The only problem you will find is that some of the many distributions do not ship with KDE installed. If you want KDE on these distributions you must install it. In this article I am going to walk you through the steps for installing the latest KDE on a Ubuntu system. Now you may be saying to yourself: “Why don’t I just install Kubuntu and be done with it? That’s a good question. The answer? Most new users have no idea that Kubuntu even exists and will have already installed the GNOME-based Ubuntu. For those people who already have their Linux running, they might want to give the KDE desktop a try as well. That is where tutorials like this come in handy. And of course, once we get KDE installed, we will also take it one step further and install support for Compiz so you can have your 3D effects just like you can on GNOME.

Installation

Unfortunately you can’t just open up the Ubuntu Software Center, do a search for KDE, and install. You will have to add repositories to you /etc/apt/sources.list file before you can run the installation command. Fortunately, this is as simple as issuing a few commands.

The first two commands you need to issue will add the proper repositories to your sources.list file. With the help of these commands you will not need to open that file up in an editor, as they will simply add the necessary lines for you. So open up a terminal window and issue these two commands (NOTE: Each command is one line long so just copy and paste each command, one at a time, into your terminal. After you copy one command hit enter and then copy paste the next command.):

sudo sh -c "echo 'deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-ppa/backports/ubuntu jaunty main' >> /etc/apt/sources.list"

and:

sudo sh -c "echo 'deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-ppa/staging/ubuntu jaunty main' >> /etc/apt/sources.list"

Now that you have the necessary lines you will need to add the correct GPG key with this command:

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 8AC93F7A

Finally, for the installation, issue the command:

sudo aptitude install kubuntu-desktop

This will require a fairly hefty download, so give this some time. During the installation you will have to do one bit of configuration which is to choose your graphical login manager. I would suggest sticking with the GNOME login manager GDM.

Compiz support

Now it’s time to build in some Compiz support. You will find, after you install KDE that, no matter how you configure it, KDE will not work with Compiz – even if Compiz is working perfectly with GNOME. That is because you have to add KDE Compiz support. To do this issue the command:

sudo apt-get install compiz-kde

Once that installation has completed you will then need to open the Compiz Configuration Settings Manager (use the command ccsm) and then, under the General category, check the KDE Compatibility check box. You should now be good to go with both KDE and Compiz.

Final thoughts

Do not judge KDE 4.x on previous releases. You owe it to yourself and to the developers of KDE to give the 4.3 release a try. Once you do I think you will see it has matured quite a bit over the last year. And now, with the help of this tutorial, you can do just that.

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In the period since my first article about Avant I have become quite fond of this dock. Not only is it a handy means to launch applications (or have various applets reside), it is also quite aesthetically pleasing. And for those of us who demand more from the look and feel of their desktop, this little tool is a real gift. But out of the box it is fairly pedestrian. Of course we do not want pedestrian, we want something that will make others say “I want that desktop!” And with that in mind, let’s get to the goods.

Theming Avant

The first step in customizing Avant is to install and assign a good theme. But where to get those themes. There are a couple of locations for themes:

AWN Wiki

QV AWN Theme pack

Hopefully more theme sites will pop up for AWN. Until then, the above themes should tied you over.

Now how do you install these themes? Simple. What you will most likely download is a tarball file in tgz format. You do not need to unpack that file UNLESS you download the entire theme pack. If you download the pack you will have to unpack the main tarball which will result in a newly created directory, themes. Within that new directory you will see approximately sixteen files all ending in .tgz. These are also tarball files, but you do not want to unpack them. These files will be what you install for a new theme.

Figure 1

In order to install a new theme open up AWN Manager click the icon that is shown second from the left side in Figure 1.  When you click on that icon the AWN Manager will open. To add themes click on the Theme “tab” to see where your themes are located (see Figure 2). Most likely your default installation will only have the Default theme included.

Figure 2

To install a new theme click on the Add button, navigate to where you have your theme files, select your theme, and click Open. This will install your them, but not apply the theme.  In order use your theme select the newly installed theme from the list and click Apply. Your theme will now automatically apply to your desktop.

If you look back up at Figure 1 you will see the Glass 3D theme is, in effect, a 3D-like theme. When you first apply this theme you might very well find the bar to not be 3D, but instead be a flat appearance. To change this you need to go back to the AWN

Figure 3

Manager General “tab” and click the “Bar Appearance” tab. In this tab (see Figure 3) you can change the appearance of the bar from Flat Bar to 3D by selecting 3D from the Look drop down list.

From this same tab you can change a few other appearance configurations that can further customize your AWN dock.

Fonts

Figure 4

Fonts can also make a big difference in the way your AWN looks. Although text usually only appears. Take a look at Figure 4. This image shows the default look of the mouse-over font for AWN icons.

As you can see there is a black rectangle behind the font which, for some (like myself) blows the overall look and feel of the desktop. I want to change this, and to do so I go to the AWN Manager, click on the Task Appearance tab under the General heading. In this tab I can

Figure 5

change the font use as well as make the background color transparent. To get rid of the background color click on the Background color selector and then drag the opacity bar all the way to the left. The final results are shown in Figure 5. The look is much cleaner now.

Final thoughts

Some people do not look at the computer desktop as a functioning work of art. Others, like myself, see the desktop in exactly this way. My desktop is constantly being tweaked and changed. Some of these tweaks are very minor but have a bit impact. With the help of the Avant Window Navigator I can keep tweaking that overall look and feel to perfection.

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In this article I will show you the bits and pieces that make up the GNOME panel. From there you will have a solid understanding of how to work with the GNOME panel.

“Start” Menu

Applications Menu

You will notice, right away, that there is not just one Panel menu but three. This is done to keep the menu from getting out of hand and to keep it well organized.

The menu has been split into three smaller menus:

Applications: This is where you can launch all of the user applications installed on your machine.

Places: This menu contains shortcuts to removeable media as well as networked locations and Nautilus bookmarks. NOTE: Nautilus is the GNOME file manager.

System: This menu contains desktop preference tools as well as administrative tools. From within this menu you can also log out of GNOME, lock the screen, and launch the “About GNOME” window.

Launchers

Add Application Launcher

The Launchers on the panel are small application icons that allow you to launch an application with a single click. You add new launchers by right clicking an empty space on the panel and selecting Add To Panel. A new window will open where you can select to add either an Application Launcher or a Custom Application Launcher. Choose to add an Application Launcher if the application in question is already within the GNOME Applications menu. If the application is not in the Applications menu you will select Custom Application Launcher.

You can move launchers around be right clicking the launcher and selecting Move. Once you have selected Move you just drag the launcher to where you want to move it. If the launcher is locked to the panel you will have to de-select that option from the right-click menu of the launcher.

Winlist

Winlist

The Winlist is a simple Panel element that holds all of the minimized windows you have running. When you minimize a window you can get that window back by simply clicking on the Winlist entry for that window on the panel.

Notification Area

Notification Area

Most people call this the “system tray”. The true name of this feature is the Notification Area. The name is fitting because this area holds small applets that notify you of various actions or offer you information about your system or even the time. The Notification Area also lets you know when updates are available for your system.

Panel Properties

If you want to alter the look of your panel you can do so by right clicking the panel (in an empty spot) and selecting the Properties entry in the menu. Here you can configure the color, size, transparency, the autohide, and the location of your panel.

Final Thoughts

The GNOME Panel is one of the easiest desktop panels to use. You will find it very flexible, stable, and user-friendly.

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The typical action of cutting and pasting does and should (in most cases) work across applications as well as into the command line. The trick is knowing either the key combinations or the correct mouse buttons. So whether your copying and pasting from one document to another, from document to email (or vice versa), or just about any application to any application Linux can copy and paste. Let’s find out just how.

The Mouse

This is the big one that makes your copy/paste life very simple. With the Linux operating system there are three mouse buttons: 1, 2, 3. The left mouse button is button 1, the right mouse button is button 2, and the mouse wheel is button 3. If your mouse doesn’t have a mouse wheel then pressing both 1 and 2 together is the equivalent of button 3. Now that we have that out of the way I am going to show you a nice trick. Go to a document (OpenOffice, Abiword, or even compose an email). Highlight some text by clicking button 1 and dragging the mouse over the text you want to highlight (simple text selection). Once you have selected your text click your cursor in a blank area of the document and click button 3. What you should see is the selected text is pasted where you clicked with button 3. So the action of highlighting text with button 1 is copying and clicking with button 3 is pasting. How simple is that? This action also works from document to command line and vice versa.

The Keyboard

Naturally the standard keyboard key combinations will work for copying and pasting. There are a couple of exceptions. When copying within (or to and from) some terminal windows there are different key combinations to use. For example, in gnome-terminal instead of Ctrl-c and Ctrl-v (for copy and paste) you use Ctrl-shift-c and Ctrl-shift-v for copying and pasting. This can be changed within the profile editor in gnome-terminal (if you want this feature to echo the standard combination.) Be aware, however, that if you copy text by selecting via the left mouse you can not paste by using Ctrl-v. The Ctrl-v combination (or Ctrl-Shift-v combination) only works in conjunction with the Ctrl-c or Ctrl-Shift-c combinations.

The Menu

As you can imagine nearly every Linux GUI application has an Edit menu that includes the Copy/Paste entries. These work exactly as you would expect. These menu entries also work in conjunction with the Ctrl-c/v combinations, but not the button 1 highlight action (button 1 copy action only works with the button 3 paste action).

Final Thoughts

I will warn you that once you get used to the button1/3 copy/paste action you will find yourself attempting it in all other operating systems. This method of copy/paste is the easiest means of copying and pasting content bar none. It is nice, however, that the various Linux distributions include other means for those users who prefer the standard methods.

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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.

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The default behaviors we are going to change are:

• Focus
• Auto-raise
• Title Bar double click

These behaviors are configured in the System Settings window. To get to the System Settings window go to the main menu and select System Settings in the Favorites tab. Once the System Settings window opens click on the Window Behavior and you’ll see a number of tabs.

Window Behavior Settings

The first configuration is the Policy. From the Policy drop-down select “Focus Follows Mouse” (The window directly under the mouse has focus). Now click the Auto Raise option (When a window has focus it raises above all other windows). If you want to configure an delay for the auto raise you can enter a value (in milliseconds) in the Delay text area.

Now click on the Titlebar Actions tab. In this tab you will want to take a look at the Titlebar Double-Click action. One of the best options is the Shade option. When you enable the Shade option your window will roll up into the titlebar on a titlebar double click.

Once you have made the changes click the Apply button and the changes will be in place.

Shaded Windows

Above you can see how a grouping of shaded windows can help to keep your desktop organized. Need to use one of your windows…double click it to unshade it.

There are plenty of options to configure in KDE 4. But for some quick and simple configurations that will make your desktop workspace much easier to use, you can’t be these Window Behavior settings.

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But let’s not jump ahead of ourselves. Before we get to the actual configuration let’s first take a look at Enlightenment (version E16 which is the stable version).

Enlightenment Screenshot

As you can see Enlightenment has a lot of neat tricks up its sleeve. On the above screenshot you can see The Gimp open, a Firefox browser shaded to only show its title bar, the aterm terminal will full transparency running the top application, the iconbox (bottom right) which is where applications are minimized, and the pager (bottom left).

Now let’s install E16. It shouldn’t be necessary to jump through any hoops. On most modern Linux operating systems you can just open up the Add/Remove Software application (on Ubuntu this is Synaptic, on Fedora 10 running GNOME it is gpk-application) and do a search for “enlightenment”. The package manager should pick up all dependencies.

If you’d prefer to use the command line you can run one of these (either as root or using sudo):

• apt-get install enlightenment
• yum install enlightenment
• urpmi enlightenment

If, by chance, your distribution doesn’t find “enlightenment”, you can try “e16″ instead.

That should do it. Now, if you use a graphical login screen you’ll want to choose the E16 entry before you log in. This should be under “Sessions”. If you use text-based log in you will want to create an .xinitrc file with the following contents:

exec e16

If that doesn’t work us:

exec enlightenment

Most likely the former will work.

Configuration

If you do a left mouse click you will see the configuration window.

E16 Configuration Menu

The one thing you can not configure via the configuration menu is the menu itself. To configure the menu you have to actually edit the file ~/.e16/menus/user_apps.menu. It is very easy to edit this menu. Open this menu up in your favorite text editor and you will see entries that resemble:

“aterm” NULL exec “aterm -tr -fg blue -bg green +sb”
“XTerm” NULL exec “xterm”
“rxvt” NULL exec “rxvt”
“Basket” NULL exec “basket”
“Mozilla” NULL exec “mozilla”
“K3B” NULL exec “k3b”
“Firefox” NULL exec “firefox”
“Flock” NULL exec “/home/jlwallen/flock/flock-browser”
“Thunderbird” NULL exec “thunderbird”
“gnucash” NULL exec “gnucash”
“Amarok” NULL exec “amarok”
“Banshee” NULL exec “banshee”
“The GIMP” NULL exec “gimp”

A menu entry is set up like so:

Comment Icon exec “command”

The comment is the text that appears in the menu. Icon is the actual path to an icon image to use (NULL means none), The exec command is necessary to tell the system that what follows is an executable command. The command section is the actual command.

Once you edit that file, save it, and the changes are made in real time.

Final Thoughts

And that’s pretty much it to configuring Enlightenment E16. If you have a Linux box you should certainly give Enlightenment a try. It might wind up being your “go-to” desktop.

UPDATE: Here’s a new screenshot, full size, for your enjoyment.

New Screenshot

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