The Linuxologist

Chromium is the Open Source project behind Google’s browser Chrome. It aims to build a safer, faster, and more stable way for all  users to experience the web. Indeed as I type this on Chromium on an Ubuntu laptop, I can truly feel the speed. While Chromium on Linux is still in the pre-release stage, it does seem very stable, and could very well be a backup browser to Firefox if not completely replace it.

Around last year, we jumped through hoops by means of Wine and Codeweavers to get Chromium up and running on Linux (and Mac.) Luckily things have evolved since last year; today we have a daily build of Chromium on Linux, and Ubuntu even has its own PPA!

If you ever ventured into the Chromium territory on Linux, you will probably be disappointed that Flash doesn’t work straight out of the box. However, a very simple hack will solve that and make Chromium a usable browser (we are praying for the day Adobe Flash dies, but thats another issue.)

If you are on Ubuntu, you should just use the PPA. While other distros will probably different ways to get the daily builds (Google is a friend). However getting Flash to work would probably be the same across the board.

Installing Chromium

If you never added software from a PPA, here is what you should do to get Chromium:

Add these two lines to your /etc/apt/sources.list:
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu YOUR_UBUNTU_VERSION_HERE main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu YOUR_UBUNTU_VERSION_HERE main

You may want to add the corresponding GPG key to your apt keyring (Note these flags have two “-”, for some reason Wordpress is rendering only one).
sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 4E5E17B5

Update:
sudo apt-get update

Install:
sudo apt-get install chromium-browser

Getting Flash To Work

Now to get Flash running, we basically need to create a symbolic link of libflashplayer.so in the Chromium plugin folder:
cd /usr/lib/chromium-browser/plugins
sudo ln -s ../../flashplugin-installer/libflashplayer.so

One final step is to change the execution command to your Chromium icon to this (Note these flags have two “-”, for some reason Wordpress is rendering only one):
chromium-browser --enable-plugins --enable-greasemonkey --enable-user-scripts --enable-extensions

Thats it! If you face any problems, just leave a comment or @rtaibah on Twitter

Update: Chromium also integerates very well with GNOME, just go to options menu >Personal Stuff > Set To GTK Theme OR even get more themes

Ahhh, the wonderful stuff you can find on DeviantArt! This one is brought to you by ~Gegege-no. It’s a girl riding a GNU with Tux wielding a Quake blaster. I really like the subtlety of the Ubuntu imagery: only a portion of the Ubuntu logo appears on the girl’s forehead and Ubuntu colored beads in her hair. Maybe ~Gegege-no should submit this picture to the Ubuntu Karmic Koala wallpaper contest?

KDE 4.3 was released 3 days ago, bringing integration with other technologies, such as PolicyKit, NetworkManager & Geolocation services, was another focus of this release. KRunner’s interface has been overhauled. A much more flexible system tray has been developed. Many new Plasmoids have been added, including the openDesktop.org Plasmoid – an initial take on the Social Desktop. Plasma also receives more keyboard shortcuts.

Unfortunately if you are on Ubuntu Jaunty (or Kubuntu), you will not officially get KDE 4.3. It will be featured in the upcoming Koala version scheduled in October. However you can get your hands on the latest KDE offering now on your 9.04 desktop. But let us take a quick look at some screenshots.

Upgrading to KDE 4.3

First you will need to add the repos to your sources.list file:
sudo sh -c "echo 'deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-ppa/backports/ubuntu jaunty main' >> /etc/apt/sources.list"
sudo sh -c "echo 'deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-ppa/staging/ubuntu jaunty main' >> /etc/apt/sources.list"

Add the GPG key:
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 8AC93F7A

And upgrade:
sudo aptitude update && sudo aptitude dist-upgrade

Or if you don’t have KDE installed in the first place:

sudo aptitude install kubuntu-desktop

And they say that the command line is hard! Easy as 1-2-3!

Here is a quick video of KDE 4.3 in action, enjoy!

Just a month ago Mozilla gave us the final version of Firefox 3.5 giving us a lot of nifty features like HTML5, private browsing, smarter session control among others. But Mozilla aren’t the kind of people who sit on their laurels, they already posted screenshots of Firefox 3.7 a week ago, and today we have Mozilla Firefox 4.0 screenshots!

Unfortunately the screenshots are for Windows, none for Linux yet. Also, they warned that these are just a draft for exploration and/or brainstorming.

Basically they are pondering two GUI changes. Tabs location and a combo Stop/Refresh/Go Button.

Tabs Location: Top or Bottom?

Should tabs be “Tabs-on-Bottom,” or the current setting

Or should they be “Tab-on-Top”, or à la Google Chrome

Positives

• Save Vertical Space
• Efficiency/Remove Visual Complexity – Right now the tabs have to be connected to something. So we are adding an extra visual element for them to connect to.
• Shorter Mouse Distance to Page Controls

Negatives

• Breaks Consistency/Familiarity – Moving things confuses existing users.
• Title is MIA – With the space removed from the titlebar you only get the truncated version in the tab.
• Longer Mouse Distance to Tabs – Takes longer to mouse to a tab.
• Lost Space – Sandwiched in between the application icon and the window widgets you lose some space.

Personally, I am not a fan of this implementation. The MIA title problem really does irk me. However, why not leave both options for users? Any thoughts?

Combo Stop/Refresh/Go Button

This one seems pretty logical. Why have separate stop, refresh, and go buttons? If you are typing a url, the button will change into a green go button, while its loading that same button would change into a red stop button, and once a page is fully loaded the button changes into a regular refresh button.

Remember, these are just proposed, and like any Open Source project, the feedback from the community plays a big role in the final product.

This is pretty straight forward yet awesome! Get all your friends on a real chat client instead of that annoying and crippled Facebook chat window! All you need to do is install a little package called pidgin-facebook. If you are on a Debian system just download this package and install it using the GUI or the “dpkg -i” command and you are set! If you are on a Red Hat system, use Alien. For anything else just install from source.

You might also want to install the Facebook icons for Pidgin. Extract it to /usr/share/pixmaps/pidgin/protocols