 Beta 5) is available with the installation
4. VLC Media Player and some codecs for mp3 by default.
5. Open Office suite
6. Audio is very low in my Inspiron 1525. This definitely needs to be improved.
I will post more blogs on customizing the OS by installing various cool softwares and making some small tweaks in the following days. Till then, c ya!!!

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Finally I Installed Ubuntu

Posted by Harish at
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Finally I installed Ubuntu 8.04 in my Dell Inspiron 1525 yesterday. Now I can dual boot Vista with Ubuntu. Installation is very easy. Here is how
1. You just need to save some space (4 GB atleast) by shrinking some volume and make sure its a free space partition.
2. Put the Ubuntu CD in and reboot from it.
3. The installation process will start and you can easily navigate through it. When it asks for the partition check whether it shows your HDD with the used space for Windows Vista/Longhorn and some space for Ubuntu. This means all is ok and you can proceed with the installation.
4. The partition manager should start and press manual in it and select the longest continous free space (which obviously will be your new volume)nt.
5. Now press Install and and Ubuntu will get installed in less than 15 mins! This is seriously faster than Vista. :-)
6. Reboot your machine without the CD and it should display the GRUB bootloader and it should show both Windows and Ubuntu. Log in where ever you feel like and enjoy!!!

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Popups Inaugral

Posted by Harish at Saturday, August 2, 2008
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Today Popups (the club for first years under SCANIT) was inaugrated. We had two sessions of orientations. One for the ITC group and the other for other branches. Ashwath, Sandhya and Komal went to every non ITC class in VDV and announced for the inaugral while Harish S and myself were putting up the posters for the event. Today, the turn up for both the sessions were good and specially the response from the other branches was humongus!!! People were sitting everywhere. Right from the stairs in TIFAC to the stage! We had nowhere to walk on stage! Both the Harsha's were entertaining the crowd throughout the session and I also got a chance to do the same for sometime at the end. I felt like addressing a crowd in times of war where people gather in small places which is super overcrowded. Then we distributed the registration forms, made a couple of people sing and also selected the class representatives. After the session was over we had a good interaction with the juniours. To sum up I would say thanks to the efforts of Sandhya, Ashwath and Komal an amazing crowd with full energy and enthu turned up and both the Harshas for keeping them entertained. Lets see how the response is in the next sessions. :-)

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