What is Ecomorph? Ecomorph is an OpenGL compositing manager that was created for the E17 desktop. Prior to this modules’ creation, E17 could not enjoy Compiz-like visual effects. Now, it can. Let’s take a look at how to get Ecomorph goodness with Bodhi Linux.

Installation

If you are using one of the latest releases of Bodhi Linux (0.1.7) you should already have Ecomorph installed. To find out if Ecomorph is one your desktop do the following:

1. Left click on the desktop to open the mouse menu.
2. Click Settings > Modules.
3. Clock on the System tab.
4. Scroll down until you see the Ecomorph listing.
5. If you see it listed, it’s installed. If there is a green dot on the right side of the Ecomorph entry, it is loaded.
6. If you do not see Ecomorph listed, it is not installed. If it is listed, but not loaded, select it and then click the Load button.

If, for whatever reason, Ecomorph is not installed I would highly recommend you not try to manually install it. I attempted this on a 0.1.4 installation and it was a miserable failure. There are dependencies that can not be met without serious work. So, if you are in this boat, backup your data and do a fresh install of the latest Bodhi Linux.

Configuring

Figure 1

Now it’s time for the configuration of Ecomorph. To get to the configuration panel left-click the desktop to open the mouse menu and click Settings > Ecomorph. In this settings window (see Figure 1) you control all aspects of Ecomorph (besides mouse and key bindings).

This panel is broken down into sections. You will certainly want to visit the General section first, as there are some crucial features to enable. Those of you who know Compiz well, you will be familiar with the Cube and the Shift switcher. To enable these items you must first do so in the General section.

Under Viewport Plugins you can enable both the Cube and Cube Rotate. Make sure they are checked and then click Apply. Under Switcher Plugins you can enable the switcher you want to use.

After you enable the plugins you can then scroll down to the individual plugin sections and configure the plugin. Although you will find most of the configuration options in Ecomorph, that you are available in Compiz, there are some that you will find missing. Most notably are the Skydome and Cube Caps for the Cube. But you can configure zoom while rotating as well as transparency.

Final thoughts

I am very happy to see Ecomorph finding its way to other distributions. For those that enjoy what Compiz brings to the desktop, the addition of Ecomorph to E17 could be considered a thing of beauty.

In this article I am going to introduce you to the KDE Desktop Effects manager and how to use it to make your KDE desktop experience as sleek as it can be.

Installation

Fortunately there will be no installation. So long as you are using one of the more recent iterations of KDE (such as 4.4 or 4.5 – though I highly recommend you upgrade to 4.5) you will have this feature available to you.

Launch the settings tool and begin your journey

Figure 1

In order to launch the KDE Desktop Effects tool click Start > Computer > System Settings to open up the System Settings tool. Once you have that open look in the Workspace Appearance and Behavior section and click the Desktop Effects button. With that window open (see Figure 1), you are ready to go.

The first step is to enable the effects. To enable the effects all  you have to do is click the Enable desktop effects check box and then click Apply. This will immediate enable the effects. You are now ready to begin configuring.

General

On the General tab you can configure some important effects. You will want to leave the Common setting check boxes all checked and then you can set your effect for Window and Desktop Switching as well as animation speed. The Desktop Switching is comparable to how you switch in Compiz. If you select Desktop Cube Animation, as you would expect, you have an effect similar to the Compiz Cube.

All Effects

Figure 2

This is where you can really get granular with your effects (see Figure 2) . What you will want to do is scroll around until you see an effect you want to enable. To enable the effect check the check box to the left of the effect name. To configure the effect click on the “wrench” button to the right of the effect name.

Let’s take a look at the Desktop Cube configuration. To configure this click on the “wrench” button associated with Desktop Cube. In this new window (see Figure 3) you can configure the Appearance, Opacity, and Activation (short cut key combination) from the Basic tab and Caps, Additional Options, Zoom, and Sphere Cap Deformation from the Advanced tab.

One issue you might find is that, although you can set an image for the background (think Skydome from Compiz), you can not set an image for the caps. The only option you have is to set a Cap color. I’m not sure if this is just missing from the configuration window or an oversight on the part of the developers.

Final thoughts

For some, the difference between the built-in KDE effects and Compiz are minimal. To others, however, those differences are enough to keep them using Compiz. My experience has shown me that Compiz still seems a bit more stable than the newer KDE desktop effects. But there are some KDE desktop effects that might very well make you switch. I personally have switched my KDE 4.5 desktop over to using the built-in effects. The only drawback, from my perspective, is the inability to use Emerald as the window decorator. So if you are happy with the KDE window decorator then you should certainly make the switch from Compiz to the KDE Desktop Effects.

My final theme will differ only slightly in wallpaper and Emerald theme chosen, but the end result will have the same effect. So, without further adieu, let’s get to the theming.

RGBA support

You can read the full article “Enable RGBA support in Ubuntu 10.04“, but here are the steps for enabling this effect.

Installation:

1. Open up a terminal window.
2. Enter the command sudo add-apt-repository ppa:erik-b-andersen/rgba-gtk
3. Enter the command sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
4. Enter the command sudo apt-get gnome-color-chooser gtk2-module-rgba
5. Enter the command sudo apt-get install murrine-them

Configuration:

1. Click on System > Preferences > GNOME Color Chooserand, in the Engines tab, check the Global check box and select Murrine from the drop down.
2. click on the Preferences button and (in the new window) scroll down until you see Configure of Enable/Disable RGBA support.
3. Make sure both check boxes are checked and click OK.
4. Click Apply back in the main GNOME Color Chooser window to dismiss that window.

Choose a theme:

1. Right click on your desktop and select Change Desktop Background.
2. Click on the Themes tab.
3. Click the Customize button.
4. From the Controls tab scroll down until you find a Murrine them.
5. Select a Murrine them and click Close.
6. Close the Appearance Preferences window.

Emerald

You now have to install and use Emerald. To install emerald follow these steps:

1. Open up a terminal.
2. Issue the command sudo apt-get install emerald
3. Enter your sudo password.
4. When complete close the terminal.

Before you open up the emerald themes manager, let’s locate a good theme to use. The best place to find Emerald themes is the Compiz Community. Look around until you find a theme you like. For it to go with the RGBA look you should make sure it’s a glassy theme. Once you have found a theme you like, download it and save it to your ~/Downloads directory.

Now, follow these steps to add the new Emerald theme:

1. Click <Alt>F2 and enter emerald-theme-manager.
2. When the emerald theme manager opens click the Import button.
3. Navigate to the ~/Downloads directory.
4. Select the theme you downloaded (it will have a .emerald extension).
5. Click Open.
6. Once the theme is imported, select the theme.

If the window decorations do not change immediately that means you need to start Emerald. To do this follow these steps:

Click <Alt>F2 and enter emerald --replace

Now the window decorations should change. If not, go back to the Emerald Theme Manager and select your theme again. Once the decorations have changed you can close the theme manager.

Figure 1

Last bits

You will want to make sure you have enabled Extra in the Visual Effects tab of the Appearance Preferences window to get the full effect of the RGBA/Compiz/Emerald desktop. Figure 1 shows an example of what this can look like.

I understand that there have been issues with the full transparency on my desktop screenshots. This will change for future articles. But in this case, it was necessary. ;-) For those that do want to enjoy a full-on transparent desktop – ENJOY!

With that said, in this entry to the Xfce4 series I am going to show you how to run Compiz (and, if you like, Emerald) along with Xfce 4. With this combination you can enjoy a snappy desktop filled with extra features.

What you need

Obviously you are going to need the hardware that will run Compiz. This isn’t such a big deal these days. You will also need both Compiz and (obviously) Xfce4 installed. If you want to add Emerald into the mixture you can install that as well. All three of these components can be found in your Add/Remove Software tool.

Once you have them all installed do yourself a favor and first log into Xfce4 just to make sure everything is working as you would expect it to. Once you have that up and running you are ready to go.

Compiz

The first thing we are going to do is add Compiz into the mix. This will give you features like the Cube, animation effects, window effects, etc. Once you have Compiz installed you will have everything you need to pull this off. But let’s first make sure everything is in working order before we set this up to autorun at start (which we’ll do in a moment).

Open up a terminal window and issue the command:

compiz –replace ccp &

What should happen now is Compiz will start leaving Xfce4 running as well. More than likely you won’t get your bash prompt back. If you hit <Ctrl>c (within the terminal window you started Compiz with) Compiz will stop and you will have your bash prompt back.

Now, with Compiz working properly, let’s set this up to auto start. Here are the steps:

1. Click Start > Preferences > Xfce 4 Settings Manager
2. Click on the Application Autostart tab.
3. Click the Add button.
4. Enter Compiz for the name, Compiz Startup, for the description, and the same command you entered above, minus the “&” (compiz –replace ccp) in the Command section.
5. Click OK.

Now log out of Xfce4 and log back in. You should notice Compiz starting up fairly quickly (after Xfce4 starts).

Emerald

Let’s add Emerald to the mix. I will warn you though, if you use Emerald you will lose all of the settings available to the Xfce4 window manager. So if you prefer the Xfce4 window manager, don’t use Emerald. If you want to use Emerald first test it to make sure it works by doing the following:

1. Open up a terminal window.
2. Issue the command emerald –replace &.

Emerald should start now. To get your terminal back click <Ctrl>c in the same window you started Emerald with. Once you know Emerald is working properly you can add it to the startup in the same manner as you did Compiz. The only difference will be what you enter in the Add application window. Here you will add:

• Name: Emerald
• Description: Emerald Startup
• Command: emerald –replace

Now log out and log in. Both Compiz and Emerald should start. You now have an Xfce4 desktop with Compiz and Emerald added goodness.

Final thoughts

The Xfce4 desktop environment isn’t looking so shabby now is it? I am really impressed with all of the progress this desktop environment has made since its early days. I hope you are enjoying Xfce4, much in the same way I am. And, of course, there are further adventures to come.

But why would you want RGBA support? It doesn’t really make you a better IT administrator, nor will it make your machine run better. It will, however, make your desktop pretty darn cool. Now, I will say that it has been confirmed that RGBA support will be included in Ubuntu 10.10. But if you can not wait until then, I have the fix for you in this very article.

What is RGBA support?

A picture tells a thousand tales. And as you can see, in Figure 1, RGBA support is quit solid (Pun intended). Of course not all applications support RGBA support. Unfortunately you will be hard pressed to find a browser that supports RGBA. But many applications do support RGBA and many more will come. If you are curious as to what applications will support RGBA, all you need to know is only GTK+ applications are included.

With all of that said, let’s get RGBA support added to your Ubuntu desktop.

Preparations

The first thing you will need is the proprietary graphics drivers for your card. I have tested this on an NVidia-based chipset and it works fine. To get your proprietary drivers click on System > Administration > Hardware Drivers. Go with the recommended driver for your system. You most likely will have to do a reboot after this is finished.

You will also need to enable Compiz and do so with a minimum of Normal effects. I prefer Extra..but this is up to you.

Now that the preparations are done, time to get to work.

Installation

Open up a terminal window and issue the following commands:

• sudo add-apt-repository ppa:erik-b-andersen/rgba-gtk
• sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
• sudo apt-get install gnome-color-chooser gtk2-module-rgba
• sudo apt-get install murrine-themes

You are done with the command line now. It’s time to enable support.

Configuration

Figure 2

Click on System > Preferences > GNOME Color Chooser and, in the Engines tab, check the Global check box and select Murrine from the drop down (see Figure 2). Now click on the Preferences button and (in the new window) scroll down until you see Configure of Enable/Disable RGBA support. In that section make sure both check boxes are checked and click OK. Now click Apply back in the main GNOME Color Chooser window to dismiss that window.

You now have to select a compatible theme. The only themes compatible with this are the Murrine themes. To do this follow these steps:

1. Right click on your desktop and select Change Desktop Background.
2. Click on the Themes tab.
3. Click the Customize button.
4. From the Controls tab scroll down until you find a Murrine them.
5. Select a Murrine them and click Close.
6. Close the Appearance Preferences window.

With all of this done, it’s now time to log out, log back in, and enjoy RGBA support.

Final thoughts

If you are an eye-candy junky like me, you will completely appreciate the RGBA support now available in Ubuntu. It’s not perfect yet, but it’s close.

Foxtab is a Firefox extension that add a 3D tab management within the Firefox browser. It allows you to easily cycle through all of your currently open tabs in various 3D methods.  It’s easy to install and fun to use. In this article I will show you how to install and use this nifty extension.

Features

Foxtabs offers the following features:

• 3D tabs management.
• Quick access to certain sites.
• Reopen recently closed tabs.
• Cycle between tabs.
• Set different layouts and themes.
• Set top sites as default tab view.

So it’s not just beautification, it does offer some enhancements to functionality. Now, let’s see how the magic happens.

Installation

Foxtabs is available for Linux, Windows, and Mac. In order to install you simply have to visit the Foxtabs main page and click on the Install Now button. Foxtab installs like any other Firefox extension. Once installed, you will have to restart Firefox. That’s it for setup. You are now ready for a bit of configuration.

Setup

Figure 1

When you restart Firefox the Add-ons window will open up (along with the Firefox window). In this window you will see the Foxtab extension listed. If you click on that listing you will see the Preferences button appear. Click on that Preferences button to bring up the Foxtab Preferences window (see Figure 1).

In the Preferences window you will find five tabs. These tabs hold some very cool features:

General: This is where you can configure the default new tab page (the Top sites page is cool), where to show Top Sites (either in context menu or button in toolbar), and how to display open tabs.

Interactive Mode: This tab is where you configure how various aspects of Foxtabs are launched (such as theming, top sites, recently closed tabs, etc), the size of Foxtabs top sites when it is in use, and a few miscellaneous options.

Flip Mode: In this tab you configure the key combination to cycle through your tabs as well as the size of the tab cycling, the preferred cycling layout (Carousel and Page Flow are my favorites), and when not to launch Foxtabs.

Display: On this tab you can configure how to display some of the various aspects of the different cycling layouts and the orientation of the cycling layouts.

Advanced: On the final tab you can configure a number of settings such as animation, grouping, and filtering.

Usage

Figure 2

It’s very simple to use Foxtabs. When you have a number of tabs open, to cycle through those open tabs by clicking <Ctrl>Tab. Figure 2 shows what the Page Flow cycling option looks like when cycling through tabs.

Final thoughts

Foxtabs is a pretty cool extension for the Firefox browser. If you are an eye candy junkie, and want to extend a Compiz-like look and feel beyond your desktop, you will want to install and use Foxtabs.

That is what we are going to address in this article: Configuring the Compiz compositor in the Elive Linux distribution.

Installation

If you have installed the Elive distribution, there is nothing more you need to install in order to get Compiz running and configured. In fact, that is part of the point of the distribution itself – to have Compiz integrated with the Enlightenment window manager. So all you need to know is where to configure and what to configure.

The configuration tools

Figure 1

One thing you have to remember is that in Elive, Compiz is referred to as Ecomorph. That is because Compiz had to be seriously tweaked in order to get it to work with Enlightenment. So if you try to look for a Compiz configuration tool your search will be in vein. Instead you want to look for the Ecomorph Configuration tool (see Figure 1). You will find this in Main > Settings > Ecomorph.

If you scroll up and down in the left pane you will find many of the standard Compiz settings available to you. But as you go poking around a little more deeply you might find some features are simply not there. For one thing you will not find key bindings anywhere in this window. So how do you go about configuring a key combination to initiate or manipulate an action? That is in yet another window. But before we locate that configuration, let’s look at one feature you might find useful.

At the top left of the configuration tool is a checkbox and two buttons. The checkbox allows you to enable/disable Ecomorph. The buttons allow you to stop and start Ecomorph. You might want to disable Ecomorph if your hardware isn’t up to the task of using the full effects. You might want to stop and start Ecomorph if you feel something is amiss. This is also the first place to look if Ecomorph (out of nowhere) doesn’t seem to be running.

Now, what about those key combinations?

Key bindings

Figure 2

In order to configure the key bindings for Ecomorph you need to click Main > Settings > Settings Panel. In this window click on the Input tab and then click Key Bindings. From this window (see Figure 2) you can configure any/all key bindings for your system. Now I have to say there is a little work that needs to be done in order for this tool to really be useful. For example, if you click on an action in the right pane you would think the associated key binding would be selected in the left pane. That is not the case. If, however, you select the key binding in the left pane, the associated action does appear in the right pane. This makes it problematic when you want to know what a key combination is for a certain action. Instead of just clicking the action you actually have to go about finding the combination in reverse order – you have to navigate around the key binding listing hoping to find the associated action. This behavior really needs to be addressed in future releases.

The good news is you can always create a key binding for an action. Just follow these steps:

1. Click Add Key.
2. Press the key combination.
3. Click an Action from the right pane.
4. Click Apply.

That’s it. You can, of course, also modify existing keys. If you mess up your key bindings, just his Restore Default Bindings to resolve the issue.

Final thoughts

Some may wish Elive to switch to the standard Compiz configuration tool. But since that will most likely never happen, it is best to familiarize yourself with their version of the tool. Although not as user-friendly, if you’re using Elive as your desktop distribution, you’re not so concerned with user-friendliness that a little challenge won’t scare you off.

And with every Linux desktop, the pager is configured differently in KDE than it in GNOME, or Enlightenment, or Afterstep, etc. In this article I will show you how to configure the pager for both normal use and for use in the KWin window decorator.

Assumptions

Naturally there are assumptions made in any article. For this particular article I will assume you are running KDE version 4.4 and KWin is installed and running. Now let’s start configuring.

Normal use

Figure 1

By normal use I mean you use the pager as any Linux desktop would (sans KWin). You use the pager to switch from one desktop workspace to another and you use those workspaces for either particular jobs or just more screen real-estate. For this, the first place you want go is Start > Computer > System Settings > Desktop. In this window you will want to click on the Multiple Desktops section (see Figure 1).

The first thing you will want to do is configure how many desktops you want. The default is 4 and is usually enough. What I like to do is configure a specific job for each space. This is different than different Activities (we will discuss KDE activities in an up-coming article). Do that by giving each desktop a job-specific name.

Figure 2

Once you have set up the number and name of each desktop, click on the Switching tab. In this section you are going to set up just how you switch from desktop to desktop. Oh sure you can just click on the KDE pager (see Figure 2) but that is not only boring, but it also takes your fingers off the keyboard (not very efficient computing now is it?).

Instead, what you want to do is set up keyboard shortcuts for switching desktops. There are two ways to do this: The KDE way and the KWin way. Let’s look at the KDE way first.

Figure 3

Click on the Switching tab in the Multiple Desktops section (see Figure 3).  From the Desktop Effect Animation you will want to select No Animation. Now take a look at the Shortcuts section. Here is where you configure keyboard shortcuts for moving around your workspaces.

Figure 4

In order to change a keyboard shortcut find the shortcut you want to edit and select it. When you select a shortcut it will change appearance and allow you to either select the default or create a custom shortcut (see Figure 4). When you click the button associated with Custom Shortcut it will wait until you input a key combination. Once you do that you will see the key combination associated with the shortcut. Click Apply to make the change.

Figure 5

To configure the pager for KWin you need to go to the Desktop Effects section and then click on the All Effects tab. Scroll down until you see Desktop Cube. Click on the settings button associated with this to reveal all the settings you need to configure your desktop cube to work in conjunction with your pager (see Figure 5).

You might notice a few of these settings overlap with what many CCSM settings are. The Background would equate to the Skydome image of KWin. Windows hover above cube would be 3D windows.

In the activation section you can configure the keyboard shortcuts to activate the cube. These are done in the same way they were above.

Once you have finished your configurations, click OK and your cube is ready to serve as your pager.

Final thoughts

No matter if you use the pager in the old school Linux way, or in the new school KWin way, you should be using it. It’s a fantastic way to keep your desktop organized. And KDE is no slacker on pager options. NOTE: I’ve updated the article to reflect KWin over Compiz. Although KDE and Compiz do work well together, until Compiz works out some of the issues it is best to stick with the KWin compositor. Hopefully the Compiz team will get the issues worked out so the Compiz decorator will work as efficiently on KDE as it does on GNOME.

With the latest releases (I am actually upgrading to 4.4 as I pen this intro) KDE and Compiz play together quite nicely. And although KDE/Compiz has not quite reached the level of familiarity that GNOME/Compiz has, it’s certainly now a viable option. In this article I am going to show you how to get KDE and Compiz working together so you can enjoy the additional features.

What you will need to install

I am going to assume you already have Compiz and KDE both installed. So what is left? In order to get KDE and Compiz working together this is one more package you have to install. Open up a terminal window and issue the command sudo apt-get install compiz-kde. This package will install the bindings for KDE and Compiz. And if you haven’t already, install CCSM with the command sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager. You now have everything you need to configure KDE and Compiz together.

Enabling Compiz

The first thing to do is to open up the Compiz Config Settings Manger (click <Alt>F2 and enter ccsm in the run dialog) and enable KDE. You will find this in the General section labeled KDE Compatibility. Make sure that check box is checked. You should already be able to see that Compiz is running. You can test this by minimizing a window. If the window minimizes with no effect, Compiz might not be running.

To start Compiz click <Alt>F2 and enter compiz –replace which will start up the compositor. Now minimize that window and see if there are any effects. There should be. Now you can move on to configuration.

Go back to CCSM and enable all of the Compiz settings you want to use.  You might find, however, that some of the settings in CCSM do not work. This is because some of these settings, for KDE, are found in the KDE system settings panel.

“Hidden” settings

Figure 1

Open up the System Settings tool by clicking Start > Computer > System Settings. In this new window click on Desktop. Here (see Figure 1) you will find a few hidden gems that allow you to add Compiz features to the KDE window manager.

Under the Various animations section you will see drop downs for three effects:

Effect for window switching: When you hit the configure key combination for switching windows (default is <Alt>Tab) which animation will be used.

Effect for desktop switching: Here you can enable the “famous” desktop cube.

Animation speed: The speed at which animations happen.

If you REALLY want to get into the heart of the matter, click on the Advanced tab. This is where you can go hog wild with animations.  In each section you will see an enable checkbox, a description, a configure button, and an information button. For all features you want to enable, click the checkbox and then the configure button to configure the feature to your heart’s content.

Final thoughts

KDE is now on par with GNOME in both stability and integration with Compiz. Although the GNOME desktop is, in some ways, easier to integrate with Compiz, it is not the only player in the game. Give the latest iteration of KDE and Compiz a try and see what you think. I believe you will be impressed.

But why would you want multiple desktop wallpaper? It seems like nothing more than aesthetics? To many that is true – but for some power users it can make it quite obvious what desktop is for what job. I am one of those users that prefers to work with multiple desktops. It just makes work so much more efficient. But when you’re using Compiz (and why shouldn’t you be?) Setting up multiple wallpapers isn’t as simple as adding a new wallpaper to your existing configuration.  In this tutorial you will see just how to set up Compiz to work with multiple wallpaper.

Assumptions

The first of these assumptions is that you have Compiz working and the CompizConfig Settings Manager installed.  The second assumption is that you are using the GNOME desktop environment (for this article I am using GNOME 2.28.1. The final assumption is that you have no need for desktop icons. With that out of the way, let’s get to the configurations necessary.

Compiz

The first configuration is in the CCSM tool. You will find this tool in the System > Preferences > CompizConfig Settings Manager. When you fire up that tool enter “wallpaper” in the search field. The Wallpaper settings is listing under Utility. When you see it listed click on it to open up the options.

Figure 1

As you can see (in Figure 1)  there are only two sections to configure. The first is to click the checkbox to enable the Wallpaper for Compiz. The second is to add Wallpaper(s) by clicking the New button, navigating to where you have your images saved, selecting your wallpaper, select your Fill Type (do you want the image centered, scaled, etc), and click Close.

When you have that done you can close out CCSM. If you check you will still see only one wallpaper. What gives? You’re not done. Now it’s time to fire up another tool – gconf-editor.

Gconf-editor

Figure 2

Hit <Alt>F2 and type gconf-editor to open up this tool. You need to navigate to Apps > Nautilus > Preferences (see Figure 2) . Scroll down until you see the show_desktop entry. If that checkbox is checked, uncheck it and close the tool.

Figure 3

Now check your desktop. How many wallpapers do you see? As many as you added in CCSM? That should be the case. Hopefully you can see (in Figure 3) the two different wallpapers I have added to my desktop.  Of course I also have a few other features enabled in Compiz, but you get the idea.

Don’t forget to remember how many workspaces you have enabled. Although you don’t have to add as many wallpapers as you have workspaces, you don’t want to add more wallpapers than you have workspaces.

Final thoughts

I hope you can see how this little addition can make work a little easier. Create a specific wallpaper for administrative work, put it on a specific workspace, and only do your admin work there. It’s subtle, but effective.

Normally on an Elive Compiz upgrade it is highly recommended you start from scratch and NOT upgrade. So I was set on backing up everything and re-installing. So I sat about backing everything up. While my backup was running I navigated to the Elive Compiz page and eventually discovered that the dev team has finally merged Elive and Elive Compiz into one CD! This is definitely good news because the updates will now be parallel. But how does this change the install/update process? Let’s find out.

Once the backups were completed, and safely moved to an external drive, it was time to burn the Elive ISO onto CD and see how well the Live version does. I figured if the live version of the Elive had Ecomorph running as smoothly as the dedicated version, this was a no-brainer. So I popped in the CD and rebooted the machine. What surprised me was once the live CD was booted, and I went to run the installation, I was asked if I wanted to do an upgrade. I figured, since I was going to be doing a fresh installation, I should throw caution to the wind and see how it would go if I went ahead with the upgrade. I did and, surprisingly enough, all went smoothly. There were a few minor glitches – I had to re-install OpenOffice and a few other packages, but outside of that I was shocked that what was an Elive Compiz installation managed to upgrade to a well running Elive distribution. But what about Compiz (aka Ecomorph in Elive land)? Simple. I had to enable it. Let’s see how.

Enabling Ecomorph

Figure 1

The first thing you have to do is to load the Ecomorph module. To do this left mouse click anywhere on the desktop to bring up the main menu. From that menu select Settings and then select Modules. When the new window opens (see Figure 1) scroll down on the left pane until you see the Ecomorph module. Select Ecomorph and then click the Load Module button.

When the module is loaded you can close out the Module Settings window. Now you need to start Ecomorph. To start the Ecomorph module left click the desktop again and select the Settings sub-menu. From the Settings sub-menu select Ecomorph.

From the Ecomorph Settings window (see

Figure 2

Figure 2) all you need to do is click the Start Ecomorph button. Your screen might flash or flicker and then Ecomorph will be running. You now have an Elive distribution running with Ecomorph loaded. Not only are you back where you were with Elive Compiz, but you are now better able to continue upgrading your distribution.

Final thoughts

As far as upgrading distributions is concerned I have always been a proponent of starting from scratch. But this instance of upgrading Elive has really given me pause to think twice about my stance. It is, in fact, possible to do an upgrade and have it come off with few (if any) hiccups. In my many years of using Computers I have to say that this might have been one of the smoothest, easiest upgrades I have ever done.

But always remember, when attempting an upgrade of your operating system ALWAYS back up your data.

Screenlets take up very little in the resources department, are very unobtrusive on the desktop, and are user-customizable. The amount of available screenlets is fairly numerous so you should be able to find plenty to serve you. In this article you will learn how to install the Screenlets application, add screenlets, and customize screenlets.

Features

• Install SuperKaramba themes.
• Install Google Gadgets.
• Load web apps.
• Compositing support.
• Supports compiz widget plugin for a “Dashboad” feel.
• Open source.

Installing

I will be illustrating how to install Screenlets on Ubuntu. For other distributions you can check the Screenlets Install FAQ for more information. The first thing you will need to do is add the PPA repository to your /etc/apt/sources.list file. To do this open up a terminal window and issue the command:

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

Now add the following to the end of this file:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/ketilwaa/ubuntu RELEASE main

Where RELEASE is the release name you are working with (such as jaunty).

Now save that file and issue the following command:

sudo apt-get update

Since you already have the terminal window open you can install the application with the following command:

sudo apt-get install screenlets

This will install everything you need to work with Screenlets.

Adding screenlets to your desktop

Figure 1

Figure 1 shows what screenlets can look like on your desktop. Here you can see:

• Clear RSS
• Weather.com weather applet
• Gmail notification
• Applications menu
• Digital clock

In order to install any of these you first have to open up the Screenlets Manager tool. This tool can be opened two different ways. The first is to use the menu entry which is found in the Preferences sub-menu of the System menu in GNOME. The second method of opening the manager is from the System Tray icon (see Figure 2 – fourth icon from the left). To open it from the icon you must double-click the icon. If you do not see this icon in the System Tray you will need to enable it from the Screenlet Manager by checking the “Show daemon in try” option.

Figure 2

The Screenlet Manager is where you

Figure 3

take care of addling screenlets to your desktop, getting new screenlets, and more (see Figure 3). To add a screenlet to your desktop scroll through the list of available screenlets, select a screenlet and click the Launch/Add button. You can also just double-click the screen let you want to add.

In some cases the screenlet will open almost off the screen. If this happens just click and drag the screenlet where you want it.

Configuring your screenlets

If you right click the screenlet you will see a number of options. Each screenlet will have unique entries in the right-click menu. But most all screenlets will have a Preferences. This Preferences entry is where you can get to the the options for that screenlet. I won’t go into the various options because they will differ from screenlet to screenlet.

I will mention the layring of the screenlets. There are basically three options for layering. These options are found in the Window sub-menu and they are:

Keep above: This will ensure the screenlet is always in front of your windows.

Keep below: This will ensure the screenlet is always behind your windows.

Widget: This is the option you want to choose to make a screenlet part of the “Dashboard” effect.

Dashboard effect

Figure 4

If you’ve used OS X you know if you hit F9 your windows disappear and all of your widgets appear. You can have this same effect with the help of Screenlets and Compiz. To do this set all of your screenlets layering to Widget and then open up the Compiz Settings Manger. Within the CSM you need to enable the Widget Layer feature. Once you have enabled this feature you can hit F9 and all windows will fade and the screenlets will appear. When the widgets are not visible they will be completely invisible. You can also assign only certain screenlets so that only those assigned to the Widget layer will appear when F9 is hit (see Figure 4).

You can adjust the darkness of the background layer within the CSM. In order to get your desktop back just click on the desktop and your widget layer will disappear again.

Final thoughts

Screenlets is an outstanding application that brings new functionality to the Linux desktop. It’s very easy to install and use and the added functionality it brings is well worth the time spent.

To really push the limits of transparency you will need to have Compiz working. For more information on Compiz check out my articles: “Enabling the Cube in Compiz” and “Configuring the appearance of the Compiz Cube“. You might also want to check out my article “Add Emerald for slick window decorations” to get the full effect of transparent titlebars and window decorations. As well you can check out my article “Avant Window Navigator: OS X-like dock on Linux desktop” if you’re wanting to mimic my personal desktop.

The big picture

Figure 1

I thought I would start out by showing you the desktop I am working with so you can decide if this is something you want to achieve. Figure 1 shows the end result of the configurations (Click on the image to see the full-size version).

The tools to will use

In order to get the transparency you see in the image the following configuration tools will be used:

Compiz Settings

Panel properties

The following themes will be used:

GNOME: Dust Sand

Avant Window Navigator: Glass 3D

Emerald: Gabriel

Wallpaper: Awesome Wallpapers Ubuntu Charcoal

I am going to assume you know how to install the various themes and wallpaper used, so I won’t go over those topics.

Configurations

Figure 2

The first thing to take care of happens to be the easiest – the GNOME panel. You will notice I removed the bottom panel on my desktop and replaced it with the Avant Window Navigator. So the only GNOME panel to deal with is the upper panel. To set the transparency on this right click an empty spot in the panel and select “Properties”. When the Properties window opens (see Figure 2) click on the “Background” tab and do the following:

• Check the Solid Color radio button.
• Slide the Style bar to the left until it is as transparent as you like.
• Click Close.

Your panel should now be transparent.

Compiz

Figure 3

Now that your panel is transparent you don’t want to ruin the over all look by having solid menus and/or drop downs. So let’s take care of these pieces.  The first thing to do is open up the Compiz Settings tool. You will find this in the Preferences sub-menu of the System menu.  When the settings window is open you will want to click on the Opacity Brightness and Saturation section (see Figure 3).

What you need to do is add new Window specific settings. When you click the New button a small window will open where you add the type of “window” you want to set transparency for. When the window opens you want to add the following line to get Menus, Drop down windows, and popups set for transparency:

(type=Menu) || (type=PopupMenu) || (type=DropDownMenu)

Once you have that entered, set the transparency level to 67 (to match what you see in this article) or to whatever level you desire.

And that’s it. You should now have full-on transparency on your desktop.

Final thoughts

Of course you can take this farther. You can even set application windows as transparent as you like. The only problem with that is you need to be able to clearly see your work.

One of those ways is using the Compiz “3D” desktop. But using Compiz is not enough for me. I want my windows decorated far more than the average window manager can handle. That’s where Emerald comes in. Emerald is a window decorator that usually ships with Compiz but does not always include everything you need. And in some instances, Compiz doesn’t include Emerald. That’s an easiest enough problem to figure out and solve.

What is Emerald?

As stated earlier, Emerald is a theme-able window decorator. But Emerald takes window decorating one step further by also allowing for full-composite window decorations. By adding composite to the decoration Emerald can include such features as transparency and drop shadow. And Emerald does this without taking any more of a hit on your resources than a normal window manager. That is, assuming you have the hardware that supports compositing. The main issue is that your graphics chip must support 3D/Direct Rendering. If your hardware can support that, your hardware will work with Emerald. You will also need to have Compiz installed (this article will assume you have Compiz up and running).

Getting and installing

The good news is that Emerald will be in your repository. Here are the steps to install Emerald:

• Open up your Add/Remove Software utility.
• Do a search for “emerald” (no quotes)
• Mark Emerald for installation.
• Click Apply to install.

Now, the bad news is that Emerald will only install with one theme. You will have to find new themes on line. There are plenty of places to find Emerald themes. The best location I have found is the Compiz Community. Search through those themes and download the ones you like. Download those files to a single directory (let’s say ~/THEMES) We’ll talk about adding them in a moment.

Running Emerald

In order to start Emerald you have to run it such that it will replace your current window decorator. To do this open up the Run Command dialog (in GNOME you’ll hit <Alt>F2) and enter the command:

emerald –replace

You will immediately see your window decorations change. The default theme is a transparent red-ish theme.

Figure 1

Now you will want to open up the theme manager. You will find the Emerald Theme manager in the Preferences sub-menu of the System menu. When the theme manager opens (see Figure 1) you will see no themes listed. In Figure 1 you can see a theme (Overglass) which has been added. All themes you have added to Emerald will be listed here.

Adding themes

The themes you download will be in .emerald format. All you need to do to add a theme is click on the Import button, navigate to the theme you want to add and click OK. The theme will change to the new theme, you actually have to select that new theme for it to take affect. To switch to the newly added them just select the theme from the listing in the Themes tab of the manager.

Start Emerald at login

One issue you will find is that Emerald doesn’t automatically start at login. Without setting it up to automatically start, you will have to start it via command line every time you log into your account. Fortunately you can set this up easily. To do so you open up the Startup Applications Preferences. Locate this tool in the Preferences sub-menu of the System menu.

Figure 2

When it opens up you will see a simple window with two tabs and a few buttons. Click on the Add button to open up the Add Startup Program window (see Figure 2). You can see, in Figure 2, the details you need to add for this to work. Once you have added the information click the Add button and then click the Close button.

Now the next time you log in to your desktop Emerald will be your window decorator.

Final thoughts

Of all the window decorators out there you will find Emerald to be the best of the best. Not only does it offer numerous attractive themes, it won’t take as much of a hit on your performance as you might think it would. Give Emerald a try and you will see just how far the desktop can go.

In this article I am going to show you how to configure:

• Skydome: The background image shown when your cube zooms out.
• Cube caps: The images on the top and bottom of your cube.
• Deformation and Reflection: Is your cube a sphere or a cylinder? Do you have a reflection of your cube or not?

When you have these options configured, you will have a seriously cool desktop.

Skydome and Cube caps

Figure 1

To begin your configuration you need to open up the CompizConfig Settings Manager. If you are using GNOME you will see this in the Preferences sub menu of the System menu. Once this opens click on the Desktop Cube entry. In this configuration you want to click on the Appearance tab (see Figure 1).

The first thing you need to do is make sure the Enable Desktop Cube is checked. With that out of the way take a look at the Appearance tab. You will see both Cube Caps and Skydome here. Oddly enough, you will only configure the Skydome here.

To configure your Skydome first click the check box to enable the Skydome. Now click on the folder icon to the right of the Skydome text area. This is where you will locate the image for your Skydome. You can use either .jpg or .png files for this.

Once you have this complete click the Back button at the bottom left.

Now if you want to better see your Skydome click on the Rotate Cube configuration and then adjust the Zoom option. The Zoom option zooms out of the Cube so as you rotate the Cube it is smaller. I keep mine at .6525. Click the Back button when you are done.

Figure 2

Now to configure the Cube Caps. To do this click on the “Cube Reflection and Deformation” option. In this section expand the Appearance section of the Cube Caps section (see Figure 2). Here you will do the same thing you did with Skydome. Make sure you configure both the top and bottom Cube Caps.

Within this same section click on the Deformation tab. In this section click the Deformation drop down and select which type of Deformation you want. NOTE: The Sphere deformation does take a bit more resources than the Cylinder. If you have the power go for the Sphere, otherwise either None or the Cynlinder.

You can also enable Reflection which will reflect your cube either on the bottom or the top. To enable this click on the Reflection tab and then check the Enable box. After you have enabled it you can then customize it how ever you like.

Results

Figure 3

Figure 3 shows the results of these configurations. Obviously your results will vary depending upon what and how you configure these options.

Final thoughts

I am a big fan of Compiz. Although it doesn’t directly help you to be a better, more efficient worker, it will allow you to create an impressive working environment on your PC. Show off how powerful the Linux desktop can be by configuring the Compiz Cube.

UPDATE: Below are the images used in this tutorial:

Skydome image

Wallpaper image

And with more modern distributions, like Ubuntu 9.04, Compiz is installed by default. So if your hardware can handle Compiz, you can easily enjoy these amazing effects. One of those effects is the Cube. The cube is a three dimensional way to view your virtual desktops in Linux. By default the Cube might be enabled, but you won’t find it’s full effects withot a bit of tweaking.

Figure 1

If you take a look at Figure 1 you can see just what the Compiz cube is all about. As you can see, in this example, I have an 8 sided “cube” with zoom enabled and 3D windows. I have found if you are trying to win someone over to the Linux desktop – this setup will do the trick.

So how do you go about getting this nifty feature up and running? It’s easier than you’d think.

Enable effects

The first thing you have to do is enable the Custom effects in the Appearances window. To open this go to the GNOME System menu and click on Preferences. From within this submenu click on the Appearances entry which will open a new window. In this new window you will see 5 tabs, of which one is Visual Effects. Click on this tab and then click on the Extra radio button. “Extra” will enable all visual effects. You do not need this for basic Compiz, but you will for the more advanced features (such as the cube).

Configuring compiz

What needs to be opened is the CompizConfig Settings manager. If installed you will find this labeled as CompizConfig Settings Manager in the same place as you found the Appearances configuration window (System | Preferences). If you do not find this, you will need to install it.

In order to install the CompizConfig tool open up a terminal and issue the command:

sudo apt-get install ccsm

This wil install the tool you need. Now you can go back to the System menu and find the CompizConfig Settings Manager in the Preferences submenu.

Figure 2

Figure 2 shows the CompizConfig tool. Scroll down until you can see the Cube entry. Click on that to reveal the Desktop Cube settings. In this section you will see a check box in the left panel allowing you to enable the Desktop Cube. Make sure that box is checked. You can then go through the settings and configure it to your desire.

But you’re not ready to see your cube in action just yet. There are still some other options to take care. Click the Back button at the bottom left corner of the window and then click on the Rotate Cube button. First make sure Enable Rotate Cube is checked. Now that Rotate Cube is enabled you will find, near the bottom of the Rotate Cube section, the Zoom drag bar. Set that at around .75 and then click Back.

General Options

In the main window click on General Options. This next setting really counts toward making your Desktop Cube work. Click on the Desktop Size tab and change the following settings:

• Horizontal Virtual Size: 8
• Vertical Virtual Size: 2
• Number of Desktops: 4

After these are set you should be ready to go.

Testing

Click Ctrl-Alt-right arrow. Did your cube rotate to the right? If so it’s working. Now click Ctrl-Alt-Middle Mouse button. Did your cube zoom out? If so, you’re ready to rock.

Figure 3

If you are using a laptop you will have a bit of trouble zooming out. With the default keybindings you would have to click Ctrl-Alt-Button1-Button2 and then zoom in or out with the trackpad. Not an easy feat. To simplify this go back to the Rotate Cube section in CompizConfig. What you will want to do is edit the Initiate keybinding. I changed mine to Ctrl-Alt-Button1. To change this click on the button that shows the current keybinding for Initiate. When you click that the Keybinding window will appear (see Figure 3).

What you want to do is select the combination of buttons you want and the mouse button you want to add to this. When you have ade your choices click OK to finalize the configuration.

Zooming and rotating your Cube should now be much easier on your laptop.

Final Thoughts

The Compiz Cube effect is too good a feature to not make use of. And once you realize how easy it is to work with, you’ll start making minute changes so it perfectly suits your needs. You can add skycap images, reflections, and much more. You’ll soon wonder how you worked on a desktop before Compiz.

There are many reasons why you should give this distribution a try. One of the reasons is that even when using the Live CD you can get the full benefit of what this distribution is all about. Even using a three year old machine I didn’t feel like I was using a Live CD. It’s that well put together.

How Did They Do It?

It’s been known for a while that Compiz and Enlightenment wouldn’t work together. The developers have been asked over and over to roll Compiz support into Enlightenment. It wasn’t until Elive developer Thanatermesis put in the necessary time to develop a special version of Ecomorph which consists of a special version of Compiz and a special version of E17 that are able to work together. As of now the developers claim this is nothing more than a “hack” and in pre-alpha stages. What I have seen, however, is pretty stable. That doesn’t mean you should be putting this version of Elive on your production machines. This version should be going on a machine that can be wiped clean whenever you choose. But you should definitely put it on something…it’s that cool.

What It Contains

Upon first glance of this distribution you would think you using E17 with maybe a few extra applets on the desktop. That is not the case. The minute you hit Ctrl-Alt with a left mouse click you will see that famous 3D cube brought to the desktop care of Compiz. A little more digging and you will find some rather interesting (and very alpha released) video applications as well as some spiffy configuration tools.

There was one effect with this desktop that really caught me by surprise. When you close a window the window folds into a paper airplane and flys away. Useful? Not really. Impressive? Very.

Graphic Requirements

Obviously this is one of the first questions you will have to ask. On the site they highly recommend an NVidia card. I ran the LiveCD on an NVidia 6800 GT and it was smooth as silk.

Have a Look

There is a great video on Youtube that shows off the Elive Compize release. Take a look here. In this video you will notice Elive Compiz running on an Eee PC. You can use the fantastic UNetBootin tool to install Elive Compiz onto a USB drive and get it working on an Eee PC.

Final Thoughts

If you are looking for a Debian-based distribution that takes the PC desktop to heights you have never experienced, Elive Compize is the Live CD for you. Just remember, while this is in such early stages, to not run this on a production machine.