[HOW TO] Install AwOken icon theme in Xubuntu

Updated: 14/05/2013. Version 2.5 released and available via PPA up to Raring (13.04).

AwOken is a icon theme for Linux that is very well designed and allows plenty customization. The theme can be further personalized; the package comes with some scripts that help you to easily choose one of the 46 available folder types and more. There are three main variants: AwOken Clear, AwOken Dark and AwOken White.

Bellow you'll find instructions to install and customize AwOken. There are two installation processes: manual and using PPA. If you which to get automatic updates, you should choose the PPA method.

Install AwOken (PPA)

Open a terminal window and run:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:alecive/antigone -y && \
sudo apt-get update && \
sudo apt-get install awoken-icon-theme -y

Install AwOken (Manual)

Open a terminal window and run (please let me now if something goes wrong; I chose to include the download as a command and I'm afraid the URL might change in the future, but for now the instructions are as automatic as possible):

wget -O awoken.zip http://goo.gl/DeCgI && \
unzip -x awoken.zip  && \
cd AwOken-2.5/ && \
test ! -d ~/.icons && mkdir ~/.icons || true && \
for f in $(ls *.tar.gz); do tar -xf $f; done && \
mv AwOken*/ ~/.icons/ && \
cd ~/.icons/ && \
sudo cp -p AwOken/awoken-icon-theme-customization /usr/bin && \
sudo cp -p AwOken/awoken-icon-theme-customization-clear /usr/bin && \
sudo cp -p AwOkenDark/awoken-icon-theme-customization-dark /usr/bin && \
sudo cp -p AwOkenWhite/awoken-icon-theme-customization-white /usr/bin \
rm -rf ~/AwOken-2.5/ ~/awoken.zip

Customize AwOken

AwOken can be customized using the awoken-icon-theme-customization script provided in the package. Just run this on a terminal window or use Alt+F2:

awoken-icon-theme-customization

AwOken Customization

The customization process is pretty simple, just follow the instructions.

Usage

After installing and customizing AwOken it can be finally set as the icon theme using Xfce's Appearance Settings.

Uninstall AwOken (PPA)

Open a terminal window and run:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:alecive/antigone -r -y && \
sudo apt-get remove awoken-icon-theme -y

Uninstall AwOken (Manual)

Open a terminal window and run:

rm -rf ~/.icons/AwOken*/ && \
sudo rm AwOken/ /usr/bin/awoken-icon-theme-customization*

References

AwOken by *alecive on deviantART

[SOLVED] Modifying keymaps

I had a problem with a keyboard: the period key wasn't working and it was a hardware problem. The period key is important! So what now? Realizing that there were a couple of keys that I almost never used, I thought that remapping one of those keys was a good idea.

Remapping can be accomplished using xmodmap command with the following syntax:

xmodmap -e "keysym KEYSYMNAME = KEYSYMNAME ..."

KEYSYMNAME is something like: period, delete, equal, a, b, c. When in doubt, the xev can be used to find the correct symbol's name.

Example

In my case, I was trying to remap the Guillemet (« or ») key to the Period key, so that it would be used to produce a period and a colon. On a terminal window I ran this:

xmodmap -e "keysym guillemotleft = period colon"

The colon will be produced when using the Shift key.

One more thing, please take in consideration that I'm using a keyboard with Portuguese layout, so this solution might not make sense to you.

References

xmodmap(1) | manpage

[SOLVED] AMD Catalyst and Ubuntu 12.10 (Quantal Quetzal) problem

AMD dropped the support for the Radeon HD 4000, HD 3000 and HD 2000 series, leaving the owners of any of these models with broken graphics when they chose to upgrade to Quantal.

In order to continue to use proprietary drivers, the AMD Catalyst Legacy driver must be installed. Bellow instructions are provided for installing it from Tomasz Makarewicz PPA.

Install

Open a terminal window and run:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:makson96/fglrx -y && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade -y && sudo apt-get install fglrx-legacy -y

Then restart your computer.

AMD Catalyst Control Center

AMD Catalyst Control Center can be accessed via Applications Menu > Settings Manager or typing the following command: amdcccle.

References

AMD Catalyst Legacy PPA
Ubuntu 12.10 And AMD Catalyst Problem (Solved)

[COMMAND LINE] Display structure of directory hierarchy

Let's say you're working on the terminal and want to display current's directory hierarchy in a tree structure, like this:

$ tree.sh .kde/share/apps/krita/

/home/wilson/.kde/share/apps/krita
   .
   |-paintoppresets
   |-templates
   |---CMYK
   |---Ink
   |---WS
   |-workspaces

I found the command below on the web and its author even provided it as a shell script to use it easily.

ls -R | grep ":$" | sed -e 's/:$//' -e 's/[^-][^\/]*\//--/g' -e 's/^/   /' -e 's/-/|/'

Install system wide

Open a terminal window and run:

dst="/usr/local/bin/tree.sh" && sudo wget http://goo.gl/z8exN -O $dst && sudo chmod +x $dst

Install for current user

This will install the script for your user only and assumes you have a bin directory on your home directory and it has been added to $PATH. Open a terminal window and run:

dst="$HOME/bin/tree.sh" && wget http://goo.gl/z8exN -O $dst && chmod +x $dst

References

Unix Tree / Linux Tree - Display Structure of Directory Hierarchy

[HOW TO] Install Awn (Avant Window Navigator) in Xubuntu

Avant Window Navigator (Awn) is a dock-like bar which sits at the bottom of the screen. It has support for launchers, task lists, and third party applets.

Awn running on Xubuntu 12.04

Update 25/10/12: Awn is not available in Quantal (12.10).

Install

Open a terminal window and run the command below. It'll install Awn and all its applets.

sudo apt-get install avant-window-navigator awn-applets-all -y

Usage

Awn can be accessed via Applications Menu > Accessories > Avant Window Navigator or typing the following command: avant-window-navigator.

Awn settings (size, position, autohide, applets, ...) can be customized; right-click on Awn and select Dock Settings.

Customizing Awn Settings

References

Awn in Launchpad

[HOW TO] Read/Write clipboard from command line

xsel is a program that allows X selection manipulation, and it can also be used to manipulate clipboard contents.

Read clipboard

Open a terminal window and run the command bellow. The -b options tells xsel to operate on the CLIPBOARD selection and the -o is used to write the selection contents to standard output.

xsel -b -o

Write clipboard

Using the -i, xsel reads from the standard input into the selection, so for instance, the output of the echo command can be piped into xsel thus set the clipboard contents. Replace CB_DATA with is a string for clipboard data.

echo CB_DATA | xsel -b -i

Example (write)

echo "Xubuntu Geek" | xsel -b -i

References

xsel manpage

[HOW TO] Upgrade Xubuntu 12.04 to Xubuntu 12.10

In this article we'll see how to upgrade Xubuntu 12.04 to Xubuntu 12.10, using both a graphical method and a command line method.

But first there's a few thing to bear in mind:

• Backup your files.
• Xubuntu 12.04 is LTS (Long Term Supported) so it might be more stable than subsequent releases.
• The upgrade might take some time, so be patient.
• If you added PPAs manually they'll be disabled. If they support 12.10 you can add them again later.

Upgrade from Update Manager

Open "Update Manager" (Applications Menu > System > Update Manager). Then proceed as described here. Essentially all you have to do is change the update settings so that you'll be notified when there's a newer version available, reopen "Update Manager" and click the "Upgrade" button next to the message that is saying that a new Xubuntu version is available.

Upgrade from terminal

Open a terminal window and run the command below. Then follow the instructions presented by the command.

sudo sed -i 's/prompt=lts/prompt=normal/g' /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades && sudo do-release-upgrade

References

Ubuntu Manpage: do-release-upgrade