Posts tagged gnome

Essential Gnome Shell Extensions for Gnome 3 Users

By Eric Z Ma,
Gnome Shell has a clean design. But many users want to get more from the desktop environment. Gnome 3’s extension system can help users customize the Gnome Shell’s look greatly. In this post, we summarize 6 extensions we considered essential to make Gnome Shell great. AlternateTab ∞ Make Alt-Tab “classic” instead of grouping windows by application. It substitutes Alt-Tab with a window based switcher. » Read more

What Is the Name of the Linux-based OS: A Survey

By Eric Z Ma,
You may already well know “Linux” and may also use the “operating system based on the Linux kernel” directly or indirectly (you are indirectly using it now as this site is hosted on Linux). But how should we name the OS based on Linux? You may know there is GNU/Linux naming controversy. Different people have different opinions about this. Today, let’s see how do these widely used distributions call themselves by looking at their “about” web pages. » Read more

Keyboard Key Mapping for Emacs: Evil Mode and Rearranging Alt, Ctrl and Win Keys

By Eric Z Ma,
Ctrl keys are important and possibly most frequently used in Emacs. However, it is painful on today’s common PC keyboards since Ctrl keys are usually in the corner of the keyboard main area. Why the key mappings in Emacs are designed like this? After it was designed, Emacs was commonly on the Lisp Machine keyboards with Ctrl keys closer to the space bar as show below (src). » Read more

Improving Fedora Font Rendering with Open Software and Fonts Only

By Eric Z Ma,
It is continuously discussed that some Fedora users do not like the font rendering in Fedora Linux and there are solutions to improve the font rendering with potentially non-free or non-licensed software/fonts. However, with only the open source fonts and software and little tricks, the font rendering on Fedora can be quite good. In this post, I will introduce my method to improve Fedora’s font rendering with open software and fonts only. » Read more

How to Set Up A Gitolite Git Server – A Ten-Minute Tutorial

By Eric Z Ma,
I ever introduced seting up git server using SSH or gitosis. However, gitolite is the way to go for managing git servers if you want an lightweight authentication layer. gitolite provides many very usefull features which can control each user’s right on each branch. I set up one gitolite git server and am very happy with it. In this post, let’s look at how to set up one gitolite git server. » Read more

Infrastructure Software For Fedora

By Weiwei Jia,
Fedora is a popular distro supported by the RedHat Corporation. This article recommends you some infrastructure software and how to install them in details. Minimize and Maximize window ∞ 1, Install software gnome-tweak-tool # yum install gnome-tweak-tool 2, Start gnome-tweak-tool and set minimizing and maximizing functions as follows. 1.png 2.png Actually, gnome-tweak-tool has more functions than what I say above. You can install others yourself. » Read more

How to Install ATI fglrx Driver on Fedora Linux

By Eric Z Ma,
Update on Nov. 18, 2012: ATI fglrx driver works well on Fedora 17 with GNOME 3 Shell. Should work well with later releases. Great driver, ATI! Update on Nov. 29, 2011: ATI fglrx driver works on Fedora 16 with GNOME 3 Shell with Catalyst driver 11.11 (xorg-x11-drv-catalyst-11.11). Update on Oct. 9, 2011: GNOME 3 shell works now with fglrx on Fedora 15 with Catalyst driver 11.9: xorg-x11-drv-catalyst-11.9-1.fc15.x86_64. » Read more

How to Configure iOS to Use Socks Proxy over SSH with a Linux/Unix Host

By Eric Z Ma,
The socks proxy I created following Proxy Using SSH Tunnel works very well on both Linux and Windows. However, when I try to configure my iPhone and iPad with iOS, I find iOS does not support socks proxy in its settings interface. I don’t know why it is not added while socks proxy is indeed supported by the iOS operating system. » Read more

How To Enable GNOME Classic Mode in Fedora

By Eric Z Ma,
GNOME 3.8 introduces the classic mode: Classic mode is a new feature for those people who prefer a more traditional desktop experience. Built entirely from GNOME 3 technologies, it adds a number of features such as an application menu, a places menu and a window switcher along the bottom of the screen. Each of these features can be used individually or in combination with other GNOME extensions. » Read more

Configuring Mouse Cursor Style for QT Applications in GNOME / MATE Desktop

By Eric Z Ma,
QT and GTK applications use different settings for cursor styles. This makes the mouse cursor styles for QT applications in the GNOME / MATE desktop environment or GTK applications in the KDE desktop environment look different with other programs. In the post Configuring Mouse Cursor Style for GTK Applications in KDE Desktop, we talked about how to configure the mouse cursor style for GTK applications in the KDE desktop environment. » Read more

Setting MATE as Default Desktop Environment for startx on Fedora

By Eric Z Ma,
I ever discussed Starting KDE from Command Line by startx for KDE and GNOME. Recently, I installed MATE desktop on Fedora 17 and am very happy with it—dear, Gnome 2 is back. However, I checked the /etc/X11/xinit/Xclients script which is called by ‘startx’ and it only includes ‘startkde’ and ‘gnome-session’ without support to MATE. But that’s find, let’s configure it by ourselves. » Read more

Vim as Thunderbird’s External Editor in Linux

By Eric Z Ma,
Vim is an excellent editor which I use every day. Thunderbird is a nice email application. However, Thunderbird’s integrated editor is not efficient enough to a Vim user. Why not use Vim as Thunderbird’s editor? In this tutorial, we will introduce how to integrate Vim with Thunderbird together in Linux. Install the “External Editor” Thunderbird extension Download the “External Editor” plugin. » Read more

Improving Font Rendering for Fedora Using Bytecode Interpreter

By Eric Z Ma,
Fedora’s font rendering isn’t very nice. At least on my laptop with Fedora 12. Bytecode Interpreter (BCI for short) is disabled by default because of patent issues. As the TrueType bytecode patents have expired. We may enable BCI in Fedora now. TrueType announced that BCI is enabled by default from 2.4. Fedora 12’s TrueType version is 2.3 which disables BCI. However, we can use rpmfusion’s font rendering package freetype-freeworld instead. » Read more

Two Gnome Easter Eggs: “free the fish” and “gegls from outer space”

By Eric Z Ma,
There are funny Gnome easter eggs. One is “free the fish”, and another one is “gegls from outer space”. “free the fish” in Gnome 2 ∞Press Alt+F2 to open “Run Application” dialog Enter “free the fish” Hit Enter“geglx from outer space” in Gnome 2 ∞Press Alt+F2 to open “Run Application” dialog Enter “gegls from outer space” Hit Enter“free the fish” in Gnome 3 ∞ “free the fish” is also available in Gnome 3. » Read more

How to Create Fedora Live USB Media

By Eric Z Ma,
How to create a Fedora live USB media is introduced in this post. We can boot to Fedora operating system environment through a live USB system in the USB flash media on a USB-bootable computer without writing the computer’s hard disk. We can also install Fedora operating system from the live system environment. Remember to backup data in the USB stick before proceeding the method below. » Read more

Configuring Mouse Cursor Style for GTK Applications in KDE Desktop

By Eric Z Ma,
Update on Jan. 7, 2012: The package for the gtk application style setting on KDE 4.7 is kcm-gtk. The command to install this package is: “# yum install kcm-gtk”. One annoying thing when using KDE desktop is that the theme and style of GTK applications differ from KDE’s. The gtk-qt-engine can let us select the theme for GTK applications in KDE desktop environment. » Read more