Theming in Ubuntu problems.

[luciusad2004]

Hey guys. Quick question.

I'm usuing Ubuntu. I think its the latest version, ive installed it w/ in the last month.

Anyway. I was messing w/ my themes and whatnot but i just noticed that when i switch to another theme my window decorations (the border and titlebar) don't change w/ it. I recently installed the Emerald theming engine. and i think that may be the root of my problems. I noticed alot of sublte new things when i did that and it seems that i CAN make changes to the window decorations from w/in the Emerald theme manager. Has emerald overtaken the normal theme manager? Is there anyway to fix this? Is there anything that makes the Emerald manger better (read: A reason why i should use the emerald manger instead.)

All in all im just really confused by this and theming in general. Anyone table to tell me whats going on?

Thanks

PS. I see alot of screen shots were ppl have system stats all down their desktop. It looks like text just sitting on their desktop. Anyone know how to do this?

Edit: I figured out whats going on. Its kinda frustrating having to use two seperate theme managers to screw w/ the overall feel of my desktop. At the same time though i have herad that the emerald theme engine is better. I wish i could edit it from the regular theme management utility though. I'm not sure yet, but depending on how i feel in a little while i may try and remove emerald, or i may keep it.

[Drum Thumper]

I'd have to reboot my computer and log into my installation of Ubuntu to confirm this, but you should be able to remove the offending package manager with Synaptic.

[OvRiDe]

I just recently tried out the Wubi installer on my main machine. I have to say I have been almost completely Windows free for a week. At least at home. I haven't really been gaming much lately so I figured I would give Wubi a shot. Now that being said, I am NOT new to linux, just normally the machines (servers) have no need for a window manager at all, since I don't want to give up any system resource to it, and/or they are remote and I only access them via ssh anyway. When I have loaded the Desktop versions they are usually on older systems that I have laying around, so this time around I loaded it on something with a bit more lead in its pencil, and I have to say Compiz is a very nice addition to the desktop. I have used it in the past a bit, but like I said most of my systems couldn't really handle the advanced effects. So back to the question at hand.. what I have surmised is that Emerald controls the Window Trim.. basically title bars, close buttons etc.. but you still have to use GTK2 or Metacity themes to control stuff like scroll bars, text buttons, progress bars etc.

Also if you are using Hardy Heron (8.04), there has been a change to some of the structure for the GTK2 themes and quite a few themes from Gnome-look did not work properly for me. In a few cases I found fixes posted in the comments.

To answer the question about why you would use Emerald over the other managers is purely for eyecandy. It adds some features that GTK2 and Metacity are not able to accomplish. Probably the one that stands out the most is true transparency for the window borders etc. Some of the others try to emulate it by snap shotting the section of the background that is where the title bar is and replacing the background of the title bar.

Hope this helps...

[luciusad2004]

I just recently tried out the Wubi installer on my main machine. I have to say I have been almost completely Windows free for a week. At least at home. I haven't really been gaming much lately so I figured I would give Wubi a shot. Now that being said, I am NOT new to linux, just normally the machines (servers) have no need for a window manager at all, since I don't want to give up any system resource to it, and/or they are remote and I only access them via ssh anyway. When I have loaded the Desktop versions they are usually on older systems that I have laying around, so this time around I loaded it on something with a bit more lead in its pencil, and I have to say Compiz is a very nice addition to the desktop. I have used it in the past a bit, but like I said most of my systems couldn't really handle the advanced effects. So back to the question at hand.. what I have surmised is that Emerald controls the Window Trim.. basically title bars, close buttons etc.. but you still have to use GTK2 or Metacity themes to control stuff like scroll bars, text buttons, progress bars etc.

Also if you are using Hardy Heron (8.04), there has been a change to some of the structure for the GTK2 themes and quite a few themes from Gnome-look did not work properly for me. In a few cases I found fixes posted in the comments.

To answer the question about why you would use Emerald over the other managers is purely for eyecandy. It adds some features that GTK2 and Metacity are not able to accomplish. Probably the one that stands out the most is true transparency for the window borders etc. Some of the others try to emulate it by snap shotting the section of the background that is where the title bar is and replacing the background of the title bar.

Hope this helps...

Thanks for the responses guys. I ended up uninstalling emerald. I liked some of the functionality, but it made things more complex than i thought they had to be. I just didn't like have to use two separate theme managers to control my interface, that feels broken to me, even though i know it was working fine. Thanks for explaining the way it works.

I still had that other question about the system monitor that i see everyone using that displays the text on their desktop. I'll try to find a screenshot so i can better show what im talking about.

[OvRiDe]

Doh.. sorry I got carried away with the other part and forgot that one.. I think the one you are probably seeing is Conky..

http://conky.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html

Another one I used back when I first started using linux was gkrellm.

Let me know if thats the one you were thinking of.

[luciusad2004]

That looks pretty similar. I was thinking that's what it was the other day so i downloaded it but i couldn't figure out how to get it "embedded" over my desktop, instead of just sitting in a window. I thought maybe i had the wrong thing.

Edit: I found some stuff on HowToForge that told me how to make it look the way i always see it. I'll give it a try next time i boot in to Linux.

I never learned to set up true dual boot so whenever i want to Change OS i have to plug in my other HDD : /

Edit: LOL, i broke conky i think. I followed some stuff on HowToFordge and ended up trying to edit the conky configuration file. Well, i don't know how to use vi, so when it came time to save i couldn't figure it out. I ended up just closing the terminal window in frustration and from that point on i can't get conky to open. I tried reinstalling but that didn't help me at all. Oh well.

[.Maleficus.]

I've got Conky on my install. In my review of Hardy I believe I've got a screen of my Conky setup. If you want to have it look like mine, I can send you my .conkyrc (the config file). Paste it into a file called .conkyrc in your home directory (in my case /home/andy) and you should be set.

[luciusad2004]

I've got Conky on my install. In my review of Hardy I believe I've got a screen of my Conky setup. If you want to have it look like mine, I can send you my .conkyrc (the config file). Paste it into a file called .conkyrc in your home directory (in my case /home/andy) and you should be set.

Actually, that's exactly what i was thinking of. Did you want to send it to my email or were you just gonna post it up in here?

Thanks

[.Maleficus.]

# Create own window instead of using desktop (required in nautilus)
own_window no
own_window_type override
own_window_transparent yes
own_window_hints undecorated,below,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager

# Use double buffering (reduces flicker, may not work for everyone)
double_buffer yes

# fiddle with window
use_xft yes

# Update interval in seconds
update_interval 3.0

# Minimum size of text area
# minimum_size 250 5

# Draw shades?
draw_shades no

# Text stuff
draw_outline no # amplifies text if yes
draw_borders no
xftfont You Rook Marbelous:size=8
uppercase no # set to yes if you want all text to be in uppercase

# Stippled borders?
stippled_borders 3

# border margins
border_margin 9

# border width
border_width 10

# Default colors and also border colors, grey90 == #e5e5e5
default_color e5e5e5

own_window_colour black
own_window_transparent yes

# Text alignment, other possible values are commented
#alignment top_left
alignment top_right
#alignment bottom_left
#alignment bottom_right

# Gap between borders of screen and text
gap_x 15
gap_y 37

# stuff after 'TEXT' will be formatted on screen

TEXT
$color
${color e5e5e5}SYSTEM ${hr 5}$color
$nodename $sysname $kernel on $machine
$uptime

${color e5e5e5}${pre_exec cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep 'model name' | sed -e 's/model name.*: //'} ${hr 5}$color
${freq_dyn}MHz Load: ${loadavg} Temp: ${acpitemp}
$cpubar
${cpugraph 000000 ffffff}

${color e5e5e5}PROCESSES ${hr 5}$color
Process Number: $processes Running: $running_processes

${color e5e5e5}HIGHEST CPU ${stippled_hr 1}$color
NAME${alignr 9}PID CPU% MEM%
${top name 1}${alignr 9}${top pid 1} ${top cpu 1} ${top mem 1}
${top name 2}${alignr 9}${top pid 2} ${top cpu 2} ${top mem 2}
${top name 3}${alignr 9}${top pid 3} ${top cpu 3} ${top mem 3}
${top name 4}${alignr 9}${top pid 4} ${top cpu 4} ${top mem 4}

${color e5e5e5}HIGHEST MEM ${stippled_hr 1}$color
NAME${alignr 9}PID CPU% MEM%
${top_mem name 1}${alignr 9}${top_mem pid 1} ${top_mem cpu 1} ${top_mem mem 1}
${top_mem name 2}${alignr 9}${top_mem pid 2} ${top_mem cpu 2} ${top_mem mem 2}
${top_mem name 3}${alignr 9}${top_mem pid 3} ${top_mem cpu 3} ${top_mem mem 3}
${top_mem name 4}${alignr 9}${top_mem pid 4} ${top_mem cpu 4} ${top_mem mem 4}

${color e5e5e5}RAM ${hr 5}$color
$mem / $memmax
$memperc% ${membar 6}$color

${color e5e5e5}SWAP ${hr 5}$color
$swap / $swapmax
$swapperc% ${swapbar 6}$color

${color e5e5e5}HARDDRIVE ${hr 5}$color
Total: ${fs_used /} / ${fs_size /}
${fs_free_perc /}% ${fs_bar 6 /}$color

${color e5e5e5}NETWORK (${addr wlan0}) ${hr 5}$color
Down: $color${downspeed wlan0} k/s ${alignr}Up: ${upspeed wlan0} k/s
${downspeedgraph eth0 25,140 000000 00ff00} ${alignr}${upspeedgraph wlan0 25,140 000000 ff0000}$color
Total: ${totaldown wlan0} ${alignr}Total: ${totalup wlan0}
Inbound: ${tcp_portmon 1 32767 count} ${alignr}Outbound: ${tcp_portmon 32768 61000 count}
Total: ${tcp_portmon 1 65535 count}


${color e5e5e5}MAIL ${hr 5}$color
${execi 20 sylpheed-claws-gtk2 --status}
.conkyrc


Edit: You will need to change some things to make it more custom, like email stuff and internet (my internet stuff is currently all wlan0, if you're on ethernet change it to eth0, etc).

[luciusad2004]

Thanks .mal. Whenver my Gf gets off my comp ill give it a shot.

Edit:

Any idea on how hard it would be to set up a proper dual boot system? I have Ubuntu on one HDD and XP on another. Would this require reinstalling either or would it be as simple as plugging both drives in and configuring GRUB?

Edit2:


Can't find any good info via google regarding this situation.

[nevermind1534]

I think GRUB could be configured in this way. My parents' computer and mine dual-boot with xp64 and linux, although they are on a single hard drive.

[.Maleficus.]

I think GRUB could be configured in this way. My parents' computer and mine dual-boot with xp64 and linux, although they are on a single hard drive.
GRUB will configure it straight away. I've got a dual boot with XP and Ubuntu on one hard drive, and it can even be made into a triple or quad boot. If you want you can use Wubi to install via Windows, or if you are feeling daring you can partition off your Windows install and then install on the empty partition.

[luciusad2004]

Got Conky working mostly. Thanks Mal. I still don't have everything working right, for instance the network monitor isn't reporting anything back. Well... i don't think it is, it doesn't list an IP address or anything. And i wasn't sure how to set up the email stuff, but thats ok, I'm not sure i want information about my Email on my desktop.

I was gonna give you some rep, but i have to spread it around more i guess. Sry

Edit: I also might not worry bout the dual boot thing for now. I'm gonna try to switch primarily to Linux w/ the exception of when i game. I made my GF an account after telling her that it has all the programs she uses in windows anyway. I'll probably revert back to windows when school comes around. I'm not sure what I'll be doing in programming this year, but if its more Java, I'll be using windows.

[.Maleficus.]

What's you internet connection called? Is it something like eth0, wlan0, rausb0? You'll have to open the .conkyrc, scroll to the bottom and replace every instance of wlan0 with the one that applies for your connection. Then, kill the Conky process (Terminal > killall conky) and start it back up (Terminal > conky).

[luciusad2004]

I did that before running conky. I used the graphical text editor and used the find feature to find all instances of wlan0 and repaced them w/ etho0. I did notice that the graphical display works, but nothing else regarding my network status seems to work.

Also, is there a way to make it start on login?

[.Maleficus.]

I did that before running conky. I used the graphical text editor and used the find feature to find all instances of wlan0 and repaced them w/ etho0. I did notice that the graphical display works, but nothing else regarding my network status seems to work.

Also, is there a way to make it start on login?
I don't know if you just typo-ed right now, but you have etho0, which definitely won't work.

And you can make it start at boot, however it never works for me. I always have to pop open a terminal and get it started.

[luciusad2004]

That fixed it. I must have read through fast and not noticed it was just eth0. etho0 just made sense. Thanks mal.

[luciusad2004]

Anybody know of an easy way to install fonts? I just thought i would ask before i try any of the stuff i found on Google. Font management is sort of disappointing me. For as easy as it is to customize just about everything else, it seems theres no easy way to add and manage fonts.