Super cool Eye Candy for your Desktop!

UPDATE! Things do change a lot when time passes in the OpenSource community…. the changes can be huge sometimes, so this guide has been updated! See the new guide here!

In this Guide we’ll see how to install a few applications that will turn your Ubuntu Feisty system (Specially one based on GNOME) into a super eye candy monster 🙂 !
We’ll install:

Beryl svn version (Don’t worry, it can be even considered more stable than the actual Beryl release, since Beryl stopped development and became a part compiz, so, every update is a bug fix and therefore just maked Beryl better and stabler 🙂 )

Screenlets (MacOSX’s Widgets-like cool little colorfull applications)

Avant window Navigator (The most advanced and elegant Dock available for Linux)

Affinity (To manage your files and applications easily and with cool effects)

Beyl Vicamp Plugin (To record your dektop in a video with a single keyboard command!)

Add Repositoryes:

Run synaptic package manager (Or Adept if you use KDE), then from menù run: settings –> repositoryes and move into the “third party software” tag. Click on the Add button and add, one by one, the following repositoryes (Hitting the add button for each repository line):

deb http://download.tuxfamily.org/syzygy42/ feisty avant-window-navigator
deb-src http://download.tuxfamily.org/syzygy42/ feisty avant-window-navigator
deb http://download.tuxfamily.org/3v1deb feisty 3v1n0
deb-src http://download.tuxfamily.org/3v1deb feisty 3v1n0
deb http://download.tuxfamily.org/3v1deb feisty eyecandy
deb-src http://download.tuxfamily.org/3v1deb feisty eyecandy
deb http://hendrik.kaju.pri.ee/ubuntu feisty screenlets

Now that we added all the repos we needed, close this window and Synaptic will tell you that it needs to refresh the informations about available packages. Before you Refresh, open a terminal and paste this line:

wget http://download.tuxfamily.org/syzygy42/8434D43A.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

Hit enter and you’ll get the public key for AWN (Avant window Navigator).

wget http://3v1n0.tuxfamily.org/DD800CD9.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

Public key for Treviño’s repositoryes.

wget http://hendrik.kaju.pri.ee/ubuntu/F854AFD7.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

Screenlets Public Key.

Now you can return to Synaptic and hit the refresh button. If you get any error, don’t worry, it will work aniway. You probably just need to update the public key.

Installing packages:

Once the refresh is completed, search and mark for installation the following packages, remembering that AWN and Affinity are available both in normal and svn version. The svn version is the development one. Much more advanced but a little unstable too:

tracker
avant-window-navigator (normal or svn version)
affinity (normal or svn version)
screenlets
screenlets-core
screenlets-extra
beryl
beryl-core
beryl-manager
beryl-plugins
beryl-plugins-unsupported
beryl-settings
beryl-vidcap
emerald

NOTE: If you allready had Beryl installed, all the Beryl packages will be automatically updated to the svn version, so, talking of Beryl, you’ll only need to install beryl-plugins-unsupported and beryl-vidcap.

Now click on the Mark all Updates button and then click on the Apply button.
If you allready had Beryl installed, you’ll need to restart it (Beryl Tray Icon –> Restart window manager). If you didn’t have Beryl before, press alt+F2, enter beryl-manager and a red beryl icon will appear on your taskbar. Beryl will be started.

In both cases, right click on red beryl tray icon –> Configure Beryl. From here, notice that in the Extra tag you now have Widget Layer and Capture plugin 🙂

Using the new applications:

Now you have Screenlets, AWN and Affinity in the menù Applications –> Accessories. Screenlets is a tray icon from wich you can start all the other screenlets! You have, first of all, to right click on this icon and select the “Add control screenlet” option. Then click on Settings and add wichever screenlet you prefer. To send a screenlet to the widged layer, tright click on a screenlets Window –>; Widget. The screenlet will disappear from the screen and you’ll find it only in the widget layer. Remember, for all of this apps to work correctly, Beryl OR Compiz MUST be running.

I prefer to autostart beryl-manager, avant-window-navigator, screenlets-tray and affinity but you can do whatever you prefer 🙂

Remember that you can find the setting daemon for AWN and Affinity oth in gnome-control-panel and in the System –>; Preferences menù of your GNOME desktop.

Have a good personalization with this new super cool features and most of all, have fun! 😀