Author Archives: RedWolf

14 Aug

A few things

First of all, let me introduce this article with a major update on PCManFM and LibFM. It reaches up to 1.0 with a lot of changes and memory leak fixing. Literally, from the author:

This is a historic milestone for PCManFM and libfm. For some things you have waited years to get there, for other things it’s only been 10 months (since last release) but we can now bring you a MAJOR (really!) update. Mainly thanks to the work done by Andriy lately but ofc building on top of shoulders of giants who laid the foundation earlier. Just check the changelogs, they keep going on and on and on!

The changes ranges from minor things, nice features (multiple wall papers anyone?) to fixing memory leaks and crashes. And we can already spot the next minor feature upgrade of this bundle. Give 1.0 a good spin and report bugs in the tracker.

Via LXDE blog.

Also, the Box icon theme is being complete, as we need to substitue completey the Elementary dependencies. So the new mini icons are in progress and, of course, following the Lubuntu / Box design guidelines:

02 Aug

Box icon theme

The new Box icon theme is (almost) finished, already pushed up onto Launchpad for being merged with *buntu repos. So, if you’re a lucky person because you installed Lubuntu 😀 then a simple update will change the icons to the new ones soon. But if you don’t like them don’t worry, the original Elementarized is still there.

This was an extremely hard work. Every icon is being retouched pixel by pixel so you c an get a nice interface and you’ll be comfortable with your desktop. I’d like to dedicate this theme to my “mentor” and inspiration icon guy, Jakub “Jimmac” Steiner, and of course, Dan Rabitt, the creator of Elementary, both obligatory references in the interface design scene. Oh, and to all the Lubuntu crew, specially the one who usually saves my life designing with me, Alexander Andjelkovich, another member of the Lubuntu Artwork Team.

09 Jul

PCManFM 1.0

PCManFM is arriving “dangerously” to 1.0 final (now it’s jusrt a release candidate). A lot of improvements within, like external thumbnailer support, new file attribute dialog, support for modifier keys on drag and drop, symbolic link creation, individual wallpapers per desktop and documentation. See the changes and download (if you  like to compile by yourself). Or wait for Lubuntu repos update. It won’t be too late.

Via LXDE Blog.

02 Jul

Quantal UI Improvements

The Lubuntu Artwork Team is not sleeping. We’re getting some UI revamped elements, improving the current theme and getting it to a higher level. Among the icon theme (being exhaustely developed), the GTK2 / GTK3 themes had been redesigned (for both looking better and integrate between them). Look how the PCManFM’s toolbar look now:

Also, I’d like to remember to any reader and user that the Wallpaper Contest is still open and we accept submissions. Create a wallpaper and we will include it on the Quantal distro. Remember, you could be famous! Check it out at Flickr.

21 Jun

Audacious 3.3 alpha

The default audio player of Lubuntu has get a new and revamped interface with lots of UI improvements, like the “lcd” screen, move the controls to a primary toolbar (better for use in Gnome), and a new genre column. Also, all these changes were added to the list:

  • the MPRIS2 plugin now supports seeking and getting/setting the volume
  • the search tool plugin is more inteligent and lets you search by artist, album and song title simultaneously and also, more info is displayed when searching
  • new search tool shortcut (CTRL + Y) using the GTK interface
  • partially re-written core output code
  • new “speed and pitch” plugin (replacing SndStretch)
  • fixed audio conversions so that bit-perfect playback for 16 and 24 bit audio files
  • GIO transport plugin enabled by default, supporting ftp://, sftp://, and smb:// URI protocols
  • the LIRC plugin has been re-added to Audacious (it was missing in the 3.x series)
  • a new output plugin has been added for OpenBSD’s sndio audio system
  • the OSSv3 output plugin has been removed
  • a global hotkey can be assigned to raise/focus Audacious
  • Audacious now only supports GTK3
If you want to install this update do this at the terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/unstable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install audacious

Via: WebUpd8.
11 Jun

LXPanel 0.5.10

Updates from LXDE blog:

Some weeks ago we gave you 0.5.9, this time some changes has been made to the plugins distributed with LXPanel and thus we put a new version for your feets. Given the translation status in this release a new version is very probably coming out soon as most languages did not get their strings to 100% done.

And the best, automatically passed through the GIT to the Ubuntu general repos., so this time you don’t have to wait. Also, small updates on PCManFM and its libraries also happened today. Great news, indeed. Thanks, brother, for the info.
06 Jun

Audacious 3.2.3

Interesting news for all Lubuntu users, because the default audio player of the distro, Audacious, has been update, but don’t think about big changes on the interface or such, this version solves the folowing bugs:

  • jump to song search results do not include songs not yet scanned for metadata (bug #91)
  • equalizer presets don’t survive app restart (bug #99)
  • add MimeType=inode/directory; to audacious.desktop (feature #102)
  • jump to song doesn’t respond to enter at the first place (bug #108)
  • HSP file causes segfault (bug #111)
  • ogg vorbis detection and linking issues (bug #113)
  • show song numbers and leading zeroes not adopted directly (bug #114)

Audacious will be updated soon on Lubuntu systems but, if you want to have them fixed now, you’ll need to install via the WebUpd8 PPA. Instructions (with a terminal):

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y audacious audacious-plugins

Via Ubuntips.
01 Jun

LibreOffice speed update

Yesterday, the LibreOffice Foundation, posted about a really important update of his office solution suite. For every Linux user (including Lubuntu users who installed this) is highly recommendable to upgrade. The goal is achieving up to a 100% speed improvement. It’s indicated for low hardware spec computers and those who use Lubuntu as primary OS, specially when managing big files. To update up to the version 3.5.4 you’ll need to add the PPA, using a terminal, and do the magic:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:libreoffice/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Read the full article at Linux Today.

[21:47 EDIT]

Thanks, Jason (see comments), for inspiring me to be more clear when posting. So here are my replies:

  • LibreOffice.org is not the official web for the suite, just a blog portal for news. The Document Foundation (owners of this fork) is who published the update. You can read the article. They are the makers of the suite
  • About the percentage, it’s obvious. Normaly you can afford an improvement of a 5 or 10%, but this time, speed was increased a 100% PLUS over the current loading speed, thus the resulting overall performance may be up to a 200%
  • About the PPA, well, this repository is maintained by those who later (after testing a few days) will upload to the general catalog of Ubuntu. So, if you don’t trust this PPA, you don’t trust Ubuntu coders. This is not a nightly, daily or testing PPA, it’s a release one

I think I’ve been clear enough. I’d never post nothing without verification. Or is this comment a troll itself?

28 May

LXScreenhot & LXFind

The great Stefano has been working hard for this updates. The new apps are really simple, efficient and fast, very close to the Lubuntu philosophy. Also, new icons for them were created, using the Lubuntu Box (the forthcoming theme) design guides:

If you want to test them just do this on a terminal (ignore the first line if you already added the additional Lubuntu Desktop PPA) :

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:lubuntu-desktop/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y lxscreenshot lxfind

25 May

Mocking up!

There’s no time for sleeping. Or maybe yes, and dreaming about the perfect interface. So we at Lubuntu Artwork Team are still active, never forget this 🙂 Now thinking about a new icon proposal, a new GTK / Openbox theme and, of course, a new brand official wallpaper for this sweet flavour of Ubuntu. In a few weeks the contest for wallpaper submissions will be open, and we are waiting for your ideas and designs. The Lubuntu Blog will post the Flickr address soon for uploading your creations. The selection will be part of the Lubuntu Community Wallpapers package, and one of them could be yours!