Today I got an invitation for Jolicloud, I was really excited about that project and I’m really happy for this opportunity to test it.
Jolicloud is not the first Linux distribution I have installed on my Samsung NC10… I’ve tested also Ubuntu Jaunty/Karmic, Fedora, Arch Linux and Moblin (latest snapshot).
Which is the technology behind Jolicloud?
Basically Jolicloud is a derivate of Ubuntu Netbook Remix with wide Prism usage across the desktop environment: the majority of “applications” you have seen in the screenshots are small packages which provide an independent Prism session on a specific website: for example, if you install the twitter application you will get a new icon inside your application list, that icon will start a new fullscreen Prism session for twitter.com.
Common desktop applications are also included, like Firefox or VLC, but it is highly focused on web services.
Installation
It is just like Ubuntu, nothing more/nothing less (you are in the Jolicloud desktop, but the installer is the same used by Ubuntu).
First Run
As said, the “core” is an Ubuntu Netbook Remix, so we firstly see an Usplash booting sequence (nice and simple theme)…
Followed by the GDM session (simple and nice theme too)…
After the login procedure the desktop environment starts. It’s a GNOME desktop with the Netbook Remix session: the custom panel on top shows the title of the current application in the middle, a list of the running application on its left and the status icons on its right. In the center of the screen Jolicloud asks to login on the website and then it opens the default screen you might have already seen (the dashboard shown in the screenshots is nothing more than a Prism session running http://my.jolicloud.com).
Jolicloud is now ready.
The home screen, dashboard, how do you call it 
As said, the main screen is a Prism session (so a website, no Clutter, no Cairo, no Gtk+…) with useful links to your applications and your settings. It is great to see how it is simple to use, really: installing and removing applications is a matter of a click, browsing and viewing the catalog of applications is very easy. For everyone. I like it.
Running applications
The separated fullscreen Prism sessions work surprisingly well… In the reality you’re running a web browser, but they give you the feeling that they are just like normal applications: if you run gmail, twitter, facebook (etc etc) you have their icons in your taskbar and you switch between them like they were a real application.
It’s the web now the protagonist of your netbook because you are actually using each web 2.0 service as an individual application: something that has been imagined for years by almost every company (Microsoft too) realized in Jolicloud really well.
A desktop replacement?
This distribution is absolutely amazing to surf the web when you’re on a train, in the university, when you just want your social websites up and running, when you want to update all your services and work with your documents.
But just like Moblin, in my opinion it is not meant to replace your Ubuntu… it will be likely added to your grub in a small partition dedicated to your social virtual space. And that is a good thing… when you need you have a quick access to the web. Great!
Comparison with Moblin
They are two completely different projects, even if they share the same love for the web.
Moblin is like a smart interface for your netbook providing a mix of useful applications with incredible tecnologies behind (KMS, fastboot, Clutter…) optimized for your netbook, with Jolicloud the web becomes your operating system (it provides the applications) trough an efficent environment for your small laptop.
I’m sure they will live together on my hard disk soon
Posted in English, GNOME, GTK | 4 Comments »
I had an idea, I don’t remember exactly who asked me for it (maybe Gyb), but it is really simple: rename all menubarstyle, toolbarstyle, menuitemstyle (etc etc…) into style[menubar], style[toolbar], style[menuitem]… same thing for other options (color[scrollbar], color[focus], shade[lightborder] etc etc…).
We actually need to write a little parser for them in murrine_rc_style.c and/or clearlooks_rc_style.c.
The thing is: I don’t have time for it in these months.
So, if someone wants to write a small patch for it… it will be merged!
Have a good weekend…
Posted in English, GNOME, GTK, Murrine | 4 Comments »
I’ve just created the official group (I mean, the first and so the official ) “GNOME Italia” on Facebook…
Here’s the link, if you want to share it and join it: GNOME Italia on Facebook
Ho appena creato il gruppo ufficiale (o meglio, il primo e quindi ufficiale ) “GNOME Italia” su Facebook…
Ecco il link, se volete condividerlo e aggiungervi: GNOME Italia on Facebook
Posted in English, GNOME, Italian | 2 Comments »
Today should be released GNOME 2.26.0? Yes, so congrats to us!
Talking about Murrine, I’ve released 0.90.1 and 0.90.2 which contains mainly bugfixes.
0.90.1 was relased with a typo (sorry!!!) which caused a crash, thanks bitzer for pointing that out.
Changelog for 0.90.1
Changes in this release:
- High roundness values are now correctly limited.
- Use focus_color in draw_entry if the theme uses it.
- Removed shadows from GtkCombo and GtkComboBoxEntry.
- Code polishing and bugfixing.
Changelog for 0.90.2
Requires Gtk+ 2.12.0
Changes in this release:
- Fixed a crash when using focus_color.
- Now focus_color and scrollbar_color accept symbolic colors.
Download
Download link, as always:
http://download.gnome.org/sources/murrine/0.90
Posted in English, GNOME, GTK, Murrine | 30 Comments »
Murrine is a Gtk+ engine, written in C language, using cairo vectorial graphics library. By default it comes with a modern glassy look, elegant and clean on the eyes. But it is also extremely customizable, and allows the user to achieve an incredible variety of styles.
Wow, new rockin’ release!
Enjoy.
Download the source code!
Changelog
Too many changes to be listed, let’s take a summary.
This new version is extremely customizable with a huge number of new
options. Those new options allow the user to achieve an incredible
variety of styles.
In order to add those features the engine was rewritten in many parts,
sometimes even 2 or 3 times! This results in a simpler code, more
readable and more maintainable, with a lot of custom code moved from
each widget drawing function (before) to a general murrine drawing
support file (now). For example adding a new glaze style will now cost
about 20 lines and it will be applied immediately to every single
widget.
Murrine can finally use the alpha channel to draw a real transparent
theme, all it needs is an application using the RGBA colormap and a
theme with the rgba option enabled.
During the whole development, murrine was kept in sync with
every bugfix that hit gtk-engines, so this new version can also be
considered much more stable than the previous one.
Links
Website: http://www.cimitan.com/murrine
Source Code: http://download.gnome.org/sources/murrine
SVN: http://svn.gnome.org/svn/murrine
Bugzilla: http://bugzilla.gnome.org
Posted in English, GNOME, GTK, Murrine | 22 Comments »
I may have some time this weekend and the next weeks to continue working on both Clearlooks and Murrine GTK+ engines.
I need ideas 
This post remembers you that I’ve opened a section where you can easily submit your mockups for Murrine. Use gnome bugzilla for Clearlooks.
Posted in English, GNOME, GTK, Murrine | 16 Comments »
Here you can find an example of the “pulseaudio glitches” we (unlucky netbook’s owners) hear.
I decided to reinstall pulseaudio, because I share Lennart’s idea that it’s better to start fixing drivers and applications as soon as we can: it’s useless, imho, to stop freesoftware’s development just because vendors/drivers/applications are bugged.
Some things work better than in the past months, banshee seems to be almost glitch-free (it wasn’t when I tried it in december).
I’m going to share with you my glitch-free experience: 
just recordered, sorry for the white noise but the netbook’s speakers have a low power noise removed thanks to audacity.
pulseaudio-frozenbubble-no-noise (FLAC, 1.8 MB, I can hear more glitches here)
pulseaudio-frozenbubble-no-noise (WAV, 3.2 MB)
pulseaudio-frozenbubble (FLAC, 2.0 MB, I can hear more glitches here)
pulseaudio-frozenbubble (WAV, 3.5 MB)
Pulseaudio 0.9.14, snd-hda-intel (Realtek ALC 272), Fedora Core 10.
Also, CPU usage for pulseaudio is between 10% and 35% (and ~25% without the g-f feature). Not really fun for the laptop’s battery.
Posted in English, GNOME | 13 Comments »
After reading Aruiz and Dylan I think I could ask your attention on that topic.
I like Dylan’s idea of a Do-ified GTK+ 3.0, it seems innovative, making user interaction more accessible and faster. At least, this is my personal opinion.
From Dylan:
@Cimi: it would be great to see Do-like functionality incorporated in Gnome 3, not just on the desktop, but also at the application level. Programs like the Gimp or Inkscape use a lot of keyboard shortcuts that may be hard to memorize all-at-once. Using the Do-metaphor *within* the application will let you invoke functions quickly, and discover keyboard shortcuts in the process.
I don’t have anything against Mono, but for Do to become an integral part of the Gnome Desktop, I think it would almost have to be part of GTK+, because it needs to communicate with other parts of the interface to know which functions are applicable given the situation (it makes no sense to list ‘Crop to selection’ as an option when nothing has been selected).
I must agree with him, sometimes keyboard shortcuts are complicated to use: how can I remember alt+g, alt+k, alt+y, alt+s, ctrl+alt+h, ctrl+alt+h+super+t+f12+enter+backspace? (omg I’m not playing the piano 
I just want to use my computer!!!)
Typing “fullscreen” is easier than remembering Totem is using “F11″, Banshee “F”, another application “Ctrl+Alt+F” and so on… And while “fullscreen” is something known and famous, what about exotic shortcuts that almost each application has? Those are just useless… and dangerous! Imagine if I press “Ctrl+W” on an important document because I forgot the right command…
Now, your thoughts please
Posted in Compiz, English, GNOME, GTK, Icons, Murrine | 69 Comments »
29 January 2009 will be another great day for our free software desktops, GNOME Do 0.8 is released!
This is a fantastic release: it’s not just few bugfixes, it’s much much much more! Jason Smith did an amazing job rewriting the whole graphical interface code, allowing Do to feature shiny animated interfaces… for all your tastes!
Send to pastebin, imageshack, manage your music collection, access files, browse google docs, open conversations, add bookmarks, control your jedi lightsaber… EVERYTHING: just with one simple key!
GNOME Do 0.8 will dramatically change the way you interact with your desktop, saving a lot of time for better moments with your girlfriend (or your lightsaber!) I would really love to see GNOME Do or something similar in our GNOME 3.0 shell. This is the key, the Do key.
While I mentioned Jason for the graphical part, I can’t forget David Siegel, Alex Launi, Chris Halse Rogers and every contributor!!! They did an amazing job, they *are* an amazing team.
So, that’s all folks: go and spread the voice
It’s time to rock on for 1.0!
Posted in Compiz, English, GNOME, GNOME Do, GTK | 28 Comments »
As promised, a small guide for linux on the samsung nc10.
Updated software seems to contain enough compatibility for this netbook, in fact everything worked fine except the “Fn+keys”.
You have to follow this step to make “Fn+keys” work:
To enable the Fn+F5 hotkey (disable monitor brightness) do:
- Install xbacklight
- copy this script into /usr/bin and make it executable: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/175266/nc10/xbacklight.sh
- Run these:
gconftool-2 -s --type string /apps/metacity/keybinding_commands/command_1 xbacklight.sh
gconftool-2 -s --type string /apps/metacity/global_keybindings/run_command_1 XF86Launch1
Some notes:
- Check out the upstream kernel bug: http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12021
- Feel free to write a better xbacklight.sh script
- The brightness keybinding should work with gnome 2.24. I’m not sure about the “XF86Launch1″ command, which could change (?) on some distributions. “XF86Launch1″ is the command recognized by fedora after patching the kernel.
- Change the id of the keybinding_command if you have already bound other commands.
Posted in English, GNOME, Howto, Metacity | 16 Comments »
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