Check out this in-depth tutorial series by Egee on how to get started on developing your own elementaryOS app using GTK and the Vala programming language.
If you've noticed that something's been missing from your Tumblr dashboard lately, is because fuckyeah-elementaryos has been sort of inactive do to my personal issues (sorry!).
However, after nearly a year of hiatus, fuckyeah-elementaryos is finally back to bring you the latest and greatest from the elementary community.
The Big Highlight
A lot of things had happened within the elementary community during the year, but one of the biggest highlight of the year is: Loki is finally here!
That's right, after months of waiting, a few days ago, we've finally received the big news that the Loki release is finally upon us. Unfortunately we don't have time to go in-depth of the new release at this moment, however, in a few days we will go in-depth on what's new in elementary OS Loki, so watch this space!
What's Next
Moving forward, I will make sure to keep this blog updated, returning to the occasional screenshots from the elementary community within Tumblr, and your regular content will resume as normal. The site will also be receiving a minor makeover as well, so again, watch this space for further updates!
I want to get a replacement for my macbook air can your recommend something that elementary runs sweet on
You can try System76. They’re laptops that come with Ubuntu preinstalled, but you can easily switch it with other Linux distros, including elementary, and it work perfectly.
Oduso is a simple tool to generate a bash script for you to quickly install the apps, themes, and icons you need to your elementary OS machine.
To generate an install script, just select a number of apps that you want to install, then choose an icon and desktop theme (if you want), and then click “Generate” to create your script and paste the generated command line to your Terminal.
Oduso is perfect specifically for people who just installed elementary OS for the first time, and don’t really want to get into the hassle of hand-picking apps and tools manually to get started. It also supports the things that you usually do for optimising elementary’s performance when starting out, like installing the Ubuntu Restricted Extras, doing a post-install clean up, and even helps you upgrade your packages for the first time.
Oduso is supported on elementary OS Freya and Luna, and also Ubuntu 14.04 and 12.04. Head over to their website to try it out and look at their FAQ for more information.
So what exactly are we up to now that Freya is out? Besides pushing out fixes, we’re working on new features to land either as Freya updates or in future versions of elementary OS. One such new bit of tasty UI is a refreshed Open File dialog
Things to do after installing elementary OS Freya.
"But we don't need any more of these!"
I know, right?
Well, you know what, from the millions of other "things-to-do-after-installing-elementary" guides, as far as I can see everything has the same set of tools & processes to install, only that they're laid out in a fairly different way, according to convenience. So feel free to use one of our guides in which you feel more comfortable with.
Being Ubuntu-based, elementary comes with support for almost all hardware, software, and file formats out-of-the-box. Although, there are some other third-party libraries with added or improved compatibility for various other hardware and file formats.
These are some of the items I recommend doing after installing elementary. which makes sure that you have the most pleasant elementary experience.
In this tutorial, I assume that you have understood how the Linux terminal works, so if you haven't, go read the guide to the Linux terminal located here.
And of course, this guide is made based on my order of convenience, and might have its flaws, so if you feel like you want to improve on my guide, feel free to leave an ask or comment!
This article is a part of fyeOS's "Noob Guide to elementary OS" series._
_This article has been updated 2 time(s), and is accurate per elementary OS Freya.
Update your system.
There have been numerous updates pushed into elementary OS Freya ever since it was released. Install these updates for updated packages, security patches, and improved performance.
To do so, click on your Applications bar and launch Software Updates. It will automatically check for updates the first time you launch it. Click "Install Updates" to begin the update.
This may take a while to complete, depending on the size of the updates, so grab a cup of coffee while waiting for it to finish up.
After updating, you may be prompted to restart your computer.
Install Ubuntu Restricted Extras.
Being Ubuntu-based, elementary OS ships with good compatibility with most file formats, hardware and all other features out-of-the-box. For an added range of compatibility, Ubuntu has a set of packages called Ubuntu Restricted Extras.
Ubuntu Restricted Extras is a software package containing third-party packages which allow you to play various media formats, such as MP3, DVD, Quicktime and Windows Media formats, that are not included by default on Ubuntu and other Ubuntu-derived systems due to licensing restrictions. They're also proprietary, but if you don't know what that means then you don't need to worry about it.
To install, simply launch your Terminal and type out the following commands:
$ sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras
Install Elementary Tweaks
Elementary Tweaks is an extension to your Switchboard which allows for more advanced tweaks to the Pantheon desktop environment, such as adding a minimize button, changing the system font, etc.
(Optional) Add some useful third-party apps/repositories.
There are many other useful applications that require some intricate installation process. Some of these require you to build them from their source, but if it isn't worth the hassle you might want to add the third-party repositories relevant to those applications.
Third-party repositories enable you to install additional great applications on your system without the need of building them from source. These usually come in the form of Personal Package Archives (PPA) for Ubuntu-based systems, or other repositories supplied by a third party.
Canonical Partner Repository
Canonical Partner Repository is a repository containing proprietary software (like Skype, VMWare Player, Adobe Flash Player, etc.) that are supported on Ubuntu and provided for free. These are all packaged by Ubuntu developers and made available for everyone to install.
Here's how you do it.
Open the Software Center
Navigate to Edit > Software Sources...
Then on the Other Software tab, check the boxes that say Canonical Partners and Independent.
GetDeb
The GetDeb repository provides a few ready-to-install apps and games that are compatible with your elementary system.
Due to Oracle's licensing restrictions, Java is no longer included within Ubuntu's default packages list. Fortunately, the WebUpd8 team has provided a PPA that downloads and packages Java for you. Use this version of Java if you want to run several Java-based apps and games, like Minecraft.
The installer will require you to accept the Oracle license before the installation begins. You will only have to do this once.
(Optional) Improve battery life & temperature management on your laptop.
If you're running elementary OS on a laptop, chances are you might run into an issue where your laptop would run slightly very hot after a few moments, and your battery would run out not long after you decided to pull the plug and run on battery.
There is a tiny tool called TLP that helps you reduce these issues in a set-and-forget fashion. More information about what it does are available on the website.
It should automatically run the next time you reboot your laptop. But if you you want to start it immediately (though it wouldn't affect your laptop much until you rebooted your laptop anyway), run the following command:
$ sudo tlp start
Install additional drivers.
Depending on your computer and what you'll be doing with it, you may want to install additional or alternative versions of drivers for your hardware. It's pretty straightforward, so here's how to do it:
Open the Software Center
Navigate to Edit > Software Sources... > Additional Drivers
Install the drivers you want!
Here's a tip: If you're planning on playing games, you should definitely install one of the proprietary drivers for your graphics card. Even though the proprietary drivers aren't open-sourced, they will always work better than the open alternatives because they're made by the companies that made your graphics card (and they know what they're doing).
WARNING: If you're running elementary OS on any Apple computer, you will almost always have issues with display drivers, especially the kinds of issues that make your computer not work. Please be careful!
Install Synaptic.
The Software Center is an alright application for installing and managing packages for end users, but it's also very simplified for that reason. If you're looking for something more powerful and lightweight, we recommend using Synaptic.
$ sudo apt-get install synaptic
Clean up!
As a final step, let's get rid of packages and software that are not necessary and taking up our precious disk space. It's a fairly easy step.
$ sudo apt-get autoclean $ sudo apt-get clean
These commands are something you'll want to run every week or two. They'll help you save disk space, especially if you're installing and removing packages a lot. If you know how to create cron jobs, this is certainly one you'll want to include.
Update: We have decided to remove the autoremove command for the time being, as there's an issue with some apps removing some of the important packages required for elementary. This issue was explained by +Daniel Fore on our Google+ thread:
There are some popular packages that seem to break the metapackage system (like Wine) and running autoremove after installing those packages will give you a broken system.
You may still try running the command at your own risk, but unless you know what you're doing, it would be wise not to.
More website updates coming your way! Our docs have a fancy new look. Go check out our developer docs here.
Everything is automatically generated from MarkDown in GitHub, so don’t hesitate to send us your pull requests!
Is Luna still supported for security updates for the same time as its Ubuntu 12.04 base? Not going to be able to update my mom's laptop for a while :)
Luna should still be receiving security updates as long as its Ubuntu base is still being supported, so you should be receiving security fixes until Ubuntu 12.04 stopped receiving them.
Hi, I'm also a university student very keen on linux and specially on Elementary OS. I've been struggling trying to upgrade from luna to freya but the update manager tool does not support that. Do you know what is the easiest way to do it?? I have the / and /home/ in different partitions and I ve read that you can just replace your / partition, but what does happen with the swap partition and the grub??
Your swap partition is basically a partition that Linux uses when your RAM memory is full. It works like what a page file in Windows does. It works separately from your root partition so it will pretty much not be affected when you reinstall elementary.
And when reinstalling Linux, GRUB will also be reinstalled in your root partition, and this might cause some issues when you’re dual-booting. If any of your other OSes don’t show after reinstalling it might be wise to update your system so that GRUB can be reconfigured, or use the boot-repair tool.
Can i upgrade from Luna to Freya without losing any data? And is there any way to not have to download the near 1gb file (my net is so slow)
You should be able to keep your data while upgrading to Freya if you have your /home directory partitioned separately from your root (/) partition. If you’re unsure whether or not you partitioned properly, back up your current data first then perform a clean upgrade of Freya with your root and /home partition set separately.
Having a /home partition that is separate from the root partition is usually helpful for folks who like to jump distros quite a lot, as all your documents will still be intact whenever you need to reinstall in case you messed up, or you’re thinking of trying out another distro.
As for the download, you might want to try downloading via torrent. It’s usually faster (if it has a reasonable amount of seeds) and you can resume it anytime whenever it’s cut off. Head to the elementary website and click the magnet icon to grab a the torrent link.
How To Fix Missing Date and Time in elementary OS Freya
Did your date and time just magically disappear in the top bar (Wingpanel), and now you’re breaking a sweat because you don’t know how much longer until you have to go to your boring desk job, or because you forgot when your daughter’s birthday is (again)? Oh man, aren’t you in trouble.
Here’s how to fix the missing date and time in Elementary OS Freya.
The date and time seem to disappear when you change your region format settings (placed under “Numbers and dates” in the Language settings) on a global basis. However, this issue only seems to arise when your regional settings upon install are set outside of the English (US) setting. Rude.
Check out the bug report on Launchpad for more technical information.
To fix this issue, you will need to be logged in as an administrator; we will be modifying the /etc/environment file.
For starters, open up a terminal window, don’t get scared, and run the command:
sudo scratch-text-editor /etc/environment
You’ll be asked to enter your password. Once you do that, a simple text editor interface will open up with a line at the top full of nonsense that doesn’t really matter to you. Don’t touch it. Instead, make a new line and add the text:
LC_ALL="en_US.UTF-8"
You’re almost done! Just close that window, log out and back in, and voila! Your date and time will appear back in its rightful place. Boom. Done.
You’ll be happy to know that our fancy new website (preview it at beta.elementary.io) now accepts Bitcoin!
Remember every little bit helps :) We use the money to pay out open source developers on BountySource as well as attend events like SCaLE, host our website, run our build servers, and support other open source projects as well!
Thanks everybody :)
First thing's first, apologies for the lack of activity on this blog. It's been a pretty slow news day for the development of elementary, and I've been feeling pretty burned out for the past few days.
With that out of the way, let's look at the app in today's spotlight.
Indicator Workspaces is a tool for elementary OS 0.3 Freya that allows for easier workspace management. You can set a name for each workspace, and easily switch to them from the Wingpanel. It allows for a maximum of 9 manually-named workspaces, and 36 workspaces in total.
Indicator Workspaces is distributed as a Debian package. You can download the latest version, 0.2, through this link. Source code of the project is available on GitHub. Check out the homepage as well for a detailed documentation.
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