March 2014 – Lubuntu

27 Mar

Trusty Tahr β2

Almost there! A new beta has been released at the mirrors, Lubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr beta 2. You already know all the stuff: a few improvements, updated packages, lots of fixes, etc. Look, we were busy:

pcmanfm 1.2.0 (folder settings, dual pane view, menu editing)
artwork (new icons, theme update, more compatibilities)
new interface for lxsession-default-apps
firefox fixings

But still beta, remember. Don’t use in a productive system. Download ISOs from here. Read the release notes here. The schedule calendar is here.

24 Mar

PCManFM actions

PCManFM is the default file & desktop manager for Lubuntu. It’s a simple and fast file manager, but its simplicity is now enhanced by providing us the unlimited power of customized actions, like other file managers (Nautilus, Thunar, etc). For that purpose I made another Trips and Tricks section, called Actions.

This feature (available on recent versions of PCManFM and Lubuntu 14.04) will allow you to do virtually everything, like converting MP3 to OGG, MP4 to AVI, compress a JPEG, reduce a PDF size, send a file via bluetooth, etc. For now only a couple of actions are included for now. If you made nice actions, please share with us and the entire world sending them. I’ll add them to the list, and we hope it gets bigger and more complete. Share!

16 Mar

Countdown clock

I’d like to thank our friend and collaborator Corbin Davenport for this. Specially when I used to be a pain in the neck, asking for the new clock day after day, and I must say the result is, as always, really amazing (have a look on your right). You can use it on your own website. Just copy and paste this HTML code:

<iframe src=”http://ubuntuone.com/2mnKK5WN8YIBIS4TCtBBuD” style=”width:170px; height:128px; border:1px;”>There was an error loading the countdown.</iframe>

If you want the original clocks (for Ubuntu too) watch this at Corbin’s website. Lubuntu 14.04 (Trusty Tahr) wil be released following the general Ubuntu release schedule (more or less). Check it out at the release table for dates.

12 Mar

Dark panel theme

Due to popular demand, another variant was added to the Box theme for Lubuntu. Now you can use dark panels and adapted icons aswell. These modifications will be available in the downloads sections very soon. Also, the upcoming release of Lubuntu will include it.

This is how the panel looks with both themes:

11 Mar

[Results] Community wallpaper contest

The results are in and the winners are… or rather, the winner is:

Cleide Isabel! She managed to grab the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th place with her photos: ‘Vista Do Fitz Roy’, ‘Vale’, ‘Arvore’, ‘Daisie’ and ‘Copan02’.

http://picompete.com/contest/results/1311/lubuntu-14-04-community-wallpaper-contest/

Congratulations! Full results and statistics can be viewed over at Picompete by clicking here.

A big thank you goes out to Guillaume (the owner of Picompete) who once again helped us host our community contest. Guillaume is not only a supporter of Lubuntu but also a supporter of open source, and he welcomes other open source projects to use his service free of charge.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the contest by either submitting wallpapers or voting. We really enjoy letting you all be a part of Lubuntu in some way and that’s why we do this contest. Thank you all for your continued support!

06 Mar

Ubuntu community survey 2014

Another year, our fellow (and Ubuntu member) Nathan Heafner prepared the Ubuntu community survey, a simple and quick test (no more than 2 minutes, trust me) whose results will help a lot to the entire community of those (like us!) who make Ubuntu and its flavours more secure, useable and beautiful. You’ll be asked about your preferred desktop (I’m sure it’s LXDE for Lubuntu), web browser, if you prefer using a mail client or not, if you want a startup sound, etc.

Please, feel free to answer these questions here.

03 Mar

[Poll] Community wallpaper contest

Ladies and gentlemen, cast your votes!

The poll that will decide our additional wallpapers for Trusty Tahr is now up and running. To cast your vote head here and choose your five favorite wallpapers.

The poll will continue until March 11th, and the top five contributions
will be included in Lubuntu 14.04 and packaged into the Ubuntu
repositories.

Spread the word and good luck to all contestants!