Avant Window Navigator (AWN) Mac OS like Dock in openSUSE
Posted by admin on August 2nd, 2008
Avant Window Navigator (Awn) is a dock-like bar which sits at the bottom of the screen. It has support for launchers, task lists, and third party applets. The dock at the bottom of the screen gives a nice apple Mac like look for your openSUSE. There are a lot of Themes Plugins and Applets that can be added onto the dock.
AWN requires
1. your system to support Compositing (using AIGLX or XGL). In openSUSE 11.0 AIGLX compositing is enabled by default.
2. X installation has Compositing is enabled. To verify this
opensuse11:~ # grep -i composite /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Option “Composite” “on”
If missing, under “Section Extensions” add the line
Option “Composite” “on”
So it looks as follows:
Section “Extensions”
Option “Composite” “on”
3. A Compositing Manager installed. Compiz, Compiz-manager, Beryl, metacity etc
To install Avant Window Navigator,
Click KMenu – Computer – Install Software (in GNOME Computer – Install Software). This will start YaST Package Manager.
In the Search box, enter “avant” and press enter.
Select “avant-window-manager” & “awn-extras-applets” and click Accept. Accept any dependency packages to complete the installation.
This should install Avant Window Manager and the AWN Extras applets on your openSUSE under Utilities.
Alternatively, from the terminal
opensuse11:~ # yast2 -i avant-window-manager awn-extras-applets
Start Avant Window
Befor you start Avant Window manager for the first time, you need to start “Avant Window navigator” from utilities.
To start Avant Window Navigator from terminal
opensuse11:~ # avant-window-navigator &
To start Avant Window Manager from terminal
opensuse11:~ # avant-manager &
Stop Avant Window Manager
To close AWN from terminal
opensuse11:~ # killall avant-window-navigator
To make the Dock more 3D like, from Avant-Manager under General click Bar Appearance. Select “3D look” under Look listbox.
You can also set icon effects from Avant-Manager under General. There is a list box for “Icon Effects”. Select your icon effect. Once selected, click referesh button to update.
You can select from a list of various available applets under Applets. Select the applet and click Activate.
Similarly, third-party plugins and themes can be installed to make AWN look even more cuter.
Plugins can be downloade from here.
Look into the detailed instructions for each of these plugins. once installed, they can be added to the dock from Launcher option.
A whole lot of Themes are available for download here
Once downloaded, install the Theme from the Themes option. From Themes, click Add and browse to the tgz file downloaded. You may have to stop your AWN dock and restart again. As shown earlier.
To make the Dock appear online, add it to the system startup in GNOME click Control Center – System – Sessions. click Add and enter the Description and command as follows:
Some AWN in action screens
August 3rd, 2008 at 7:28 am
[...] 2. X installation has Composting is enabled. To verify this Read more at http://www.susegeek.com [...]
August 3rd, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Cairo dock is much better
August 3rd, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Um.. Composting? Composting??? I think you need to either disable or update your spell checker, but at least spend a little more time in the proof-reading stage.
John.
August 4th, 2008 at 11:57 pm
If missing, under “Section Extensions” add the line
Option “Composite” “on”
So it looks as follows:
Section “Extensions”
Option “Composite” “Enable”
huh… is this some special feature of SuSe?
deep
August 5th, 2008 at 7:14 am
@John: I’ve fixed the typo!
@Deep: Composite is enabled by default on openSUSE 11.0. These checks in /etc/X11/xorg.conf file is just to ensure you got the right settings in your X
August 5th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Why use something that will be allways behind on the Desktop?
August 6th, 2008 at 1:07 am
to: Admin
)
hm… I have the feeling that You don’t get my point
when I add the line
Option “Composite” “on”shall I really seeOption “Composite” “Enable”in my config? Isn’t that a typo? I would expect to see Option “Composite” “on” not Option “Composite” “Enable”.deep
August 6th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
sorry fixed it!!
September 18th, 2008 at 5:52 am
There is a problem here with OpenSuse 11
I can’t find the “avant-window-manager” package in the packman repos and even in the first screenshot in your post, there is not such package and you have told to select the “avant-window-manager”
Any idea?????
Thanks,
Nikesh
November 19th, 2008 at 1:02 am
Yo hice esto:
Según:
http://wiki.awn-project.org/DistributionGuides#openSUSE
Abrimos en Gnome:
Equipo/Instalar/Software/Todos los repositorios/agregar o eliminar/añadir/Especificar URL…
/(Marcar Descargar archivos de descripción del repositorio)/Siguiente…
Introducimos la URL:
http://en.opensuse.org/Additional_YaST_Package_Repositories#Packman
Introducimos el nombre que sea/Finalizar
Esperamos a que se actualize la base de datos
Buscamos el paquete avant
Elegimos el “app no se que”
y el “doc no recuerdo”
instalamos y listo
December 19th, 2009 at 9:06 am
To Admin:
“You may have to stop your AWN dick and restart again.”
Worse still, it comes up on your google search result.
December 29th, 2009 at 10:18 pm
Fletch: Thanks I’ve updated the post!
July 3rd, 2010 at 3:21 am
[...] is Linux mint, so i'm not completely sure of its functioning flawlessly in opensuse. According to this guide, you need to start Avant window navigator from Utilities before starting it for the first time. But [...]
July 25th, 2010 at 6:19 am
Why is it missing in SUSE 11.3 and how do I get it. I have managed to get both Ubuntu and Suse to share my /home directory. This way I have both on the same machine. but where compiz works great with ubuntu it does not at all in Suse 11.3 where AWN works great in ubuntu for some stupid reason it does not in Suse 11.3
What is up with that eh?