Custom desktop script (DEPRECATED)

[k0ro]

WARNING: This script is deprecated and will NOT be updated. New kernels (>2.6.27) fully support the AOne hardware, so consider installing a standard distribution (ZenWalk, Ubuntu, Debian...). Maybe it's a little hard at first, but you'll get a clean, fully customizable and upgradeable environment (Linpus has many hacks an it's really hard to clean the mess it leaves behind).

After some days tweaking the Desktop of my new shiny Aspire One ;-), I've decided to write a script to automate the process if I ever need to restore the system with Acer's Recovery CD. I think this can be also useful for those who are tired of the boring Linpus desktop and want a fully customizable Xfce 4 environment. My script performs the following operations:

• Replace Linpus modified Xfce4 packages with the standard ones.[/*:131s8gnj]
• Replace kpowersave with acpid+xfce-battery-monitor.[/*:131s8gnj]
• Install self-compiled kernel modules for USB Modem (including many mobile phones), PPP compression and Bluetooth.[/*:131s8gnj]
• Install mplayer (fully featured), vlc (default player for Thunar), claws-mail, pidgin (IM) and bluetooth utils.[/*:131s8gnj]
• Remove buggy gtkrc-2.0 (makes the xfce standard panel insanely big).[/*:131s8gnj]
• Add the /usr/bin/rem_driver.sh script to remove the WiFi driver before suspend (without this the Atheros card sometimes hangs and I need to reboot).[/*:131s8gnj]
• Download and install Firefox 3.0.1 (consumes less memory and has more features, what else do you want? ;-) and enable mplayer and flash-player plugins.[/*:131s8gnj]
• Replace mplayerplug-in with a new version (gecko-mediaplayer). Now you can watch those apple trailers fullscreen in your Aspire One! (Added: 08/14/08 19:21 GMT+1)[/*:131s8gnj]

To use this script, you'll need to have your AC power source plugged and (reliable!) network connection. Simply download it (aone-config.sh), open a terminal (ALT+F2 and enter "xterm"), and run the script this way:

cd Downloads
sudo sh ./aone-config.sh

BEWARE: This process can't be reversed, if you want to recover Linpus Desktop (or if something goes wrong with the installation) you'll need to use your Recovery CD, probably losing all your personal data stored in the SSD.

After running the script, you should get something like this:

[attachment=0:131s8gnj]linpus-modded-small.png[/attachment:131s8gnj]

 

[danthegoodman]

Re: Custom desktop script

So... Will this hinder the battery life or increase boot-time?

Is there a way (I haven't dug too deeply into your script) to enable both the acer/kiddie desktop and the regular desktop? Kinda like linpus was supposed to support?

Will this fix issues with things like panel-customization?

Thanks for releasing this though! I'm looking forward to trying this out for myself.

 

[janss]

Re: Custom desktop script

Wow, this looks sweet :geek:

I just might have to try that out... The easy mode is usable, but sometimes it bugs me a bit so an easy conversion to a normal desktop might be just what I was looking for.


edit: I was just wondering what will happen on the next live update after those mods...?

 

[k0ro]

Re: Custom desktop script

So... Will this hinder the battery life or increase boot-time?

Boot time is almost the same, and battery life shouldn't be affected, but you'll save about 80 MB of RAM (Linpus desktop uses about 280-300 MB, while this desktop only takes 200 MB).

Is there a way (I haven't dug too deeply into your script) to enable both the acer/kiddie desktop and the regular desktop? Kinda like linpus was supposed to support?

Nope, since Linpus' Xfce packages are replaced, you must choose between both Desktops.

Will this fix issues with things like panel-customization?

Sure! You can change everything you want, just as in a standard Xfce Desktop (well actually it is a standard Xfce Desktop ;-)

 

[k0ro]

Re: Custom desktop script

edit: I was just wondering what will happen on the next live update after those mods...?

Running Live Update after changing your desktop might give unexpected results. I mean, it should work as soon it doesn't touch Xfce packages, but since Live Update downloads custom scripts that can change almost everything in your system, I can't guarrantee that. I've just updated my system and everything went fine, I've just needed to remove again the kpowersave and scim packages that I don't need (and are a waste of memory).

My advice is, if you have changed your Desktop, and your system is working ok, just don't update. In the future, if you need an update to fix/improve something, the recover your original Desktop (by using Acer's Recovery CD), update your system and change your desktop again (I'll try to provide new versions of my script if gets broken by a future update).

 

[bannedi]

Re: Custom desktop script

WOW! i will try it today, is easy to put icons on the desktop?

 

[k0ro]

Re: Custom desktop script

WOW! i will try it today, is easy to put icons on the desktop?

As easy as right-click over an already existing icon (like "Home") and Desktop->Create Launcher

 

[bannedi]

Re: Custom desktop script

works perfect!! thank you

 

[andif62]

Re: Custom desktop script

Great!!! Tried to modify desktop for myself but only got it empty without any icon.
Works perfectly but boot time is longer

 

[Wesi72]

Re: Custom desktop script

Works well, thanks - only problem seems to be that I have to put my WiFi password in everytime I boot up.

 

[k0ro]

Re: Custom desktop script

Works well, thanks - only problem seems to be that I have to put my WiFi password in everytime I boot up.

Yes, you're right. The original version of xinitrc (from xfce-utils package) doesn't start gnome-keyring-daemon by default (while Linpus' hacked one does). Enabling "Launch Gnome services on startup" under Xfce Menu->Settings->Sessions and Startup Settings->Advanced should do the trick.

Thanks for the report!

 

[k0ro]

Re: Custom desktop script

Great!!! Tried to modify desktop for myself but only got it empty without any icon.
Works perfectly but boot time is longer

Well, Linpus Desktop cheats a little in this by showing the desktop without waiting for all the services to start. You can do the same trick by disabling the splash screen under Xfce Menu->Settings->Splash Screen Settings.

 

[Wesi72]

Re: Custom desktop script

Works well, thanks - only problem seems to be that I have to put my WiFi password in everytime I boot up.

Yes, you're right. The original version of xinitrc (from xfce-utils package) doesn't start gnome-keyring-daemon by default (while Linpus' hacked one does). Enabling "Launch Gnome services on startup" under Xfce Menu->Settings->Sessions and Startup Settings->Advanced should do the trick.

Thanks for the report!

That's great, thanks a lot!

 

[Beldar]

Re: Custom desktop script

• Replace mplayerplug-in with a new version (gecko-mediaplayer). Now you can watch those apple trailers fullscreen in your Aspire One! (Added: 08/14/08 19:21 GMT+1)[/*:1tjvijxo]

Nope, won't work. Whenever I try to watch a Apple Trailer, online, I always get a "(no video)" error.

 

[danthegoodman]

Re: Custom desktop script

I took the plunge. Only thing I notice is that there isn't a sleep/hibernate. :? Anyway to fix that?

 

[pmosher]

Re: Custom desktop script

I used the latest version of the script, and all went just fine, with the remove/install. I have no problems with Apple movie trailers fullscreen -- works like a charm. I like the standard Xfce4 environment much better than the Linpus version. Thanks very much for providing this, and I look forward to updates if they show up!

Pauline

 

[k0ro]

Re: Custom desktop script

• Replace mplayerplug-in with a new version (gecko-mediaplayer). Now you can watch those apple trailers fullscreen in your Aspire One! (Added: 08/14/08 19:21 GMT+1)[/*:3q03daad]

Nope, won't work. Whenever I try to watch a Apple Trailer, online, I always get a "(no video)" error.

Perhaps you've downloaded the script just before I've updated it with this feature. If this is your case, follow this steps:

sudo su -
yum remove mplayerplug-in
yum install -y mplayerplug-in
cd /usr/local/firefox
mv plugins plugins.orig
ln -s /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins .

Then restart Firefox and it should work.

 

[k0ro]

Re: Custom desktop script

I took the plunge. Only thing I notice is that there isn't a sleep/hibernate. :? Anyway to fix that?

The standard xfce-session package doesn't have sleep/hibernate buttons on its shutdown dialog. Ubuntu has a patch to add this feature, but you'll need to rebuild the entire package.

Sincerely, to suspend I just close the lid (works nicely), and I don't care about the hibernate feature since it takes almost the same time as shutdown+startup, and it's kinda buggy. Anyway, you can modify your .XHkeys file to add these functions to some keystroke combinations (like Fn+F4).

 

[kap09]

Re: Custom desktop script

i'm in love with this! i'll be keeping a copy of the script/instructions on a cd for future use as well.

 

[danthegoodman]

Re: Custom desktop script

Oh, heh, I didn't even try that...

but now I can't... My system boots to a black screen. Any advice?

I'm trying to fiddle with some settings with a recovery-boot USB I have, but my Acer Recovery DVD is broken, so I can't do that (it formats my partition table on my HDD on my main compy)