SUSE & openSUSE » desktop

PC Man File Manager for Linux in openSUSE

admin — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 22:51:22 +0000

PC Man File Manager is a simple elegant fast light weight and a very user-friendly File manager for Linux with tabbed browsing and support for file drag n drop between the tabs.

Features include

Extremly fast & lightweight

Tabbed browsing support

Built-in volume management (mount/umount/eject through HAL)

Built-in file searching utility (GUI frontend for the UNIX find + grep command)

Drag & Drop support with drag and drop between tabs

Load large directories in reasonable time

File association support (Default application)

Thumbnail for image files

Bookmarks support

Handles non-UTF-8 encoded filenames correctly

Provides icon view, compact view, and detailed list view

Standard compliant (Follows FreeDesktop.org)

Clean and user-friendly interface (GTK+ 2)

Install PC Man File Manager (pcmanfm)

pcmanfm required gamin to be installed as a pre-requisite. Install gamin as follows:

opensuse11:~ # yast2 -i gamin

Once the installation completes we can proceed to install pcmanfm.

To install PC Man File Manager, click this supported on openSUSE 11.1/11.0/10.3/10.2 from packman. This should download the YMP file and automatically launch the YaST package manager to add the required Repositories and download and install pcmanfm and the required dependencies. Click next on the pcmanfm installation screen and Next again on the installation proposal window. This should start adding the required repositories, download and install pcmanfm and its required dependencies. Click Finish when the installation completes successfully.

NOTE: Click here for a how to on enabling 1-click install in openSUSE 10.2

This should install PC Man File Manager (pcmanfm) under Applications – System – File Manager as File Manager (PC Man File Manager). click File Manager to launch it for the first time.

To set default preferences including setting the terminal program (here I choose kconsole), click Edit – Preference.

View options can be changed between Thumbnail, list or Detailed list.

Click the + icon or File – New tab menu item to open another tab as you would in a browser like Firefox if you want to use mutiple tabs under pcmanfm.

Click here to visit the project homepage.

Baobab – Disk Analysis tool in openSUSE (GNOME/KDE4)

admin — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 21:45:51 +0000

Baobab is a C/gtk+ application to analyse disk usage in any Gnome environment. Baobab can easily scan either the whole filesystem tree, or a specific user-requested directory branch either on the local system or on a remote system. It also includes a complete file-search functionality and auto-detects in real-time any changes made to your home directory as far as any mounted/unmounted device. Baobab also provides a full graphical treemap window for each selected folder.

When analyzing the file system, it ignores the psuedi File systems like /proc. Hard-links are managed in a different way. The first hardlink is counted as a normal file, while the subsequent links to the same inode device are not counted in the total, but highlighted in the right-hand column of the window (see here).

Install Baobab

There aren’t any 1-click install packages for Baobab and hence we need to install from source.

Install Pre-requisites

opensuse11:~ # yast2 -i binutils make gcc gtk2-devel libgtop libgtop-devel

Download Baobab

Download Baobab from here

To download from terminal

opensuse11:~ # wget http://www.marzocca.net/linux/downloads/baobab-2.4.2.tar.gz

Unzip & Untar downloaded source

opensuse11:~ # tar -zxvf baobab-2.4.2.tar.gz

Change Directory Configure & Compile

opensuse11:~ # cd baobab-2.4.2

opensuse11:~/baobab-2.4.2# ./configure –prefix=/usr

opensuse11:~/baobab-2.4.2# make && make install

This should run the configure script and then compile and install Baobab on your openSUSE. This will install Baobab under /usr/bin/baobab.

It adds the Baobab menu item under “Applications – Utilities – More Programs” in KDE4 or in GNOME under “Applications – Utilities”.

Launch Baobab from menu or from a terminal window. To scan the complete File System, click the FileSystem icon. To scan a specific folder, Click “Action – Scan selected folder”

To enable Auto-detect for real-time monitoring, Click “File – Preferences” menu item from where you can not only enable auto-detect but also select the file systems to scan.

You can also generate a graphical map, click “View – Graphical folder map”.

Baobab is a simple GUI tool for Disk analysis and can smoothly work in KDE4 and GNOME environments. Click here to visit the project homepage.

Katapult – KDE application launcher in openSUSE Linux

admin — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 18:06:57 +0000

When I wrote about GNOME-Do here, one of our readers “James D” suggested Katapult application launcher for KDE. Inspired by QuickSilver for Mac OS X, Katapult is an application launcher for KDE designed to allow faster access to applications, bookmarks, and other items. It is plugin-based, so it can launch anything that is has a plugin for. Its display is driven by plugins as well, so its appearance is completely customizable. It was inspired by Quicksilver for OS X.

Install Katapult

Katapult can be installed using one of the following 1-click installs based on your openSUSE version.

openSUSE 11.0 ( Katapult-0.3.2.1-123.1)

openSUSE 10.3 ( Katapult-0.3.2.1-36)

openSUSE 10.2 (katapult-0.3.2.1-68.1)

NOTE: Click here to enable 1-click install in openSUSE 10.2

This should download the YaST MetaPackage file (YMP) and launch the YaST Package manager for installation. Click next on the window showing the selected repositories and next again on the package selection window and finally click Next on the installation proposal window. This should add the required repositories (click import when prompted to import the GPG Keys) and install “Katapult” and required dependencies. Click Finish when the installation is completed succesfully.

This installs Katapult under “Applications – Utilities – Desktop” as “Application launcher“. Click Application launcher to start Katapult for the first time. Katapult sits in the system tray. Click on the icon or press + and start typing. When it disappears in the background, use + again to bring it to front.

To configure Katapult, press + and then + and select “Configure Katapult” or simply right-click on Katapult system tray icon and select “Configure Katapult”

Lets get Katapult in action,

Do a Google search

To search for your keyword in google, type “google keyword”.

Amarok

Start Amarok by typing “am”

Spell check

To perform a spell check type “spell

Calculator

To perform calculations, start typing with numbers

Katapult isn’t as powerful as GNOME Do but certainly a very good application launcher for KDE users. Click here to visit the project homepage.

GNOME Do – Launcher tool to search and launch applications files and more

admin — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 21:56:58 +0000

“GNOME Do” has to be one of the coolest tool that I’ve seen in the recent few days. GNOME Do (Do) is an intelligent launcher tool that makes performing common tasks on your computer simple and efficient. “GNOME Do” not only allows you to search for items in your desktop environment (e.g. applications, contacts, bookmarks, files, music), it also allows you to specify actions to perform on search results (e.g. run, open, email, chat, play).

GNOME Do provides instantaneous, action-oriented desktop search results that adapt to reflect your habits and preferences. Unlike other search tools that present search results as flat, homogeneous lists, “GNOME Do” provides familiar graphical depictions of search results that assure you that your intent is being realized correctly; searching for “mom” will show a picture of mom (if you had your moms picturer and indeed the filename had mom in it).

“GNOME Do” works reasonably well with KDE environment as well.
Install GNOME Do

“GNOME Do” can be installed using one of the following 1-click installs based on your openSUSE version.

openSUSE 11.0 ( GNOME Do 0.6.1.0-4.1)

openSUSE 10.3 ( GNOME Do 0.5.99.0-1.1)

openSUSE 10.2 (GNOME Do 4.2.0-5.1)

NOTE: Click here to enable 1-click install in openSUSE 10.2

This should download the YaST MetaPackage file (YMP) and launch the YaST Package manager for installation. Click next on the window showing the selected repositories and next again on the package selection window and finally click Next on the installation proposal window. This should add the required repositories (click import when prompted to import the GPG Keys) and install “GNOME Do” and required dependencies. Click Finish when the installation is completed succesfully.

This should add “GNOME Do” under “Applications – Utilities“. Click “GNOME Do” to launch it for the first time.

GNOME Do can make your keyboard a new mouse with almost anything can be searched or launched using the “arrow keys”, tab key. “Do” can extend upto 3 tabs. For instance, here I search for VLC on tab “1″ and then found it…Now what, press tab key and select the most appropriate action “Run”. At anytime, in any of the tab, use the down arrow key to find more than one option. For instance, when I type “VL” while searching for something that has VL in it shows up VLS as the first option. What if, I was looking for something else, press your Down arrow and it should show up any other option available. Similarly in the “Action” tab, if you are not looking for “Run”, click the down arrow to find more options.

GNOME Do gets even more interesting and special when you install and use the plugins available “GNOME Do”.Plugins here enhance and extend the functionality of GNOME Do. For instance, you can use “Google Maps” plugin to map a location on google maps or with Google Calendar plugin you can search. create or browse google calendar events. Plugin architecture is always something that attracts my special attention in any software.

On the top right corner, click the Arrow and click preferences, to edit general settings like launching “GNOME Do” at the start up or to enable or Disable plugins.

Installing Plugins

As of “GNOME Do” version 0.5 all plugins listed as “working” or “stable” can be installed using the “Plugins” tab. You also can manually install plugins by putting the DLL file in ~/.local/share/gnome-do/plugins and restarting GNOME Do. For GNOME Do 0.4 (openSUSE 10.2 version we use here), download the DLL files, put them in ~/.local/share/gnome-do/plugins and then restart Do.

The list of official and community plugins can be found here

Click here to visit the project home page where you can also find more useful documentation for “GNOME Do”!

Byzanz – free opensource Desktop Recording (command-line) tool

admin — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 21:55:15 +0000

Byzanz is a free opensource GNOME based Command-Line utility to capture desktop recording software for linux. This should probably be the coolest command-line utility that I have seen in recent days. Byzanz records your desktop session to an animated GIF. You can record your entire screen, a single window, an arbitrary region or even follow the cursor. Given that it is only a GIF format makes it even more an intersting proposition as the file size is going to be very small.

Install Byzanz

To install Byzanz on your openSUSE, click one of the following 1-click installers based on your openSUSE Linux version

openSUSE 11.0

openSUSE 10.3

openSUSE 10.2

NOTE: Click here to enable 1-click install in openSUSE 10.2

This should download the YaST MetaPackage file (YMP) for Byzanz and launch the YaST Package manager for installation. Click next on the window showing the selected repositories and next again on the package selection window and finally click Next on the installation proposal window. This should add the required repositories (click import when prompted to import the GPG Keys) and install byzanz package and the required dependencies. Click Finish when the installation is completed succesfully.

This installs the executable byzabz-recorder under /usr/bin

opensuse11:/ # which byzanz-record
/usr/bin/byzanz-record

To record a simple 10 second clip on your desktop,

opensuse11:~ # byzanz-record desk.gif

NOTE: Click the above image to view the desktop recording
The default duration or the delay for the recording is 10seconds. However, this can be set to your required duration as follows:

opensuse11:~ # byzanz-record –delay=100 desk.gif

To follow the cursor where you can capture the windows opened by your mouse click as follows

opensuse11:~ # byzanz-record –delay=100 -c desk.gif

In the above the “-c” option follows your cursor

To customize the size of the final image (height & width)

opensuse11:~ # byzanz-record –delay=100 –height=300 –width=300 desk.gif

To set the starting point of your recording (X & Y co-ordinates on your screen),

opensuse11:~ # byzanz-record –x=100 –y=300 desk.gif

For more options use the help option

opensuse11:~ # byzanz-record –help
Usage:
byzanz-record [OPTION...] record your current desktop session

Help Options:
-?, –help               Show help options
–help-all               Show all help options
–help-gtk               Show GTK+ Options

Application Options:
-d, –duration=SECS      Duration of animation (default: 10 seconds)
–delay=SECS             Delay before start (default: 1 second)
-l, –loop               Let the animation loop
-c, –cursor             Record mouse cursor
-x, –x=PIXEL            X coordinate of rectangle to record
-y, –y=PIXEL            Y coordinate of rectangle to record
-w, –width=PIXEL        Width of recording rectangle
-h, –height=PIXEL       Height of recording rectangle
-v, –verbose            Be verbose
–display=DISPLAY        X display to use

Xarchiver – Light-weight desktop independent archive manager in openSUSE

admin — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 23:20:49 +0000

Xarchiver is a lightweight desktop independent archive manager built with the GTK+2 toolkit. Xarchiver has been designed from the ground up to be fast and easy-to-use. Its user interface is clean and intuitive, and does not include any confusing or useless options. Xarchiver includes support for 7-zip, arj, bzip2, gzip, rar, lha, deb, rpm (works without the RPM executable), tar and zip archives through the relevant command line tools. Password detection is automatic for arj, zip and rar files. Password encryption is available for these file types, as well as 7-zip. Xarchiver can also generate self-extracting binaries from zip and 7-zip archives. It supports drag and drop through the XDS protocol, and Firefox-like tabs.

Install Xarchiver

Xarchiver can be installed using one of the following 1-click installs based on your openSUSE version.

openSUSE 11.0

openSUSE 10.3

openSUSE 10.2

This should download the YaST MetaPackage file (YMP) for Xarchiver and launch the YaST Package manager for installation. Click next on the window showing the selected repositories and next again on the package selection window and finally click Next on the installation proposal window. This should add the required repositories (click import when prompted to import the GPG Keys) and install Xarchiver and required dependencies. Click Finish when the installation is completed succesfully.

This should add Xarchiver to “Applications – Utilities – Archiving” menu as “Archive Manager”

Click “Archive manager” to launch Xarchiver.

To open an existing Archive file (tar.gz) for instance, click File -open menu and click the archive file and click Extract button.

In the extract screen, select the extract to location, select the option “All” or “Only Selected” and extract options like “overwrite existing files” or “Extract files in Full path” and click extract.

To create a new Archive file, click File – new and enter the file name and then choose the Archive type (Tar or tar.gz or tar.bz) and then select files that needs to be added to the archive.

Xarchiver is a simple lightweight Archiver for Linux. Click here to visit the project homepage

Yahoo! Zimbra Desktop – all in one desktop application for openSUSE

admin — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 20:47:49 +0000

Yahoo! Zimbra Desktop is free opensource all in one desktop software for Windows,Linux, MacOS. When I say all in one software, I mean its a fully featured desktop software with email, Calendar, Documents, Contact Manager, Tasks and briefcase. Zimbra Desktop supports configuring an email account on a Zimbra server or yahoo, gmail, aol, Microsoft Exchange IMAP or infact any Pop/IMAP account from a service provider like your ISP. Zimbra can work online or completely offline and there is no storage limitation.

The interface is easy to use and much user friendly and eye catchy, more like your yaoo email online.

Highlighting features include

Email

* Easily management of emails with ‘Drag and drop’ support
* Supports plain text and html message formatting
* email signatures for individual accounts
* Automatically reply with the correct ‘from’ address
* Online and Offline support

Conversation Views, Tags, and Search

* Collapse email threads into a single Conversation View to simplify your inbox
* Tag messages as important from people you care about
* Quickly search your mailbox for pictures, documents or text- even with attachments
* Use the visual Search Builder to easily search by folder, date, person, subject or attachment
* Save searches as Virtual Folders- for example “All email with attachments from Joe”

Web mash-ups

* View addresses as Yahoo! Maps
* Automatically detect your location and find points of interest with Yahoo! Local
* Preview web pages at thumbnails instead of opening a browser
* See your calendar schedule from within an email message if you hover over a date
* Web Search powered by Yahoo! is built directly into Zimbra Desktop

Contacts

* Store all your contacts in one place for all your accounts
* Create groups and tags to organize them
* Add photos to contacts
* Auto complete email addresses when composing email
* Easily import new contacts from other applications as .csv files or export contacts as .csv files for backup

Calendar

* Manage multiple color-coded calendars
* View calendars in Day, Week, Work Week, Month or List view
* ‘Drag and drop’ events to new days or to change times
* Import public web calendars (iCal format), such as sports schedules
* Invite others to meetings and view free/busy times

Documents, Tasks, Briefcase

* Edit Documents including add images, tables and spreadsheets; share them in email
* Track your to do’s including start and end dates, percent complete
* Save attachments in Briefcase rather than as message attachments
* Works with any account you set up

Install Yahoo! Zimbra Desktop

Unfortunately, there isn’t a 1-click installer for Yahoo! Zimbra desktop but having said that installation is not so difficult and in fact it is as simple as click a few “Next” buttons. Download the latest stable version of Zimbra Desktop from here

To download from a terminal,

saibaba@opensuse11:~/Desktop> wget http://h.yimg.com/lo/downloads/zdesktop/installer/beta/1278/zdesktop_0_90_build_1278_linux_i686.sh

Change permissions

Change execute permissions to allow the executable to be run

saibaba@opensuse11:~/Desktop> chmod 755 zdesktop_0_90_build_1278_linux_i686.sh

Install Zimbra Desktop

Now, we are ready to go! Remember, for security reasons, zimbra Desktop installation is not allowed to be run as a ROOT user and will fail. So, run the installer as yourself as follows

saibaba@opensuse11:~/Desktop> ./zdesktop_0_90_build_1278_linux_i686.sh
Unpacking JRE …
Preparing JRE …
Starting Installer …

This starts the GUI installer for Zimbra Desktop. Select your language and click OK. This starts the installation wizard. Click Next.

Accept license Agreement and click next. Select the Destination Directory (good to accept defaults) and click Next.

This starts the installation. When the installation is complete will promp to create a desktop icon. If you do not want a desktop icon, untick the box and click Next.

This starts the Zimbra core service and complete the desktop setup. Place a tick in Launch Yahoo! Zimbra Desktop and click Finish.

This should start Zimbra Account setup wizard. Click “Setup an Account”. Click on the type of account that you would like to create (yahoo,gmail,zimbra mail etc).

Enter Account Details and click Save Settings. This should create the account. Click OK to check the email settings or to create another account or Click “Go to Yahoo! Zimbra Desktop”.

This should launch Yahoo! Zimbra Desktop for you with your email inbox. Click on any of the tabs for the relevant service like calendar or Documents. To edit settings or to set signatures etc, click the options tab. Should you need to add another account or edit the existing account, click “Account Setup” on the top right corner.

In the email or calendar, you can add tags by simply right-click on the appointment and create a new tag or add an existing tag.

Overall a very great Desktop tool for every web user. Click here to visit the project homepage.

AllTray – Dock applications without native tray icon to System Tray

admin — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 20:47:33 +0000

Alltray is a free opensource tool to dock any application with no native tray icon (like Evolution, evoluThunderbird, Terminals) into the system tray. A high-light feature is that a click on the ‘close’ button will minimize back to system tray. It works well with Gnome, KDE, XFCE 4, Fluxbox and WindowMaker.

Install Alltray

Packman hosts a 1-click installer for Alltray. Click to download the Yast Metapackage (YMP) file and start the YaST Package manager. This should work on openSUSE 11.0/10.3/10.2, SuSE 10.1/10.0. Click Next on the screen showing the package details and click Next on the proposal window showing repositories to be added and software to be installed (alltray). This will add the repositories and then download and install alltray and required dependencies. Click Finish after successful installation.

This adds Alltray under “Applications – Utilities – More Programs” as “AllTray“.

Click AllTray from the menu to start AllTray. Running for the first time, AllTray will prompt you to select the “X” button to be recognised as close button. At anytime, when you want to dock a window, start AllTray and click on the window. Here for instance, I’ve docked my Firefox window on the “System Tray”.

To undock window at any time, right-click on the icon on the system tray and click “Undock”.

A simple useful tool but obviously not so user friendly to start AllTray everytime you want to dock/undock an application. To visit the project homepage, click here

Tomboy – Desktop Note Taking in openSUSE Linux

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 14:32:48 +0000

Tomboy is a desktop note-taking application for Linux and Unix. Simple and easy to use, but with potential to help you organize the ideas and information you deal with every day. Tomboy is written in C# and utilizes the Mono runtime and Gtk#. Automatic spell-checking is provided by GtkSpell.

Some of the features include

Highlighting text
Inline spell checking
Auto-linking web & email addresses
Undo/redo functionality
Font styling & sizing
Bulleted lists
Addon plugins for enhanced added functionality

To install Tomboy on your openSUSE, click one of the following 1-click installers for your openSUSE version. This will download the YaST Metapackage (YMP) file and start YaST Package Manager to add the required repositories and download and install Tomboy and related dependencies.

openSUSE 11.0

openSUSE 10.3

openSUSE 10.2

NOTE: Click here to enable 1-click install feature in openSUSE 10.2

Click Next on the Welcome page for Tomboy-Notes installation. Click Next in the summary page showing repositories and the package summary. Once the installation is complete, click Finish.

This should install Tomboy under “Applications – Utilities – Editor” as “Note-Taker”. Also, adds a Desktop Applet for easy Access.

Launch Tomboy either from the Desktop Applet or from the menu. As you can see, it is a very simple and easy to use interface. To add a new note click “File – New”. Also, you can add a new notebook to which notes can be added. This is useful in organising your notes. To add a new notebook, click “File – Notebooks – New Notebook”

To edit the preferences, click “Edit – Preferences”. Options like spell check, custom fonts, Highlighting Wiki words, Setting Hotkeys or enabling or disabling Add-ins can be doen here.

To Enable an Add-in, click Add-ins tab, select the add-in and click Enable. To disable select the add-in and click Disable.

To add a new plugin, simply download the plugin and copy the plugin file to “/usr/lib64/tomboy/addin” directory. For plugins, click here

Click here to visit the project homepage.

LXDE – Light Weight Desktop Environment for openSUSE Linux

admin — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 18:29:27 +0000

LXDE is a new project aimed to provide a new desktop environment which is lightweight and fast. It’s not designed to be powerful and bloated, but to be usable and slim enough, and keep the resource usage low. Different from other desktop environments, LXDE doesn’t tightly integrate every component. Instead, LXDE makes all components independent, and each of them can be used independently with few dependencies.

Some of the features of LXDE include

Lightweight and runs with reasonable memory usage

Fast and runs well even on older machines

Good-looking, gtk+ 2 internationalized user interface

Simple and Easy-to-use user interface

Desktop independent meaning every component can be used without LXDE

Standards compliant and follows the specs on freedesktop.org

Install LXDE

LXDE can be esaliy installed using the 1-click feature in openSUSE.

To install LXDE in

openSUSE 11.0, click

openSUSE 10.3, click

openSUSE 10.2, click

NOTE: To use 1-click install feature in openSUSE 10.2 click here

This will automatically download the LXDE YaST metapackage (.ymp) for your openSUSE and open with YaST package manager. Click next on the screen showing the repositories that will be added to your system and click Next in the next window to confirm the installation of LXDE package and finally “Accept” in the summary page. This will add the repositories required and download and install the required packages and dependencies. Click Finish in the final summary window.

Now, to enable LXDE Desktop Environment, logout from your desktop and choose “LXDE” from the session type and login again. This should now launch your lovely beautiful and yet light-weight Desktop Environment, LXDE.

To launch any of the list of LXDE commands, press ALT+F2 and type “lx” this should show all possible LXDE related commands

The following are some screenshots when LXDE is in action.

SUSE & openSUSE » desktop

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