OMG! Ubuntu

If slaying hordes of the walking dead whilst saving civilians from a life of flesh-eating hell sounds like a great way to spend an evening, check out unique RTS game ‘Atom Zombie Smasher’, which has just gone on sale in the Ubuntu Software Centre priced at a not-too-shabby $9.99. 

The game, produced by renowned Indie gaming house ‘Blendo Games’, melds a unique visual style – think pulp 60s comic book – with a ‘genre bending’ gameplay of ‘tower defence, role-playing persistence, and grand strategy.’

A genre-soup hereby known as awesome.

If the name of the game is familiar it should be: Atom Zombie Smasher was one of several titles offered as part of the recent Humble Indie Bundle 3.

Trailer

Links

You can follow Blendo on Twitter @BlendoGames, and ‘like’ them on Facebook at facebook.com/blendgogames

Further to our look earlier today at the design changes that Unity 2D in Ubuntu 11.10 is sporting, here is short burst of screen shots and tid-bits on changes to Ubuntu proper. 

Remember that everything shown below is still in active development and subject to change.

The Dash

As seen in Unity 2D earlier today, the Unity Dash is looking sleeker than ever thanks in part to the smart unification of Unity Lenses into the one window. The Dash also changes colour based on your wallpaper – a neat touch.

The new Dash is summoned by pressing the ‘ubuntu’ button at the top of the Unity Launcher.

As seen in our recap earlier Application Menus now take up the space left by the, perhaps temporary, removal of the “big funny button”.

Music Lens

A brand new Lens is available for ubuntu 11.10: The Music Lens. This lets you sort through you music with a quick search of title or artist, or refined search with Genre filtering.

Those Lens icon up close: -

Indicator Changes

The Messaging Menu sports an item to ‘Clear’ alerts. Clearing can also be achieved by middle-clicking on the indicator itself.

A new look User Menu also landed yesterday. Currently this indicator only shows where more than one account is set up on a system. It allows fast-user switching between accounts, too.

Light themes

The default Ubuntu themes have also seen some due love and attention. The window gradient of Ambiance and the sublime looking ‘buttons’ are of particular note.

Changes to the way the Unity Dash looks and behaves in Ubuntu 11.10 are on the way. In the Unity 2D development branch some of the reworking is already available to see.

Better yet we’re told the same design is planned for regular Unity.

Gone is the “circle of friends” logo that sat to the left of the top panel. Instead the ‘Application Menu’ extends all the way to the left.

As do window controls when an application is Maximized: -

The Dash is now launched by pressing a large ‘Ubuntu’ button positioned to the top of the Launcher.

You’ll also notice a lack of Lenses on the Launcher. Lenses are now integrated into the Dash – which has also gained blur! Icons for switching between Lenses are placed at the bottom of the Dash.

Browsing for and filtering files and applications remain available, but is looking much better: -

And yes, the Dash/Lenses can still be toggled to fullscreen: -

Features, designs and applications shown above are not necessarily indicative of what you’ll find in Ubuntu 11.10 come October. Ubuntu 11.10 is still under active and heavy development.

Eager to test? Oneiric users can add the Unity 2D Daily PPA (as the ‘daily’ suffix should imply, this PPA is unstable).

Hat tip to Andrea Azzarone

We’ve featured many Drag and Drop applets for Ubuntu’s Unity Launcher over the past few weeks, but this is the first one to support uploading to YouTube.

The applet is by Tom LeJeune, whose Google+/Picasa image uploader we’ve featured before. Like that applet this one also requires the installation of GoogleCL in order to work.

Download and install

Downloaded the script from ubuntuone.com/p/xAc/ and extract to your Home folder.

Open a new Terminal window and enter the following command: -

• google youtube list

Enter your Google/YouTube username, hit enter, then authorize the Uploader in the browser window that opens. Once granted return to the Terminal window and hit ‘Enter’.

Now head back to the YouTube folder you extracted to your Home folder. Inside you need to open the ‘YouTube.desktop’ with Gedit (or another text editor) and replace the user name “tlj“on both the “Exec” and “Icon” lines (highlighted in the image below) with your own. In my case this is ‘joey’.

Once done remember to save and close.

All that’s left to do is drag the ‘YouTube’ item (which will now have an icon) over to the Unity launcher. You can now drag and drop a supported format video onto the YouTube icon to begin upload.

After installing a recent batch of updates in Ubuntu 11.10 I booted back up to find a surprise waiting for me: the new LightDM login screen enabled by default:

Note that the above screenshot is not entirely representative: the password input box is missing, as is the panel to the top right of the screen housing ‘Shut down’, ‘Restart’ etc.

The previous ‘testing’ version of the greeter saw the user wallpaper match that of the account (so if I had yellow dots as my wallpaper selecting my account in the greeter would change the wallpaper to yellow dots). From my brief poke around with it that feature seems to be missing for now.

As with everything developmental what you see above is not necessarily indicative of what you’ll find in Ubuntu 11.10 come October.

Thoughts?

After spending several months in limbo e-mail application Thunderbird has been confirmed as the official e-mail application Ubuntu 11.10.

Mike Conley, the driving force behind integrating Thunderbird with the Ubuntu desktop, shared the news on his blog, writing: -

“[The] first alphas were just to get a sense of how Thunderbird would work as the default client, and to gather feedback.  At a moments notice, Canonical could have backed it out and switched it back to Evolution. But they’ve given their thumbs up, and they’re fully on board.”

What does this mean for you?

Come October and the release of Ubuntu 11.10 Thunderbird will be installed by default. It will boast integration with various elements of the Ubuntu desktop such as Messaging Menu presence, Unity launcher badge and Application Menu support, all out of the box.

Evolution fans don’t need to worry as their preferred application will remain easily installable through the Ubuntu Software Centre.

Congratulations to all involved in the decision, and to Mike Conley espeically for his hard work on integrating the app into Ubuntu.

An Ubuntu-branded neoprene laptop sleeve is the latest item to be added to the Canonical store.

Retailing for £19.95, the sleeve is billed as “a beautiful form-fitting Ubuntu laptop sleeve.”

The sleeve is available in 3 sizes: 13″, 15″ and 17″. All varieties are grey with an orange inner lining. Two rubber Ubuntu logo zips and a badge add the branding to the Neoprene outer.

What’s Neoprene, you ask? Google tells us it’s:

“A synthetic polymer resembling rubber, resistant to oil, heat, and weathering.”

It’s a shame that a 10″ version is not available. I have several netbooks that would love to be seen wearing this…

Ubuntu Neoprene Laptop Sleeve | Canonical Store

Hat tip to Akshat

Several weeks back we translated a handy Unity Quicklist for Google+ by László Torma. That Quicklist is now even better, Google+heads.

Credit goes to Chris Druif, who has enhanced the launcher item by adding in ‘drag and drop’ Photo uploading to Picasa Web Albums. Photos, depending on your privacy settings for the folder you choose to upload to, will also show up on your Google+ account.

Super helpful.

Features

The main feature of the ‘Applet’ is, of course, the drag and drop uploading of images to your Picasa web account. This is done by clicking on an image, pulling it over to the Unity Launcher then dropping it on to the Google+ icon.

This prompts you to select a folder to upload the image to. If you have the folder you’re uploading to is set to “Public” the photos will appear on your Google+ profile.

The image will upload in the background. A notification bubble will alert you when the upload has completed.

Dropping more than one image on to the launcher will open a folder selection window for each photo.

Also present is a Unity Quicklist, accessible by right clicking on the Launcher icon, which provides easy access to various key Google+ features: -

Download

The application can be downloaded @ ubuntuone.com/p/19U9/

Installation

Google Picasa Uploader 0.3 is provided as an easy to install .Deb file. Once downloaded you just need to double click on it for the Ubuntu Software Centre to open and installation to begin.

It’s important to note that upon clicking ‘Install’ a box will appear warning you that ‘The package is of bad quality’.

This isn’t too much of a concern, as Chris, the packager of the .Deb, explains: -

[The issue] has to do with wrong ownership, which I’ve got to figure out, but should be alright to install.

I’ve experienced nothing untoward by ignoring and continuing to install.

After installation has wrapped up you will need to open your file manager to drag the Google+ app from /usr/share/applications on to the Unity Launcher: -

Once added you’re all set! Drag and drop away.

Props to Chris for the uploading magic, and Toros for the original quicklist

User-friendly Conky setup Conky Colors has added a new ‘stylish lightening stats‘ mode as part of its 7.0 release. 

“SLS” mode provides CPU and system process usage, weather conditions, GMail alerts, HDD usage, battery, and network statistics.

Other modes included with Conky Colors, but not new to this release, are ‘Rings’, ‘Board’, ‘Default’, ‘Slim’, and ‘Cairo’.

Also making up the 7.0 release are three new “themes” (the colours used for the various modes), script changes and general stability improvements.

Download

Download link and full instructions on setting up Conky Colors can be found at the author of Conky Color’s Deviant Art page @ helmuthdu.deviantart.com

To save some time on the first step, all you need to install can be done by clicking the button below: -

Not quite what you’re after? Check out our list of five beautifully simple Conky themes.

To mix things up, this episode of Download of the Week will not feature an application or a game, but rather a plugin: rhythmbox-plugin-coherence.

After many years of being a member of the bandwagon to unseat Rhythmbox in favor of Banshee as the default, I end up getting a PS3 and regretting my choice in media player due to the one small gem that is the Coherence plugin for Rhythmbox.

The Coherence plugin allows your Rhythmbox install to act as a UPnP media server on your network.  Any UPnP client, such as a PS3 or Logitech Squeezebox device, can then connect to this server and access all of the music from your library.

Many of you may have decent sound systems for your PC already, but for those like myself who don’t, this plugin makes it one-click easy to share music over the network, access it using your favorite entertainment device, and play it directly on your sound system.

To give it a try, simply download the package, open Rhythmbox, and click on Edit -> Plugins to enable it.  Please note that as of today, the plugin does NOT appear to work in Oneiric, but I have tested it in Natty and Lucid where it seems to function well. I will be looking into fixing this package before Oneiric launches.

If any of you happen to know of a similar plugin for Banshee that I have overlooked, please post it in the comments.

Linux users continue to pay more for the Humble Indie Bundle 3 than their Windows or OS X counterparts. 

With just over one day left to nab eleven awesome DRM-free indie games for whatever price you’re willing to pay, I thought it would be nice to take a quick look at how the Bundle is doing before the last day splurge sets in.

So far the Bundle has amassed over $1.8 million – and should surely tip the $2 million mark by the end of its run this time tomorrow. For comparison the totals for the previous Bundles were as follows: -

• Humble Indie Bundle | $1.2 Million
• Humble Indie Bundle 2 | $1.8 Million
• Humble Frozenbyte Bundle | 700k

Generous Linux folks

Once again Linux users are the most generous of the bunch so far, paying on average $12 for the compendium of titles. To put that $12 into context that’s almost $5 more than Mac users pay are willing to shell out, and over $7 more than what Windows users cough up. Previous Bundles have seen Linux and Mac users making up over 50% of all sales.

Why are Linux folks just so damn generous? 

I lack a psychology degree, so I can’t expound on that question any certainty. The nature of sharing, supporting and giving that is so central to the Open-Source ethos, mixed in with a desire to thank and support developers who go out of their way to support them, are likely to be strong motives behind the support.

That and paying for software is a bit of a novelty ;)

Extra Titles

Extra titles have been added to Bundle 3 since its launch a week ago, making a total of 12 games (plus a free trial of Minecraft) are now on offer to anyone paying more than the ‘average price’ of $5.71.

• Crayon Physics Deluxe – Physics based puzzle game
• Cogs – Steampunk themed puzzle game
• VVVVVV – Retro-themed platformer with insane gravity element
• Hammerfight - weapon-based melee ‘smash ‘em up’
• And Yet It Moves – Beauitful and award winning physics platformer
• Steel Storm - Top down action shooter
• Atom Zombie Smasher – RTS game, zombie-style
• Braid - Critically-acclaimed puzzle game
• Cortex Command – 2D side-scroller
• Machinarium – Visually stunning point-and-click puzzle game
• Osmos – Single player puzzle game
• Revenge of the Titans – RTS game

If you purchased your bundle before the extra games were added fear not – just head to your ‘Download’ area (sent via e-mail when you purchased the bundle) to download them. Buy

With barely over one day left to buy get your skates on and humblebundle.com/

Seeing the Ubuntu logo sailing alongside hundreds of Android App icons in a TV spot for Samsung’s Galaxy S II was a strange, but not unwarranted, sight to begin with.

But Uncle Sammy appear to have had a change of heart; a ‘new’ version of the same advert is running in India with one small difference: no more Ubuntu logo.

We first wrote about the advert back in early July. The prominence of the icon led us to suggest a handful of reasons as to why the logo was there. Above all it was just a fun little spot; after all it’s not often the Ubuntu logo is beamed across millions of TVs for the world to see!

Ubuntu Gone

Over the last week we’ve heard from a number of our readers in India, the territory in which the ad is shown, that a new version of the advert is showing with the only perceivable difference being the removal of the Ubuntu logo from the beginning of the advert.

Anecdotally, Samsung also removed the ‘Ubuntu’ version of the advert from YouTube.

Maybe we shouldn’t have said anything? ;)

Thanks to all who @’d, +’d and mailed in about this

The new look ‘GTK3′ version of the Ubuntu Software Centre is available for testing in Ubuntu 11.10 Alpha.

The revamped store – which we pimped with plenty of screenshots last week – is not set as default just yet. In order to use/play/break the ‘technical preview’ you need to run software-center-gtk3 from the Terminal.

Do remember that the revamped store is currently in active development and is not complete, stable or indicative of any future release.

If you’re testing Ubuntu 11.10 this update will be waiting for you in the Update Manager.

Thanks to JB

Novacut’s recent success on Kickstarter has kickstarted an raft of Linux-based projects contacting us for coverage of their money-drives on the unique social funding service.

One that caught our eye was ‘In The Dark’ by Escapement Studios.

Like a lot of indie games produced recently ‘In The Dark’ is a 2D puzzle-platformer boasting a unique gameplay concept involving light and shadows.

“…we designed a world in which imagination could take over where your childhood left off – a world in which monsters exist, lurking within the shadows, threatening to snatch you up the moment you leave the safety and comfort of the light.”

About

The game is built on a modified version of LÖVE – the game engine that powers our very own ‘Volleybrawl’.

Money will be used to ‘fund artists so they can take time away from their normal paying jobs to make any more progress on the game.’

The game will be commercially available on Linux, Windows and Mac OS in early 2012. Ports for iOS and Android are also on the cards.

However, that’s only going to happen if they get their funding. If you fancy chucking in a dollar or two – and remember there’s no pressure to do so – head over to kickstarter.com/projects/escapement/in-the-dark-puzzles-past-bedtime

YouTube app ‘MiniTube’ has been updated witha fix for a recent change by YouTube that ‘broke’ playback on the Flash-free desktop app. 

The updated version also adds in a new feature: you can now drag’n’drop YouTube links from your browser on to the Minitube window to have them load.

Download

Minitube 1.5 binaries for 32bit Linux (runs from the folder) can be downloaded at flavio.tordini.org/minitube

The release is also available for Ubuntu 10.04 through to 11.04 users via the MiniTube PPA maintained by Ferramosca Roberto.

Just add ‘ppa:ferramroberto/minitube’ to your Software Sources, run update manager then proceed to either upgrade any existing MiniTube installation or install anew via the Ubuntu Software Centre.

Source

There’s no denying that a clean, minimal looking desktop is attractive. But how does one make Unity, with its launcher bar stuffed full of icons, ‘clean looking’?

Reader Juan Carlos Arroyo Callejas sent us his guide on getting a “clean looking Natty desktop”, which he dutifully shows off in the image below: -

The Guide

Only attempt to follow Juan’s guide if you are certain you want the look. To revert the changes you will need to work backwards reverting the steps (install instead of remove, true instead of false, etc.)

REMOVE FILES AND PLACES FROM UNITY LAUNCHER

• sudo gedit /usr/share/unity/places/*.place

ADD THIS LINE BELOW “Shortcut=” IN BOTH TABS:

• ShowEntry=false

REMOVE WORKSPACES (EXPO) FROM UNITY LAUNCHER

Run gnome-panel via terminal, and in workspaces make them all vertical

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

instead of

[1][2]

[3][4]

Close the terminal, log out log in voilà. As a bug, the WORKSPACE icon disappears.

REMOVE MESSAGING MENU FROM TOP PANEL

• sudo apt-get remove indicator-messages

REMOVE ME MENU FROM TOP PANEL

• sudo apt-get remove indicator-me

Some versions of Ubuntu don’t automatically give you the option to upgrade to the latest version. In this week’s Ubuntu is Easy segment, I show you the easy way to upgrade Ubuntu to the latest release, which as of when this video was released is 11.04, Natty Narwhal!

Thanks for all your previous feedback with my last video! I came up with “Ubuntu is Easy” to help new Ubuntu users get more familiar with their new Linux operating system and see that you don’t have to be an expert with the command line to get things done.

Video produced on Linux Mint 10 using Kdenlive, Audacity, and GIMP.

Do you find the GUI works just as well as the CLI for upgrading?

Feel free to reply below, or write me on my Twitter or Facebook!

The relation to Linux is tangental at best, but the following is amusing in a way…

Deadline.com are reporting that Disney have hired Night At The Museum writer Robert Ben Garant to pen an animated feature about a talking Penguin called, you guessed it, ‘Tux’.

The film is to be an adaptation of “gritty” Japanese graphic novel ‘Tuxedo Gin’, the storyline of which sees a young street fighter “fall into a coma and learns that he …only has enough karma points to be reincarnated as an animal 15 pounds or less.”

That animal is a penguin.

For those unaware of why this is slightly humorous the Linux mascot, Tux, is a penguin. Here’s hoping for a Linux in joke somewhere ;)

I think i’ve written the word penguin too many times now.

Deadline.com  via Janis P.

Lubuntu 11.10 Alpha 3 has been released.

As a development release Lubuntu 11.10 Alpha 3 is not recommended for everyday use or installation on systems with important data (like your list to Santa, your best man speech or your 3/4 completed game of Braid.)

Lubuntu Alpha 3 is, for the very first time, available to download from the Ubuntu server: -

• cdimage.ubuntu.com/lubuntu/releases/oneiric/alpha-3/

Note: the Lubuntu 11.10 Alpha 3 CD Image is over-sized. New in Alpha 3

• The latest updates of core LXDE components
• A switch to xfce4-power-manager for power management
• ‘pidgin-microblog’ is installed as the Microblogging client

Known issues in Alpha 3

Amongst bugs and issues affecting Alpha 3 are ‘Missing icons from various menus (see image) and panel applets; the installation of Gwibber by default; indicators are missing from the LXPanel; and GTK3 applications lack a theme.

 

Despite having had my ASUS Transformer – the company’s hugely successful Android tablet – for almost a week it’s only today that I got around to seeing how it fared when hooked up to Ubuntu.

For adding files to the Transformer ASUS provide some Windows only software. Call me lazy but I couldn’t be bothered to find out this worked through Wine. Instead I wanted a “native” solution.

Thankfully I wasn’t alone. Over on the XDA Developers forum two plucky members had already posted solutions…

gMTP

gMTP can be installed through the Ubuntu Software Centre (click) and provides a simple interface for browsing through files and folders on your Transformer. To add files from your PC to your tablet you simple drag and drop them into the folder you wish to store them in.

Drawbacks include an inability to ‘download’ files from my Transformer to my desktop and no extra ‘views’ for the file browser such as ‘thumbnails’ to make identifying photos easier.

MTPFS

MTPFS is “…a FUSE filesystem that supports reading and writing from any MTP device.” It’s not a standalone programme like gMTP above. Instead MTPFS gives you access to your Transformer files via Nautilus, allowing you to browse them just like any other folder on your desktop.

The main drawback is ‘mounting’ it. One needs to jump through a few hoops to get it set up. If you’re prepared to, and this is certainly my preferred method for now, instructions follow.

Open a terminal and run the following commands separately, entering your password where prompted. Ensure your Transformer is connected via USB to your computer.

• sudo apt-get install mtpfs
• sudo mkdir /media/transformer
• sudo chmod 775 /media/transformer

To “mount” your transformer so you can access, add and download files run: -

• sudo mtpfs -o allow_other /media/transformer

When done run:

• sudo umount mtpfs

You will need to repeat the last two steps every time you wish to mount then unmount your device. Admittedly this method is less than elegant but it does work. Using it I can browse my Transformer using Nautilus, including seeing thumbnails of photos, previews of music tracks by hovering over them, etc.