Small post, just for the guys who don’t follow me on twitter.
For Ubuntu Lucid the desktop team started working on a patch which enables RGBA colormap by default, and adds client-side window decorations capabilities as well.
That means transparency to your applications and much more 
Murrine will try to follow this trend, maybe slowly because I’m busy with other things, but something will happen.
For the braves, here’s the link to the bug.
Of course, donations to Murrine are always welcome! 
Posted in Compiz, English, GNOME, GTK, Murrine, Themes | 10 Comments »
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 | 7 Comments »
After having tried thousands of different drivers, kernel versions, patches etc etc… I’ve finally found a combination that made me excited (wohoo!).
I own a Samsung NC10 with an Intel Atom N270 and an Intel GMA 950 (i945). I’m running both Arch Linux (i686) and Ubuntu jaunty (lpia).
Few notes:
- This how to should work with any netbook, since they share almost the same hardware.
- I haven’t used a benchmark, but applications (Firefox, Gnome Do’s Docky, KDE 4 and more), and the difference is so visible that it doesn’t require a benchmark.
- I don’t know if it depends on the lpia architecture (I’m running Ubuntu lpia) or some patches applied to the drivers, but Ubuntu’s 2D graphics are a little bit faster than my Arch Linux installation with kernel 2.6.30 and drivers 2.7.1 (same versions).
- I had the boost in both Arch Linux and Ubuntu, though Ubuntu is faster.
- I’ve compared the 2D graphics with Moblin too, but its newer drivers using UXA are noticeably slower (Firefox/Gecko is incredibly slow when scrolling heavy webpages like facebook or my custom gmail).
- Newer Intel drivers (2.7.99.x and similar) support only UXA acceleration, and they perform a little bit slower than 2.7.1 without greedy migration heuristic (unfortunately that means a big difference). Greedy migration heuristic does not work with UXA.
- With this new combination, 2D graphics are really close to my Windows XP installation (Firefox scrolling).
Instructions (Ubuntu lpia combination, adjust the steps to your distro):
- Install kernel 2.6.30 from this ppa (even if it has the “nc10″ tag, it doesn’t have custom patches and should work with any netbook).
- Upgrade your Xorg Intel drivers with the 2.7.1 version on the same ppa.
- Enable greedy migration heuristic creating an empty /etx/X11/xorg.conf with those lines:
Section "Device"
Identifier "Intel"
Driver "intel"
Option "AccelMethod" "exa"
Option "MigrationHeuristic" "greedy"
EndSection
- Optional: install client-side-windows Gtk+ branch (helps Gtk+ scrolling and resize).
I really hope you will get the same boost I had, and I’m looking forward to newer Intel drivers: it is just question of time… the team rewrote both xorg driver and the DRM code to ensure a great future to these video cards, and the performance drop is physiological to the transition… I suspect UXA will achieve those performance in less than a year…
Posted in ArchLinux, English, GNOME Do, GTK, Howto | 6 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 »
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 | 23 Comments »
UPDATE: should be out soon http://download.gnome.org/sources/murrine/0.90/
I’m still not sure but maybe I will publish a Murrine development release in this weekend (with development I mean it won’t be called 1.0, maybe 0.90 or similar).
I’d like to have it included in Jaunty, because ubuntu is actually shipping an old bugged svn snapshot and I’m a bit tired of closing bugreports about that obsolete version.
If you have some last requests, please take a look at that post.
Posted in English, GTK, Murrine, Themes | 2 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 »
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 | 73 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 »
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