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Ubuntu Hardy has made wireless a little easier for laptop owners w/ the broadcom 1390 chipset. No more fucking around with ndiswrapper; just install a package, run a script, and you’re done. Installing the package should do the trick, but for some reason it failed for me (the firmware didn’t download), so you’ll probably need to run the second part too.
sudo apt-get install b43-fwcutter
sudo /usr/share/b43-fwcutter/install_bcm43xx_firmware.sh
sudo /etc/init.d/dbus restart
You’re done. You’re welcome.
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Setting KDE’s desktop icon text color has always, always made me insane. It’s not in the same place with all the other color settings, oh, no! To set most item colors in a KDE setup, you use the Control Center, select Appearance & Themes, then Colors. A simple easy-to-navigate interface for setting almost every foreground, background and select color under KDE. But if you want to set Desktop text color … well, that’s not listed. I always end up poking and prodding for a considerable while. I found it again, today, and wanted to put it up for me and others to find. So, to set the KDE (versions 3.4 and 3.5, at least) desktop icon text, from the Control Center select Appearance & Themes. Choose Background from the sub-menu. Yeah, Background. Who knew? Then, click on the Advanced Options button. There are three sub-panes in the resulting dialog. The first, Background Program is usually all I see before bailing out of that dialog. But keep looking. Further down, there’s Background Icon Text. Not Desktop, oh, no. And that’s not to be found in the general color settings tab, for heaven’s sake, no! Now I understand the reasoning behind where it is. But since for all the rest of the world, that’s the Desktop, why not call it that, or make it easy to find using the Desktop term. And, praise Baal, why not let people change that text color in the standard tool as well as in the special secret place!
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Here’s how to install libdvdcss2 and a couple other useful media libraries on your Feisty box. Note that these may be “illegal”. Paste the following in your terminal.
sudo su -c 'echo deb http://medibuntu.sos-sts.com/repo/ feisty free non-free >> /etc/apt/sources.list'
sudo su -c 'echo deb-src http://medibuntu.sos-sts.com/repo/ feisty free non-free >> /etc/apt/sources.list'
wget -q http://medibuntu.sos-sts.com/repo/medibuntu-key.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libdvdcss2 w32codecs gstreamer0.10-pitfdll
echo "done"
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Kicker is the panel that sits at the top (or bottom or side) of your screen in KDE, which includes the taskbar, K menu, and system tray. I have for a long time been using Kicker with auto-hide, so that bumping the top of the screen would drop the panel down, but it would otherwise remain hidden. However, I wanted to experiment with using virtual desktops, and because I’m on a twin monitor setup (i.e. wide) wanted the top and bottom of the screen to be the “active borders” (i.e. to be the edges which switch from one virtual desktop to the next when the mouse hits them.) Kicker really got in the way here, as it would unhide when I tried to switch. I could have set it to be permanently displayed, but I find it obtrusive if it’s always there.
So, I started investigating alternate ways to set up the UI. The first step was to install and set up Kommando, which provides an intuitive popup menu. Installation, of course, is as simple as:
- sudo apt-get install kommando
Once installed, a new configuration section is added to kcontrol, which allows you to set up Kommando as you desire. Either enter kcontrol on the command line, or browse K Menu / System Settings / Control Center. The configuration looks like this (click for full size):
- Add menus and buttons to build your on screen menu. Try to keep eight or less items per menu.
- Use the “From KMenu” button to copy over your favorite applications.
- Don’t try and add every program you ever use. Go for the 80/20 rule; add only the applications you use 80% of the time. We’ll keep the KMenu around for the other 20%.
- Under shortcuts, assign a key combination to launch Kommando. I use Ctrl + Menu, which I can hit with my right hand, since I use the trackball with my left hand.
Once you invoke it, it pops up over any applications being used, and looks something like this:
I find that it is much more efficient to use than the KMenu. However, since (as mentioned above) KMenu is by design comprehensive, I set it up to popup when I right click on the desktop. Again, go into kcontrol, and modify the “Mouse Button Actions” as follows (except Right and Left should be inverted, if you’re a right handed mouse user):
Now all that remains is to remove the KMenu from kicker. You can always add it back, so this is not irreversible. Right click on the K, and click “Remove” from the context menu that pops up. Done.
Next post I’ll go into details on how the system tray and task bar are configured.
All In Series
- HOWTO: Customizing KDE - Intro
- HOWTO: Customizing KDE - Replacing 80% of KMenu use with Kommando