Announcing UberBang 10.04.2

I have posted an update to UberBang on the same SourceForge project page. It now includes the FBXKB keyboard layout switcher system tray icon, and Volumeicon and NM-Applet are now fully functional. Also present are the Openbox, GTK, and icon themes from the latest build of #! 10 "Statler"; however, the default GNOME-Colors-Statler icon theme used seems to not have been copied over correctly, as some icons (e.g. back, forward) appear a little weird. It seems like Elementary-Statler works fine though. Maybe for the next update I'll use that instead.
I read on the #! forums of people trying UberBang and being able to successfully use the live session but not being able to properly install it. With the previous releases I didn't have the time to look into these further; now I have the time, and I can confirm that UberBang doesn't install properly. It seems to be a known problem with Remastersys, but looking on the Remastersys forum didn't yield a whole lot of useful information (I tried one thing, but it led to a segmentation fault (another error type)). If anyone reading this has used and is familiar with Remastersys, please let me know what I should be doing so that UberBang can actually be installed.

In unrelated news, before coming to the Blogger Dashboard page, I often read news on various other tech sites including (but not limited to) TechDirt, Linux Today, Raiden's Realm, and Tech Drive-in. Having done that a couple minutes ago, I would like to let readers know that Raiden's Realm has been hacked; all that's present is scrolling mixed Arabic/English text on a black background.

A Quick Update on the Respins

This is going to be a quick post. I've made a couple changes to UberBang, such as installing the Murrine theme engine to make the #! theme look right and making VolumeIcon and NM-applet start on startup. I've combined all these and released version 10.04.1 of UberBang, and it can be downloaded here in the same SourceForge project page.
Also, I am working on a new release of Fresh OS ("Elementary"). I will likely be dropping the "Traditional" version for this release because the newest build of Linux Mint "Debian" seems to fill that void adequately now (as it now has all the new features of version 10 "Julia"). I'm not entirely sure about "Light" though.
Finally, I may rerelease Oxidized Trinity 6 "Squeeze" with the Debian Live Installer packages included as well because the Remastersys Debian Installer can be unreliable.
That's all folks. I'm looking forward to a bright, fun, and productive 2011!

An Update on this Blog and the Respins

Last week, I released an Openbox respin of Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" called UberBang 10.04. Shortly afterwards, I emailed CrunchBang creator Philip Newborough with questions about the theming issues and related things. He very kindly answered my questions, so I've incorporated those changes (and a few others) and reuploaded the ISO file (which is slightly bigger now but is still under 600 MB). The download link is unchanged. Also, when I get the time, I'll make a wiki for UberBang like I did for the other respins.
Before that, I also released Oxidized Trinity 6 "Squeeze", a respin of Debian 6 "Squeeze" with Trinity 3.5.12 themed to look like KDE 4.1(ish). The download link is still here. Also, when I get the time, I'll update the wiki with information about this Debian-based Oxidized Trinity. (As an aside, interestingly enough, the top downloaders of Oxidized Trinity, as opposed to my other respins, use Microsoft Windows. Maybe that says something about KDE's ability to attract Microsoft Windows users. Then again, it's entirely possible that these are Linux users who just so happen to be downloading the ISO in Microsoft Windows. There's no way to know for sure.)
I haven't released a new version of Fresh OS in a while, and that's because of upgrade issues I've been having with those virtual machines. This stems from a couple of issues with upstream Linux Mint packages. Anyway, I'm waiting for the next snapshot to be released; that snapshot is supposed to have all the new features and themes of Linux Mint 10 "Julia", which may render Fresh OS "Traditional" unnecessary.
Finally, you may notice that the look of this blog has changed again. I really liked the old look, but the gadgets were starting to look weird in an old theme, so I decided to upgrade to a newer template and theme that. It didn't look quite the same, so I decided to try again. I think I've finally found something that imitates the parent theme (which, I found out after a lot of searching, is called "Subtle Beauty") well enough that I can stick with this. I hope you all like it too!

Introducing UberBang 10.04

Main Screen + Openbox menu

If you've been keeping up with this blog, you'll know that CrunchBang ("#!"), an Openbox distribution that was previously based on Ubuntu, has switched to a Debian base (and has added Xfce to the mix as well). While I agree with many of the developers' reasons for switching bases, I feel like now there's a void in the realm of Ubuntu derivatives using Openbox. No, Lubuntu doesn't count, because it uses LXDE, which is a little more fully featured and a bit different anyway (though it does use Openbox as its WM). No, I needed something a bit more like the lovely #! 9.04.01.

SLiM Login Screen

Enter UberBang. It's a spin that I created of Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" Minimal. This means that creating this distribution was much like creating Oxidized Trinity 6 "Squeeze" from a minimal Debian 6 "Squeeze" installation; post-installation, I needed to fetch all the requisite packages myself (though I will say that here, thankfully, sudo was properly configured out-of-the-box post-installation). For example, in #! 9.04.01, the scrot command line tool is used to take screenshots. As it is a pretty basic command line tool, I expected it to be installed out-of-the-box; I was wrong.
There were a couple things that I tried to do in UberBang 10.04 to make it feel more like the #! 9.04.01 I knew and loved (as opposed to the #! 10 "Statler" that I didn't like quite as much). For one, I installed Pidgin, Skype, PCManFM, and Cheese Webcam Booth, none of which are present in #! 10 "Statler". I also installed programs like VLC, PiTiVi Video Editor, Claws Mail, Liferea Feed Reader, and File Roller. Next, I installed all of the wallpapers and codecs used in 9.04.01. Finally, I tried to port the #! 9.04.01 Openbox themes and icons (as well as the tint2 configuration) over to UberBang 10.04. While this works overall, this also leads me into the (unfortunately rather long) list of issues to watch out for. Follow the jump to read more about this.

Introducing Oxidized Trinity 6 "Squeeze"

This is something that I have wanted to do for the last week and a half or so, but I haven't been able to do it because I've been really busy.
I said in my review of Debian 6 "Squeeze" Standard that I wanted to customize that installation with Trinity 3.5.12. Well, now it has finally happened: please welcome the newest member of the Oxidized Trinity family, Oxidized Trinity 6 "Squeeze"!
There are a couple differences between this and the original (Kubuntu-based) Oxidized Trinity 10.04, the most significant being that the only way to install Oxidized Trinity 6 is to use the Remastersys installer, and that's not guaranteed to work. Also, Trinity 3.5.12 packs a whole lot more stuff for Debian than for Ubuntu; I didn't even want half the stuff included, but I was too lazy to remove all of it. (This is also why Synaptic Package Manager isn't included (it would consume even more space).) Thankfully, despite that, the Oxidized Trinity 6 ISO file is actually smaller than the Oxidized Trinity 10.04 ISO file. I guess that goes to show just how lightweight and versatile Debian really is. Finally, on that note, I have uploaded this to the Oxidized Trinity SourceForge page; also, here is the direct download link. Please do try this out and let me know what I can improve. Thanks! (Also, stay tuned for a brand-new respin!)

How-To: Remaster Debian 6 "Squeeze"

There are a couple of qualifications to "Debian". In fact, this isn't really a general guide for Debian itself, but it's more for Linux Mint "Debian". In any case, because Linux Mint "Debian" is pointed towards the Testing repositories by default, for standard Debian, the procedure will still be similar anyway.
I wanted to take this opportunity to let you know that the latest versions of Fresh OS are up on my SourceForge site. Yay! These are the download links (for Traditional, Elementary, and Light), and I am also going to link to the project wiki as well. I'm still working on the wiki, so please be patient. In any case, I strongly recommend that you try it out (and if you're especially bold, install it (though be warned that the installer is the Remastersys installer which isn't very consistent), and please let me know what you think either in this blog's comments or in a review on the project's SourceForge page. Thanks!
So this post is just going to be about how I did it. Follow the jump to read more (and to see screenshots of the finished product).

Review: wattOS R2

Main Screen and Main Menu

The only review of a lightweight Ubuntu-based distribution I've done before this is of #! 9.04.01. I was looking around to see if there are any others, and I came across wattOS.
wattOS R2 is based on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" and uses LXDE. From other reviews of this distribution that I have read, the thing that sets it apart is its comprehensive set of power management tools (hence the name).
The other reason I wanted to test this is because I wanted to try to make a "light" version of my Fresh OS respin. Yeah, I know this is based on Ubuntu while the regular version is based on Debian, but I've heard murmurs in the wattOS forums of the next wattOS version being based on Debian anyway. Anyway, this means that I will also be testing the installation procedure as well as a few other things post-installation.
I tested this in VirtualBox with 256 MB of RAM, as I wanted to test the performance of this lightweight distribution under a lower resource environment. Follow the jump to see how all of this goes.

FOLLOW-UP: SourceForge, Pages, and Respins

I mentioned in my last post on the topic that Oxidized Trinity is now on SourceForge. I am linking straight to the download link here. Also, Oxidized Trinity now has a wiki page (which I haven't had the time to develop, but when I have a bit more free time, I will get around to it).
Finally, I have semi-successfully created my respin of Linux Mint "Debian" with the Elementary theme. Yay! It too is on SourceForge for download. Please note that as I made it with Remastersys Backup (as opposed to Remastersys Dist), it is not an installable live DVD. Also, the username is "live" and the password is "vbox". (This project does not yet have a wiki page; it does have a name, though: "FreshOS".) Have fun!

FOLLOW-UP: How to Oxidize KDE 3.5

SUCCESS! I have actually remastered Kubuntu!
As it turns out, I didn't need to install Kubuntu 10.04 Trinity to do this remaster. I have already installed it (and made the modifications I detailed in the previous post on the subject) within VirtualBox. I realized that I could share folders between VirtualBox and my Linux Mint installation, so I followed the instructions on the forums to do so. It worked, as Kubuntu 10.04 Trinity in VirtualBox recognized the selected folder on my Linux Mint installation.
I then needed to move folders like .config, .kde3, and .openoffice.org to the /etc/skel/ folder in Kubuntu. After doing so, I used Remastersys to create the ISO image of my Kubuntu 10.04 Trinity installation and moved it to the shared folder. I was then able to test it in VirtualBox, and it worked! Yay!
I have linked the email subscriptions for this blog to my Google account, which also manages Google Docs. I have thus uploaded a compressed file containing my remastered ISO for free download (both as in beer and as in speech). Please note, however, as you try the ISO (either virtualized or as a live DVD/USB), the ISO itself is 1.1 GB which is quite a bit bigger than a CD, so if you want to install this on a computer without a DVD reader, the computer must have a USB port and allow USB boot (or else this just won't work on such a computer). With regard to testing the ISO, note that there may be a full-screen console window that shows up with a bunch of information ending with the word "boot". Just press "Enter" to continue to the boot menu and select either the first (preferred) or second option. Also note that if one is doing this in a virtual machine, after the boot splash there may be a warning saying "Ubuntu is running in low graphics mode"; just click "OK" and let Ubuntu run in low graphics mode anyway. Right before the login screen comes up, an error message may come up. Just click "OK" to proceed. For some reason, the login screen has the username "pvbox" (which was my VirtualBox username) typed in as default. Please change "pvbox" to "guest" and press "Enter" twice. Note that there is no password to log in. You should now be greeted by a screen very similar to the one in my previous post. The KDE desktop and applications should have the Oxygen treatment, and so should OpenOffice.org. Next, note that there is an option to install this remaster (it's a standard Ubuntu installation), but there is no icon either on the desktop or in the KMenu indicating such a possibility. To install this remaster, open Konqueror (which is pinned to the Kicker panel), click on the home folder, click on the icon to the desktop, and then click on the icon labeled "ubiquity-gtkui.desktop"; this initiates the installer. Finally, note that after shutting down, one must press "Enter" (when instructed on the screen) to complete the shutdown process.
I have uploaded this ISO as a 7z compressed file on Google Docs. In most Linux distributions, File Roller or Ark can open and extract 7z files. If they can't, you most likely need to install the p7zip packages from the repositories. In Microsoft Windows, you can download the 7zip program to view, create, and extract 7z files. The file itself is 967 MB, which is still pretty big (but smaller than the 1024 MB Google Docs upload limit — the ISO image is 1.1 GB, which is too big), so downloading may take a while. I will now post the download link. Have fun testing this, and please let me know of any comments, suggestions, and other thoughts you have about this in the comments section (or by email)! Thank you!

How to Oxidize KDE 3.5

What's the title supposed to mean? You will figure this out by the end of the article.
I mentioned in my review of Kubuntu 10.04 Trinity that while the Trinity revival of KDE 3.5.11 has huge potential as a new contender in the field of DEs for old computers (competing with Xfce and LXDE, among others), KDE 3.5 looks pretty bad. Sure, it looks quite cool/cute when it first came out. That said, the KDE 3.5 developers themselves said that they benchmarked the speed and looks (and went over and above the stability of) Microsoft Windows XP when developing KDE 3.5. As a result, it is very fast, very stable (unlike Microsoft Windows XP), and bears more than a passing resemblance in its icon, panel, and window decoration themes to the latter. I haven't ever particularly cared for the default look of Microsoft Windows XP (and honestly, Microsoft Windows 7 is pretty good looking, making Microsoft Windows XP even worse to look at), and KDE 3.5 looks even more cartoonish (and this is exaggerated further with the KDE 4 looks).
What does all this mean? If KDE 3.5 is here to stay, it needs at least a visual overhaul to stay competitive with other DEs optimized for low-resource environments. So I tried to do just that. Follow the jump to read how I tried (and failed).