Andrea Olivato’s Blog

Dropbox is unquestionably a convenient utility for any Desktop Environment. For those who don’t know it, it’s a file sync service, useful to share files beetween two or more computers and keep them syncronized. It’s useful, for example, when you need to
keep your home computer up to date with the work one.

I used to make an intensive use of dropbox last year, but then I switched from Gnome to Fluxbox in my Gentoo work installation and stopped using Nautilus and its dropbox plugin. Since then I began starting Dropbox manually launching Nautilus when I needed to sync the files. That was really annoying…

Yesterday reading Francesco’s blog, I discovered Dropbox wiki and that it was possible to launch it from the command line! As I had it already installed on nautilus it was just a matter of starting the daemon, and that can be easily achieved by using a  python script .

The script can do a lot of things, such as installing the daemon on a non graphical environment, but I just use it to start the daemon on fluxbox startup.

Here’s how I did it on fluxbox:

1. Download the python script

cd ~ && wget https://dl.getdropbox.com/u/43645/dbcli.py

2. Open the fluxbox start script

vim .fluxbox/startup

3. Find this line

exec fluxbox

4. Before that, insert

exec python dbcli.py status &

Yes, it’s that easy! And we just have to thank Filip L. who published this script on Dropbox forums..

If you are interested on knowing all the fantastic feature of Filip’s script please have a look at DropBox wiki page

I finished realizing the second alpha of Afisufi High Tech usplash theme.  In this release I just added the possibility to show the booting text in the bottom-right corner area, matching bacgkround and text color to the theme.

I also finished working on the sources to be able to redistribute them under the terms of GPL v.3. You can find the binary and the sources in the project page.

Below you will find an updated screenshot and the new screencast.

Yesterday night I couldn’t sleep so I started developing a new usplash theme. I realized just the main loading effect but I believe that with this background the theme can become really nice! If you want to know more, go to the project page ->

Note that this theme is a pre-release version, not even near to be stable… so please,please, use it just if you’re sure of what you’re doing.

If you want to see it in action I realized a screencast from virtualbox.

Links

• Project Homepage
• Gnome Look Page
• Screencast

Releases

Current version :

• 0.1 Alpha 4

Changelog :

• 0.1 Alpha 4 : Added 1280×1024 resolutions
• 0.1 Alpha 3 : Added 800×600 and 640×480 resolutions
• 0.1 Alpha 2 : Added text support for verbose mode

Daily Snapshot :

• Svn Trunk

Older versions :

• 0.1 Alpha 3
• 0.1 Alpha 2
• 0.1 Alpha 1

Introduction

It has been a while since I pubblished my first usplash theme, Fingerprint Usplash, which is one of the most appreciated themes on Gnome Looks. I decided to create an other one, compatible with latest usplash releases, as soon as I saw this gdm theme, a good example of high tech theme. The following screenshots should give you an idea of what I’m realizing, but if it’s not enough at the end of the post you will find an updated video of the latest version.

As you can see this is a pre-release. I still need to add the text box in the bottom-right corner, and perhaps some other effects. Also, it’s just working on 1024×768, so no 800×600, no widescreens etcetc. You can find more informations about future developing in the ‘To Do’ section of this page.

As always comments and criticism are welcome.

Licence

Copyright (C) 2009 Andrea Olivato

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

Credits

This work is completely based on Afisufi High Tech GDM theme

Disclaimer

This is an Alpha version, a pre-release, suitable for testing purposes only.

If you choose to follow my instruction be aware that this was tested just on a virtual machine, at 1024×768 usplash resolution with Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex and that I do not guarantee for this theme to work on your configuration. If you’re not sure about what you’re doing please wait a bit untile the stable release of the theme.

Documents: Guides and How-Tos

I recently created a personal wiki where to store all my stuff so please follow those links for the install and upgrade this theme

• Fresh Installation Guide
• Upgrade to 0.1 Alpha 4
• Compilation from Source
• Svn Guide

To Do

• Add 1600×1050 resolution
• Add widescreen version
• Compile amd64 version

Media

Setting up a svn is not a big deal on any linux box. On Linux Feed server, which is running Debian Stable,it’s just a matter of

$ sudo apt-get install subversion
$ sudo mkdir /var/svn-repos/
$ sudo svnadmin create --fs-type fsfs /var/svn-repos/dummy-project

and add the right permissions. However if you want to create more trunks, manage more users with different permission the whole process may result complex and laborious. This is why I looked for an easy-to-use web interface to administrate one ore more project, create users and groups, assign permissions to projects or sub folders.

I found Usvn a php5 + mysql (nobody likes postges out there uh???) powered admin interface, which is able to do all the operations I explained before. Obviously the whole process needs a complete control on apache and the server you’re going to run svn on, as you need to edit the apache2.conf (or httpd.conf) file, the mod_svn and mod_dav_svn activated, and obviously subversion installed.

During installation I lost 10 mins looking for the mod_dav_svn module, which I could not find with aptitude. I finally understand it was just part of the apache2-svn packagage.

So, after a bit of configuration, db setup, apache reload and  few actions more, Usvn is successfully installed, configured and ready to create users and trunks. It also support the importation of any existing repo on your panel… terribly useful if you want to start using this tool but got some existing repositories.

Here are some links:

Home Page: http://www.usvn.info
Downloads: http://www.usvn.info/download
Docs: https://trac.usvn.info/wiki/Documentation

Slim is a lightweight graphical login manager, for those who don’t know it’s something like GDM and KDM, but a bit less stressing for your hardware, very simple, minimal, easily customizable and skinnable. Also slim can be used with any Desktop Environment and got no heavy dependancies.

Fluxbox, well I hope you all have at least heard something about it, is a great lightweight window manager, that combined with a good filemanager (I prefer pcmanfm), its own panel, a light dock (using simdock here) and a bit of vim can became the right choice for any use.

Together…well you’re completely free from any Gnome,Kde influence and you got a nice and fast Desktop Environment.

For fluxbox installation and configuration there are a lot of guides. Here are my favourites for Gentoo and Ubuntu.

To install slim just use your distribution package manager. For example I did

# emerge -avt slim

or in Ubuntu

$ sudo apt-get install slim

After installin open slim configuration

# vim /etc/slim.conf

and around line 54 you will find your sessions array. Just delete sessions you don’t own or don’t want to use and then set as first session

startfluxbox

We do use the start script as doing this we will be able to use the ’startup’ script into the .fluxbox directory to start our own apps on DE booting.

Now that slim is configured you can choose to follow the white rabbit or not. If you want to, follow those passages to disable gdm/kdm and start using slim instead.

On Gentoo just change the configuration file of Xdm

# vim /etc/conf.d/xdm

replacing your current variable ‘DISPLAYMANAGER’ from any previous value to

slim

On Ubuntu (and I believe on all the debian based) remove GDM from startup and add slim

$ sudo update-rc.d -f gdm remove
$ sudo update-rc.d slim defaults

Now just logout from any grafical interface and from your shell restart the Login Manager

On Gentoo

# /etc/init.d/xdm restart

While on Ubuntu

$ sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop && sudo /etc/init.d/slim start

Everything  should work fine, and you should be able to login to your fluxbox desktop. To change session just press F11 while writing your username/password!

Waking up … just some services up

init 1

Getting brain fully functional, connecting to the world

init 3
username
password
/etc/init.d/net.brain start

Look at the clock, it’s late dammit! Tought it was earlier

/etc/init.d/ntp-client start

Get out of the bed, straight to the toilet, flush the toilet

pwd
~/house/bedroom
cd ~/house/toilet
mv ~/.local/share/Trash/files/* ./
rm * -r


Whash teeths and armpit, get a bidèt

cd ~/.body/teeths && svn cleanup
cd ~/.body/armpits && svn cleanup
cd ~/.body/xxx && svn cleanup


Go back to the room, trow away the bed clothes, get the work ones, get dressed

cd ~/house/bedroom
rm ~/.clothes/debian-shirt.sh # To sleep safe
rm ~/.clothes/boxer-shorts-old.sh
wget http://clothes.lan/odd-socks.bz2 ~/.clothes
wget http://clothes.lan/boxer-shorts-new.bz2 ~/.clothes
wget http://clothes.lan/gentoo-shirt.bz2 ~/.clothes # To be powerful
wget http://clothes.lan/black-jeans.bz2 ~/.clothes
bunzip2 *.bz2


Go to kitchen, grab some food, eat it and start digesting…it will take a while…

cd ~/home/kitchen
git clone git://fridge.lan/milk ~/.body/mouth
cd ~/.body/mouth
./configure --prefix="~/.body/stomach"
make chew
make gulp
make digest
CTRL+Z


Exit home, see a fatty neighbour out of his door, say hello to him then go down the stairs ’till out

cd ~/
cd ../
ls -l
-rw-r--r-- 1 me me 71680 2 dic 09:10 me.person
-rw-r--r-- 1 neighbour neighbour 97280 2 dic 09:10 him.person
echo "Good morning\n";
Good Morning
cd ../
pwd
/