CrunchBang - Code, Design & GNU/Linux

Epiphany & Firefox on Ubuntu

I've not noticed before, but Epiphany is dependent on Firefox. I know the two browsers both use the same Gecko rendering engine, however I still wasn't expecting to get both when I installed the epiphany-browser package. Is Firefox really needed in its entirety?

While on the subject of Epiphany, contrary to some bug reports, Epiphany's inline spell checking feature was not on by default. To turn it on:

1. Enter "about:config" into the address bar and hit enter

2. Enter "spell" in the filter box and change settings to:

Preference Name                                   Status     Type       Value
---------------------------------------------     --------   -------    -----
extensions.spellcheck.inline.max-misspellings     default    integer    500
layout.spellcheckDefault                          user set   integer    1
spellchecker.dictionary                           user set   string     en_GB

Also, the inline spell checking doesn't seem to offer suggestions for misspelled words. Is there a fix for this?

A Merry Ubuntu Christmas - Final Update

Back in the beginning of November I wrote a post entitled, "A Merry Ubuntu Christmas". The idea of the post was to help spread the word about Ubuntu by asking people to consider giving it on CD as a Christmas gift to family, friends and colleagues.

I asked blog/website owners in the Ubuntu community to help out by placing an image based link on their sites. Many bloggers and webmasters did just that and I'd like to thank them all for their support. Others went a step further and translated the image in various different languages. The image was also adapted to show support for the Kubuntu and Xubuntu flavours of Ubuntu. Again, I'd like to thank everyone who helped out.

Now, at this point I'd like to provide some idea of the impact the Ubuntu Christmas campaign had on Ubuntu downloads. Unfortunately I can't as I have no idea, and I'm not sure anyone at Canonical would know either. All I can provide are some basic figures from the server from which the campaign images were hosted on, here they are…

Total number of requests: 1,163,790
Total bandwidth consumed: 7.64GB

As you can see, the images were requested over a million times. That's quite an impressive figure, even if I do say so myself; I think I'll declare the campaign as a success ;)

Anyhow, I just wanted to provide this final update before I knock off to spend time with the people closest to me. Merry Christmas everyone, have a good one!

Darkilouche, An Alternative to Gilouche

One thing I forgot to mention yesterday, the Darkilouche theme is a dark variation of the openSUSE theme, Gilouche by Jakub Steiner and Garrett LeSage. You can see some nice screenshots of Gilouche in action over on Joe's blog.

Thanks for sharing Joe :)

Openbox, OpenOffice.org & GTK

While I'm on the topic of Openbox and themes, one thing that's been bugging me is OpenOffice.org and its refusal to natively dress in a GTK theme. I know it's a trivial issue, but when you've put some effort into creating a nice theme you at least want your applications to use it.

Anyhow, after a little Googling I found a fix:

1. Install openoffice-gtk package from Ubuntu repositories with this terminal command:

sudo apt-get install openoffice.org-gtk

2. Open your personal Openbox startup file for editing:

gedit ~/.config/openbox/autostart.sh

or system-wide startup file:

gksudo gedit /etc/xdg/openbox/autostart.sh

3. Add the following lines, save and exit:

#Force OpenOffice.org to use GTK theme
export OOO_FORCE_DESKTOP=gnome

4. Restart Openbox.

A couple of screenshots, in case you have no idea what I'm rambling on about :)

Before applying GTK theme:

After applying GTK theme:

Update @ 14:15 23/12/2007

When using Tango icons, don't forget to install the corresponding package for OpenOffice.org:

sudo apt-get install openoffice.org-style-tango

See updated screenshot below, this time with icons :)

Darkilouche Openbox Theme

Further to my previous post about changing the Ubuntu default theme, I've now created an Openbox theme that works well, aesthetically, with the Darkilouche GTK theme. The theme is quite basic and simply sets the styling of the window borders and main Openbox menu. See the screenshot below:

Darkilouche Openbox Theme

Copy the contents of the code box below into a new file and save to, ~/.themes/Darkilouche/openbox-3/themerc Alternatively, download and extract this tarball to your ~/.themes directory. Note, the tarball contains both GTK and Openbox themes. Use ObConf to activate the theme when ready.

# Name: Darkilouche
# Author: Philip Newborough 
# URL: http://crunchbang.org/archives/2007/12/23/darkilouche-openbox-theme/
# Description: Openbox theme designed to work with Darkilouche GTK theme.

### Menu settings
menu.title.bg: flat
menu.title.bg.color: #424542
menu.title.text.color: #FFFFFF
menu.title.text.justify: right

menu.items.bg: flat solid
menu.items.bg.color: #524D52
menu.items.bg.border.color: #424542
menu.items.text.color: #FFFFFF
menu.items.justify: left

menu.items.disabled.text.color: #CCCCCC
menu.bullet.image.color: #FFFFFF
menu.bullet.selected.image.color: #FFFFFF

menu.items.active.bg: flat gradient vertical
menu.items.active.bg.color: #FE840C
menu.items.active.bg.colorTo: #BA6410
menu.items.active.bg.border.color: #424542
menu.items.active.text.color: #FFFFFF

### Window settings
window.active.title.bg: Raised Gradient Vertical
window.active.title.bg.color: #565656
window.active.title.bg.colorTo: #454545

window.active.label.bg: Parentrelative
window.active.label.text.color: #ffffff

window.active.handle.bg: Raised Gradient Vertical
window.active.handle.bg.color: #565656
window.active.handle.bg.colorTo: #454545

window.active.grip.bg: Raised Gradient Vertical
window.active.grip.bg.color: #565656
window.active.grip.bg.colorTo: #454545

window.active.button.unpressed.bg: Flat Gradient Vertical Border
window.active.button.unpressed.bg.color: #565656
window.active.button.unpressed.bg.colorTo: #454545
window.active.button.unpressed.bg.border.color: #ffffff
window.active.button.unpressed.image.color: #ffffff

window.active.button.pressed.bg: Flat Gradient Vertical Border
window.active.button.pressed.bg.color: #565656
window.active.button.pressed.bg.colorTo: #454545
window.active.button.pressed.bg.border.color: #ffffff
window.active.button.pressed.image.color: #ffffff

window.active.button.disabled.bg: Flat Gradient Vertical Border
window.active.button.disabled.bg.color: #565656
window.active.button.disabled.bg.colorTo: #424242
window.active.button.disabled.bg.border.color: #777777
window.active.button.disabled.image.color: #777777

window.active.button.toggled.bg: Flat Gradient Vertical Border
window.active.button.toggled.bg.color: #565656
window.active.button.toggled.bg.colorTo: #424242
window.active.button.toggled.bg.border.color: #ffffff
window.active.button.toggled.image.color: #ffffff


# Window settings (unfocused)
window.inactive.title.bg: Raised Gradient Vertical
window.inactive.title.bg.color: #565656
window.inactive.title.bg.colorTo: #454545

window.inactive.label.bg: Parentrelative
window.inactive.label.text.color: #777777

window.inactive.handle.bg: Raised Gradient Vertical
window.inactive.handle.bg.color: #565656
window.inactive.handle.bg.colorTo: #454545

window.inactive.grip.bg: Raised Gradient Vertical
window.inactive.grip.bg.color: #565656
window.inactive.grip.bg.colorTo: #454545

window.inactive.button.unpressed.bg: Flat Gradient Vertical Border
window.inactive.button.unpressed.bg.color: #565656
window.inactive.button.unpressed.bg.colorTo: #454545
window.inactive.button.unpressed.bg.border.color: #777777
window.inactive.button.unpressed.image.color: #777777

window.inactive.button.pressed.bg: Flat Gradient Vertical Border
window.inactive.button.pressed.bg.color: #565656
window.inactive.button.pressed.bg.colorTo: #454545
window.inactive.button.pressed.bg.border.color: #777777
window.inactive.button.pressed.image.color: #777777

window.inactive.button.disabled.bg: Flat Gradient Vertical Border
window.inactive.button.disabled.bg.color: #565656
window.inactive.button.disabled.bg.colorTo: #454545
window.inactive.button.disabled.bg.border.color: #777777
window.inactive.button.disabled.image.color: #777777

window.inactive.button.toggled.bg: Flat Gradient Vertical Border
window.inactive.button.toggled.bg.color: #565656
window.inactive.button.toggled.bg.colorTo: #454545
window.inactive.button.toggled.bg.border.color: #777777
window.inactive.button.toggled.image.color: #777777

### Misc
border.color: #424542
borderWidth: 2
padding.width: 3
window.handle.width: 2
window.client.padding.width: 0
window.label.text.justify: left

### Fonts
window.active.label.text.font:shadow=y:shadowtint=70:shadowoffset=1
window.inactive.label.text.font:shadow=y:shadowtint=20:shadowoffset=1
menu.items.font:
menu.title.text.font:shadow=y:shadowtint=70

Darkilouche GTK theme

When running a pure Openbox installation the Darkilouche GTK theme can be activated using the gtk-theme-switch utility. The package is available from the Ubuntu repositories:

sudo apt-get install gtk-theme-switch

Once installed, enter the following terminal command to run the theme switching GUI:

switch2

Ubuntu Sans Brownness

As an operating system, Ubuntu satisfies my needs quite nicely. I've been using it as my main OS for a while now and I've really grown to appreciate its strong points, namely its excellent package management and community of users. Having said that, there is one trivial aspect of Ubuntu that hasn't grown on me, that being its default theme, artwork and general brownness.

So, last week I looked into the artwork/default themes offered by some alternative Linux distributions. Using these systems, openSUSE especially, made for a refreshing change from the depressing brownness of Ubuntu. So with this in mind I decided it was about time that I changed the default Ubuntu theme installed on my systems.

As it turned out, this wasn't as easy a task I thought it'd be. I actually found it quite difficult and it's taken me a couple of days worth of tinkering to come up with a new theme that I'm happy with. See below for screenshots of my desktop as it is now, details of the theme follow:

Theme Details

Applications: Darkilouche by sgarrity, available from GNOME Art
Window Borders: Black by twigsby, available from GNOME Art
Icons: Tango, available from Ubuntu repositories
Wallpaper: Green Meadow 2 [treated with GIMP lomo filter] by tschel, available from GNOME Art

As well as installing the above artwork, I've also combined the two default GNOME panels into one, freeing up some screen real estate and making my work environment feel less boxed-in. All-in-all I'm fairly pleased with the end result, at the very least it makes for a refreshing change from the previous Ubuntu brownness.

Configure Wireless on the Command Line

Today I have mainly been attempting to create a very light installation of Ubuntu on an old Pentium III. I started by installing a base system with the Ubuntu alternative install disk. After the base system was installed I then tried to configure my wireless card from the command line. I was half expecting this to be a difficult task, however it wasn't actually too difficult and thanks to some rather nifty instructions I managed to get my wireless card working in no time. For future reference here are the necessary commands:

1. Turn the interface on with the following command:

sudo ifconfig wlan0 up

2. Scan for a list of all the available access points:

iwlist wlan0 scanning

3. Select the access point with the following command:

sudo iwconfig wlan0 essid ACCESSPOINT

4. Set WEP or WPA passphrase, if needed:

sudo iwconfig wlan0 key PASSPHRASE

5. Finally, connect to DHCP server and obtain an IP address:

sudo dhclient

I'll post more details about the actual system install when I get more time, for now I just wanted to get these instructions down in case I end up having to start again from scratch.

PuTTY SSH Client for Nokia N95

Tonight I have mainly been playing with PuTTY for Symbian OS, an SSH client for my new Nokia N95. After figuring out the correct version to download, there are several versions available for the different editions of Symbian, the installation was super easy and simply consisted of clicking a few confirmation buttons. By the way, the correct version for the Nokia N95 is the S60 third edition.

Regarding usage, I found using PuTTY on my mobile phone to be a somewhat fiddly experience, mainly due to the fact that I have pig tits for fingers. Having said that, I can't really fault the software. Anyone with any experience of using an SSH client shouldn't experience any difficulties and should be able to get a connection up within a minute or two; I connected to one of my Ubuntu systems at home, impressive stuff, even if I do say so myself! For me, the ability to run an SSH client gives a whole new meaning to the term "smartphone". Is there anything this phone can't do?

CommandShift3 - It's Like Hot or Not for Websites

On CommandShift3, you are presented with the screenshots of two websites side by side. If you click the screenshot of the site you think looks best, the page reloads and you start all over again. It never ends.

I'm really liking CommandShift3, which is unusual as I'm not normally a fan of such sites. I guess the subject matter, web design, has helped to endear it to me. The site is fast becoming one of my favourite places to go whenever I'm bored. The site has also made me realise that I can be as judgemental as the next person.

Anyhow, I couldn't resist submitting CrunchBang into the pool, you can see how it's performing here:
http://commandshift3.com/site/crunchbang.org

At the time of writing, CrunchBang had won 113 of 218 battles (52%), not too shabby, all things considered. Seriously though, it's just some harmless fun and I really wouldn't worry about my site's performance, not unless it started to appear here :D

My New Nokia N95 Smartphone

Yesterday afternoon, while out doing a spot of Christmas shopping, I accidentally, it wasn't planned, walked into my local Three dealership and purchased a Nokia N95 smartphone. I'd been thinking about getting a new phone for some time, my old Nokia 8310 is about as useful as a chocolate teapot, so in a way it was a happy accident.

Anyway, I'm really quite impressed with the phone and its software. The web browser is especially intuitive and easy to use; my new contract includes unlimited web access and I've been testing it out to the full. I'm a total noob when it comes to smartphones and so you'll have to excuse my excitement, but how cool is it to be able to login to Gmail or any other web based service from just about anywhere!? I'd tell you how cool, only the words escape me.

Having said that, owning an N95 isn't all good and I've already noticed a couple of drawbacks; firstly, browsing the web on my N95 has really opened my eyes, so to speak, to how poorly supported small-screen mobile web devices are. I've now got a lot of work to do to make sure my sites support such devices. Secondly, as a result of the feverish button clicking, the end of my left thumb is somewhat suffering in pain. I'm beginning to think the N95 should come with a health warning :)

Nokia N95 Features

Virtual Spanners

Sometimes, thankfully not often, things just don't work out. Take tonight for example, having worked out all the details in my head, I decided that I'd have a go at creating an Ubuntu respin. I planned on using VirtualBox to set-up a new installation of Ubuntu and customise it for a new laptop, arriving soon via Santa.

It all started well, I set-up a new virtual machine and booted the Ubuntu LiveCD, no problem there. However, when I tried to install Ubuntu I came across my first problem; with a screen resolution of just 800x600 it's impossible to see any of the confirmation buttons at the bottom of the Ubiquity installer. I managed to fix this without too much effort, even so, it did make me wonder about how a less competent user would deal with the same issue. Having said that, according to my statistics only 0.74% of users run an 800x600 screen resolution, so maybe it's not such a big issue after all.

The next spanner that I encountered, the show stopper, was during the actual installation when my wireless connection continually dropped. Not only would it drop, which is very rare on this machine, but network manager would prompt me for a WEP key. I didn't want to risk losing my connection completely and so I aborted the installation.

As a workaround I think I'll create some physical partitions and work from a "proper" non-virtual installation. It would have been more convenient to able to create the respin on a virtual machine, but I think it'll be quicker and less painful not to.

Damn those virtual spanners!

Finding Colour Palettes with Color Hunter

Color Hunter is a place to find and make color palettes created from images.

I'm really liking Color Hunter and think it's one of the most useful applications of the Flickr API I've seen to date. You can use the service to search for new colour palettes either by tag, hex color code or image URL; once you've created a free account you can save a list of your favourite colour palettes for future reference. See some palettes I've saved.

Another great feature of the Color Hunter service is a toggle for displaying palettes in either vibrant or dull mode, this feature instantly doubles the number of palettes available and provides alternative palettes you may not have previously considered. Good stuff.

Fluxbuntu 7.10 RC, A Quick Look

Last night I took a quick look at the Fluxbuntu 7.10 release candidate. As the name suggests, Fluxbuntu is an Ubuntu derivative offering the lightweight Fluxbox window manager.

From what I could gather from the Fluxbuntu website, the distribution is still in early development and there are a few issues you should be aware of before installing. The website and wiki are also a clear indicators of the status of the project; there is very little documentation available and the information that is available seems somewhat unreliable; for example, the information on the "get Fluxbuntu" page led me to believe that I would be downloading a LiveCD version, however the actual disk image is based on the Ubuntu alternative install disk!?

Website aside, running Fluxbuntu was actually quite an enjoyable experience and made for a refreshing change from my usual GNOME desktop. From the outset it is obvious that a lot of effort has gone into making Fluxbuntu visually attractive; the boot screen, desktop and desktop menus are all well designed and feature a predominately white and green coloured theme — not what I'd expect [happily] from a Fluxbox desktop.

Functionality wise, I didn't really run Fluxbuntu long enough to give a fair assessment. However, the installation proved to be straightforward and I did give some of the default applications a whirl. I used the system long enough to appreciate that it runs really quickly, even under virtualisation, and I would certainly consider using Fluxbuntu on older hardware. Having said that, it's not too difficult to install the Fluxbox window manager from a standard Ubuntu installation, which maybe a better solution for more experienced users.

All-in-all, I would say that Fluxbuntu is still a little rough around the edges, but it's certainly worth a look. Much like gOS, Fluxbuntu has lots of potential and I'll be keeping an eye on its progress.

Web Templates & Selling Houses

I'm currently designing a range of templates/themes for use with Whird. As a result of this I've found myself thinking an awful lot about colour schemes and combinations. I've also been researching colour theory and application. To be honest, I'm about all coloured out.

The conclusion I've come to, with regards to choosing colour schemes for my Whird templates, is that I'm going to use neutral/passive colours. My main reason for this doesn't actually stem from the research I've been doing, it comes from my experience of selling houses. What I learned from my time in the housing market was this:

When selling your house, stage [decorate] with neutral colours. Neutral colours appeal to the broader market and will help to sell your house quickly.

I'm going to apply this working colour theory to my web templates; after all, if it's good enough for the multimillion £ housing market, it's good enough for my free web templates :)

No Internet Explorer, No Problem

I read a blog post today and it reminded me of a solution to a problem encountered when running a Linux only web design operation. Browsershots:

Browsershots makes screenshots of your web design in different browsers. It is a free open-source online service created by Johann C. Rocholl. When you submit your web address, it will be added to the job queue. A number of distributed computers will open your website in their browser. Then they will make screenshots and upload them to the central server here.

Running a Linux only operation myself I can really appreciate how fantastic a tool/service Browsershots is. I no longer have to maintain an installation of Microsoft Windows and make it available via a dual boot set-up. When I did maintain a dual boot system I only ever entered Windows to check a new web template in Internet Explorer. Maintaining a complete operating system just for this reason is not worth the time or the effort.

Thank you Browsershots, you've helped liberate my systems!

Gmail as Default Email Client in Ubuntu

January 7th '08 - Problems/Issues
There are some issues with this script that could potentially lead to a temporary loss of access to your Gmail account. Please see the user comments for more details.

The How-To Geek has posted some really useful instructions for setting Gmail as the default email client in Ubuntu. How-To Geek starts his post by saying:

Every Geek uses Gmail… it's pretty much required. And now you can set Gmail as the default client in Ubuntu without any extra software.

I think his opening statement is a slight generalisation :) Having said that, I am indeed a geek and I do use Gmail so he may have a point! Anyhow, I followed the instructions and the hack works well. I did deviated slightly and placed the shell script in my bin directory; this way the script can be called by name as it sits within my system path. For future reference the script I used has the following content:

#!/bin/sh

firefox -remote "openurl(https://mail.google.com/mail?view=cm&tf=0&to=`
echo $1 | sed 's/mailto://'`,new-tab)"

Note: The Firefox command actually sits on one line.

Once I'd placed the script in my bin directory, I then simply needed to change my preferred mail application:
System -> Preferences -> Preferred Applications

When email is slower than snail mail

Talking of Gmail and email, I've been experiencing some technical issues with email across several domains. Apparently these issues stem from Gmail greylisting one of my hosting providers mail clusters. You can't imagine, unless you've experienced it, how frustrating it is to receive email more than 48 hours after it was originally sent.

I apologise if anyone is waiting on a reply from any messages sent between 30/11/07 and 03/12/07. Your message will probably never arrive at its intended destination; I can only imagine that your message is floating aimlessly around cyberspace, either that or it's been sucked into a black hole :(

Looking on the bright side, I also use another more reliable [read more expensive] hosting provider and I've moved my email operations to their servers. I've also been looking into using Google Apps for all my email needs; however, I'm slightly apprehensive about paying out on a service that has been in Beta status for more than 3 years. Does anyone have any experience of using this service? If so I'd really appreciate some sensible feedback about it.

gOS 1.0.1 - A Quick Review

Ubuntu is great, but every now and again I like to take a look at a different Linux distribution. The other day I finally got around to downloading and having a quick play with gOS, the much talked about operating system installed on the budget Everex PCs sold by Wal-Mart. gOS is an Ubuntu/Debian derivative.

First impressions of gOS

Bootup speed of the LiveCD was as fast as Ubuntu, which was to be expected. The first thing I noticed, once the desktop had loaded, was my screen resolution wasn't correctly recognised as 1280 x 1024; font rendering was all over the place and the system was quite unusable. I immediately attempted to correct this by using gOS's "My Settings" option; it didn't work and I ended up using displayconfig-gtk to fix the problem.

I was looking forward to enjoying the new visuals gOS had to offer; however, the issue with the screen resolution ruined this and left an immediate bad first impression.

About the visuals

gOS is green, very green. I found the default green theme pleasing in appearance. The BIG buttons at the bottom of the screen are attractive and super easy to use; I can see why people think they would be good for novice users.

Regarding the user interface, why put the Window controls, close, minimise & maximise, on the left? This goes against standard practice and it began to frustrate me after only a few minutes; it's almost as if the theme designer put the controls on the left just to be different.

Also, the big Google search bar, located in the top-right corner of the screen, obscured drive icons which appeared after auto-mounting; it was also quite ugly in appearance and it didn't fit very well with the overall look and feel of the theme which was otherwise quite polished.

Speedy but buggy

I was impressed by the overall speed of gOS; running from the LiveCD it was very fast and I didn't have to wait too long for applications to load. Having said that, speed is about the only thing the Enlightenment window manager had going for it.

I only used gOS for a few hours, yet Enlightenment crashed several times. It also lacked some features and functionality that a modern desktop environment should provide. For example, I tried dragging and dropping a file onto a drive icon, nothing happened, except that the file icon now covered and obscured the drive icon!

Talking of drives, my internal ext3 drive was recognised, but it was not accessible; double-clicking on the drive icon did nothing, no file manager, no errors, nothing. On the other hand, my external USB drive was accessible, although accessing it caused Enlightenment to crash on several occasions.

What no text editor?

Next, I thought it would be a good idea to take some notes while I was actually using the system. I prefer to work in plain text, so I went looking for a text editor; I didn't find one. Thinking this had to be a mistake on my part, I tried to open a txt file located on my USB flash drive; the file didn't open, instead I was presented with a, "Choose application to open this file" dialog. I appreciate gOS is geared up towards using Google's online applications, however I would still expect a simple GUI text editor to be installed by default. I ended up using Vim via the installed UXterm, go figure.

Other niggles

• .ogg media files didn't play by default
• Rhythmbox failed to run at all
• Mouse wheel didn't scroll on standard Microsoft USB optical mouse
• Desktop clock was without digits
• <Print Screen> key did nothing, no screengrab utility installed.

Potential is what it's got

Despite the problems, I still think gOS has great potential; I just wouldn't recommend using it in its current state. It's good to see Ubuntu reworked and some effort put into changing the user interface; however, I'm not sure that Enlightenment is the window manager to use, it was the main cause of most of the problems I encountered.

If you're looking for a lightweight Linux distribution, I would recommend Puppy Linux or Xubuntu.

24 Ways to Impress

You know it's getting close to Christmas when the 24 Ways RSS feed comes to life:

Drew McLellan kicks off our 2007 festive season by revisiting the thorny issue of support for alpha channel PNGs in Internet Explorer 6. Why not be charitable and lend a helping hand to those poor IE6 users? They could use some Christmas cheer.

Impress your friends with your heavenly halo-free graphics

I hope this year will be as good as the 2005 and 2006 seasons!