Showing posts with label conky. Show all posts
Showing posts with label conky. Show all posts

09 January 2012

42. Installing gnome-shell extensions and icon theme on debian


FOR GNOME/GNOME-SHELL 3.4 see this as well: http://verahill.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/gnome-34-frippery-extensions-in-debian.html

Here are a few quick fixes to make Gnome 3/gnome-shell work and look a bit better:

An example of my desktop as it looks today (April 201) is shown below:
My desktop, in response to a comment below..

And here a rough indication of what is done with the gnome-shell extensions below:
From top left, clockwise: applications menu, panel favourites (with faenza icons), move-clock, bottom panel and static workspaces. The information on the right hand side is done via conky.


Index:
1. gnome-shell extensions
2. Getting maximize, minimize and close back
3. prettier icon theme --faenza
4. Using conky instead of gnome applets to monitor computer


1. gnome-shell extensions
NOTE: download the .tgz file to your home folder e.g. /home/me/ or the files won't go to the right place on tar -xvf

The Gnome-shell Frippery extensions ("for grumpy old sticks in the mud") are what you're looking for: http://intgat.tigress.co.uk/rmy/extensions/index.html

a) For gnome/gnome-shell 3.0:
In /home/me/
wget http://intgat.tigress.co.uk/rmy/extensions/gnome-shell-frippery-0.2.8.tgz
tar -xvf gnome-shell-frippery-0.2.8.tgz

That's it! The extensions will only be installed for the user doing the untar-ing.

b) For gnome-shell 3.2:
UPDATE: 1/2/2012 -- Wheezy upgraded to gnome-shell 3.2.2.1 on 31/1/2012. Here's how to get a useful desktop environment again:

Either:
Use iceweasel/firefox, and visit the following pages:
https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/13/applications-menu/
https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/3/bottom-panel/
https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/12/static-workspaces/
https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/2/move-clock/
https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/4/panel-favorites/
https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/14/shut-down-menu/

All of the frippery extensions are listed here:
https://extensions.gnome.org/accounts/profile/rmyorston

Install the extensions by settting on the slider icon to ON.


OR:
In /home/me/ (replacing 'me' with your username)

wget http://intgat.tigress.co.uk/rmy/extensions/gnome-shell-frippery-0.3.6.tgz
tar -xvf gnome-shell-frippery-0.3.6.tgz

IF the shell extensions don't show up -- make sure that they are in /home/me/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/ -- if not you may want to extract and put the files there manually.

Either way, once you installed using firefox or in the terminal:
Log in and out of gnome-shell -- alt+f2 + r only enabled the applications-menu, bottom-panel and static workspaces, but the other extensions wouldn't work. This is based on a case of installing the extensions immediately after dist-upgrading to install gnome-shell v 3.2.2.1

You can now open gnome-tweak-tool (install it as shown below under "2. Getting max/min/close back") -- in the gnome-shell activities/launchers window or whatever they call it it shows up as Advanced Settings or start it using alt+f2 or terminal (gnome-tweak-tool). Click on Shell Extensions, and enable everything.

OR open firefox/iceweasel and go to https://extensions.gnome.org/local/ to enable/disable extensions.


Note:
The extensions.gnome.org versions of Frippery's Shutdown menu, move clock and panel favourites wouldn't work with 3.2 on a first try, nor would the extensions downloaded by wget and untared -- logging in and out of gnome-shell solved that.

Trying to find something on the extensions.gnome.org website is at the moment hopeless - hopefully they'll implement a useful search function soon.




2. Getting maximize, minimize and close back
Install gnome-tweak-tool
sudo apt-get install gnome-tweak-tool

Start it. Go to Shell. Under 'arrangement of buttons on title bar' select all.




3. prettier icon theme --faenza
I've never been a fan of the default icon themes for gnome. I used the linux lex icons (http://linuxlex.cz/en/?option=com_phocadownload&view=file&id=2:linuxlex-8-icon-theme&Itemid=350) for gnome 2.x/compiz

In my opinion the blockier icons in faenza work better with gnome3/gnome-shell than the fancy linux lex icons.

So...
Install the gnome-tweak-tool
sudo apt-get install gnome-tweak-tool

To get faenza
mkdir ~/tmp
cd ~/tmp
wget http://www.deviantart.com/download/173323228/faenza_icons_by_tiheum-d2v6x24.zip
unzip faenza_icons_by_tiheum-d2v6x24.zip
./INSTALL
cd ~/.icons
mkdir faenza
mv * faenza/

Now start gnome-tweak-tool. Under Interface  --> Icon Theme -- select faenza
Do alt+f2 and type r, hit enter to restart.


4. Using conky instead of gnome applets to monitor computer
conky is a lot more flexible and capable than any single gnome-applet. But then conky doesn't sit quietly on a panel but is instead overlaid on top of you desktop.

To install
sudo apt-get install conky

Edit configuration file
sudo vim /etc/conky/conky.conf

Here's a sample conky.conf
-------------------------

alignment top_right
double_buffer yes
background yes
border_width 1
cpu_avg_samples 2
default_color white
default_outline_color white
default_shade_color white
draw_borders no
draw_graph_borders yes
draw_outline no
draw_shades no
use_xft yes
xftfont DejaVu Sans Mono:size=12
gap_x 20
gap_y 60
minimum_size 5 5
net_avg_samples 2
no_buffers yes
out_to_console no
out_to_stderr no
extra_newline no
own_window yes
own_window_class Conky
own_window_type desktop
own_window_transparent yes
stippled_borders 0
update_interval 1.5
uppercase no
use_spacer none
show_graph_scale no
show_graph_range no

TEXT 
${execi 60 acpi |gawk '{print $3,$4,$5}'|sed 's/\,/\t/g'}
${addr eth0}/${addr wlan0}
$hr
${color grey}Uptime:$color $uptime
CPU:$alignc $cpu%
$alignc $color ${cpugraph 15,200 ffff00 ff0000 -l -t}  
RAM:$alignc $mem/$memmax
$alignc$color ${memgraph 15,200 ffff00 ff0000 -t}
I/O:$alignc $diskio_read/$diskio_write
$alignc$color ${diskiograph 15,200 ffff00 ff0000 -t}
${color grey}Frequency (in GHz):$color
${freq_g 1} ${freq_g freq_g2}
$color CPU: $alignr${acpitemp}°C 
$color Fan(rpm): $alignr${execi 1.5 sensors|grep fan1|cut -c12-18} 
#${color grey}CPU Usage: ${cpubar 10,100 ffffff ff0000 -l -t} $cpu%
${cpugraph cpu1 15,100 ffff00 ff0000 -t} ${cpugraph cpu2 15,100 ffff00 ff0000 -t}
$hr
${color grey}File systems:
 / $color${fs_used /}/${fs_size /}
 /home $color${fs_used /home}/${fs_size /home}
${color grey}eth0 ${color red} ${upspeed eth0}/${color green} ${downspeed eth0} ${color grey}
${color grey} ${upspeedgraph eth0 15,100 550000 ff0000 -l -t} ${color grey} ${downspeedgraph eth0 15,100 0000ff 00ff00 -l -t} ${color grey}
${color grey}wlan0 ${color red} ${upspeed wlan0}/${color green} ${downspeed wlan0} ${color grey}
${color grey} ${upspeedgraph wlan0 15,100 550000 ff0000 -l -t} ${color grey} ${downspeedgraph wlan0 15,100 0000ff 00ff00 -l -t} ${color grey}
$hr
${color grey}Name CPU%   MEM%
${color} ${top name 1} ${top cpu 1} ${top mem 1}
${color} ${top name 2} ${top cpu 2} ${top mem 2}
${color} ${top name 3} ${top cpu 3} ${top mem 3}
$hr
${font Arial:bold:size=12}${color Tan1}WORLD TIME ${color DarkSlateGray}

$font${color}San Francisco ${execi 60 ping -c 1 berkeley.edu | grep icmp_req |gawk '{print $8}'| cut -c6- } ms$alignr${tztime America/Los_Angeles %H:%M}


$font${color}Melbourne ${execi 60 ping -c 1 rmit.edu.au | grep icmp_req |gawk '{print $8}'| cut -c6- } ms$alignr${tztime Australia/Melbourne %H:%M}



-----

You can get more information about available objects here: http://conky.sourceforge.net/variables.html

To make conky start up every time you start your computer, start gnome-session-properties, and add conky. That works most of the time but is the old gnome 2.3 way of doing things. Here's a post on gnome-shell specifically and how to add start-up applications: http://linuxandfriends.com/2011/06/01/how-to-add-startup-programs-in-gnome-3/

05 December 2011

22. gnome-shell/GNOME3 -- acceptance

So after the turmoil of being thrown into a new desktop metaphor, I've finally reached a stage where I'd feel less at home in Gnome 2.3 than 3.0. Truth be told, the new gnome is both pretty and quite responsive. Key to making Gnome 3 usable is, however, that enough shell extensions are installed that it works similar to the old gnome. The application centric desktop may work for casual users (email/browser), but not for traditional linux/unix applications where different parts of a work flow is handled by different applications (e.g. latex -- scripting/composition in one application, compilation by another, inspection in a third; or gnuplot -- data preparation, gnuplot scripting, visualisation of output file).

But once all the shell extensions are installed, it's back to business as usual.

Even Linus seems to be coming around to Gnome 3 after mumbling about defecting to xfce4: https://plus.google.com/102150693225130002912/posts

So far I've only had one unresolved problem - an 'old' desktop with a radeon 5400 hd card won't run gnome-shell on debian testing. No acceleration. Oh well. At least all my other computers are reasonably happy so far.

22 November 2011

19. Gnome3/gnome-shell -- 11 days later

So, I stuck it out. The new gnome-shell is fairly functional for me, finally.
The lack of system indicator applets was solved by using conky to overlay information on the desktop.
Frippery's gnome-shell extensions also make the experience less frustrating.

However, it still feels like everything I've done have been finding /work-arounds/ rather than /customisation/. In the end the whole idea of an application-centric desktop is unsuitable for me -- I would expect this to be true for the majority of established linux users.


Edit (25/11/2011):The screengrab shows what my heavily modified desktop looks like.