Moving Rhythmbox data from Precise Pangolin to Scientific Linux

Continuing with the GNOME2 retreat ;) it was time to move alll my beloved Rhythmbox data...

Rhythmboxes versions are different between Precise Pangolin (2.96) and Scientific Linux 6.2 (0.12.8), so once the music files and the Rhythmbox db file are transfered to SL 6.2, and you start Rhythmbox, you'll get the dreaded error message:

"Could not load the music database:
The database was created by a later version of Rhythmbox. This version os Rhythmbox cannot read the database."
 
To get rid of it, and to actually restore the data with your precious Play Counts, Ratings, ect, etc; you'll have to edit the file:

~/.local/share/rhythmbox/rhythmdb.xml

 And change the "1.8" to "1.6" and save the file.

After editing the file, and re starting Rhythmbox, got this message, but there were actually no problems at all...
All the info, not to mention the music, it is actually there.
Go figure.

VirtualBox on Scientific Linux

Installed it yesterday and copied my battered but always faithful Win2K vdi image.
Basically it was following the instructions here:
Install VirtualBox on CentOS / Scientific Linux

Everything went Ok, but I had to make two changes on the settings to make it work on my T43.
The first one was to disable IOAPIC to make it actually boot (the screenshot above) the other one was to set the network to NAT (even tho the Win2K adapter has and always had a fixed IP address).

$ sudo yum install dkms
$ sudo wget -P /etc/yum.repos.d http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/rpm/rhel/virtualbox.repo
$ sudo yum install VirtualBox-4.1
$ sudo usermod -a -G vboxusers your_user_name

GNOME Global Menu on Scientific Linux

Piece of cake, actually...
This little program is one of the reasons I love GNOME2, what can I say? To me, it simple makes sense.
Installing it on Scientific Linux 6.2 is really easy, got this version (yes, it is deprecated, I know...) and simply installed it via RPM without any type of warning whatsoever and then enabled it as usual.
This is on a SL 6.2 32 bits with all the updates installed as of today.

All things scientific

Well, all this GNOME3 / Unity thing has really shaken me...

I can't seem to find my Linux Desktop Environment home, even tho I've tested many of the new and current alternatives, none of them convinces me completely, or they are slow for my hardware, or they have small annoying glitches.

I think I'm going to give GNOME2 another go, this time with Scientific Linux.

For the moment, will test it on my Thinkpad T43, with an encrypted LVM, and then I'll move forward installing all the indispensable crap that I need no matter what, which is not much, really.

Clearlooks for Adwaita install

Download the theme: Clearlooks-Phenix

~# mv clearlooks-phenix-master Clearlooks-Phenix
~# sudo cp -R Clearlooks-Phenix /usr/share/themes/
~# gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface gtk-theme 'Clearlooks-Phenix'
~# gconftool-2 --type string --set /apps/metacity/general/theme 'Clearlooks-Phenix' 

You are done

Everybody hates The Phone Company

Saw The President's Analyst yesterday.
I love that freaking movie, even after all this years. Saw for the first time, I believe, sometime during the mid 70's on an old TV show called Sábados de Super Acción.
I love this move, it simply gets better as time goes by.

Kiling the creaking, T60p style...

Took apart my beloved T60p today, mostly because of the  creaking on the right side of the palm rest was sort of driving me mad...
Did the same thing for my T60 sometime ago, and a tiny piece of tape really made a miracle.
Also checked how the gunk situation was on insides, since the fan noise, even now during winter, it is a notch about annoying, but there wasn't any gunk... I'm afraid I'll have to live with the noise.

The current Linux Mint desktop

Klatu Barada Screenshot :P

Winter Brownies Are Here

Winter is here, at last!
Welcome zhe Brownies!!!

Linux Mint window glitches

A couple of screenshots of the annoying artifacts that sometimes popup while using Linux Mint (Cinnamon).
They aren't as severe as the ones I saw while on GNOME 3.

At least Cinnamon's glitches go away by simply re-sizing the given window, GNOME 3's required a logout, or X Window re-init.

Seven Ages of Awesome

Saw the first 3 episodes yesterday, I love that documentary; got to see a couple of them on cable, but not complete, and out the specified order.
Got 4 to go.

Sojourner got updated

 Moved from Lucid Lynx to Precise Pangolin my beloved T60, Sojourner... It was about time, it had Lucid for I don't remember how long.
Choose to go with Ubuntu GNOME Shell Remix and then run GNOME Classic, after the tests I've done with the T43, this combination seems more and more seductive, I'm seriously considering doing the same with the T60p.

Reduce title bar on GNOME Classic

If you are using Gnome Classic, with the Adwaita theme (which I happen to like quite a bit) you'll notice that the title bar on windows are huge.
There is fix for that (Gnome 3 Massive title bar) but, this being a Gnome Classic session, the hack described on that page doesn't work.
In order to reduce the title bar size on Gnome Classic you have to execute this:

sudo sed -i "/title_vertical_pad/s/value=\"[0-9]\{1,2\}\"/value=\"0\"/g" \
/usr/share/themes/Adwaita/metacity-1/metacity-theme-2.xml

More Gnome3 testing

That is, testing the Classic Gnome one once again.
Really digging this one, maybe I'll switch distros once again...

Yet another test with GNOME 3

But this time, with the (now) classic one...

Installed on the little T43 on Saturday... That poor laptop is certainly getting a beating lately, distro hop is not for the faint hardware...
Installed once again the Ubuntu Gnome Shell Remix, but this time choose to go all the way the way with the classic Gnome, specifically the one with No Effects, just to see how things were running that and only that.

 It does look good, and it is pretty, pretty usable, just a milliliter away from what the real and ole Gnome was.

A very short roundup of thing I like about it:

Advantages:

• I can use my beloved Global Menu. (Or the new equivalent program, tha even works better).

• The Panel calendar displays events synced with my Google Calendar.  (The Mint calendar doesn't, at least at the moment).

• Even tho it is called "GNOME Classic without Effects" it has drop shadows.

• I can group windows on the Window List applet on the lower Panel.

Disadvantages:

• It seems like it uses an insane amount of resources

The screenshot was taken while running:

Skype (making a test call)
Pidgin
Evolution (truly a RAM hogger)
Firefox (with this site open)
Gnome Terminal

The Black Hole

Had the chance to see this movie once again, and damn me if I didn't enjoy it every single frame of it.
Guess I saw for the last time some 20 years ago or so, when I was a kid I used to watch over and over and over again.

A week with Mint

And it wasn't without some surprises...

I had three X Window crashes, one of those when returning the T60p from a Suspend.
When that happens there is no keyboard input -but the mouse does keep working- luckily switching to a Virtual Console and issuing a "killall gnome-session" re-inits the whole thing for good.

Also, the artifacts are still here, not as annoying as the ones I had with Gnome 3, but there are there sometimes, particularly on the upper left window corner, sometimes the input boxes on Firefox turn completely black and, sometimes, the email separator on Evolution transforms onto a thick black line.

Usually resizing the window fixes the black upper tip problem, switching to a different Virtual Desktop fixes the thick black lines on Evolution, Firefoxes black input boxes are harder, they usually fix themselves after a couple of minutes or so.

The X Window crashes, certainly the most annoying of this whole mess are happening because of the ancient ATI video card the T60p has.

Linux Mint Debian on a Thinkpad T43

Installed it on my lovely T43.
The installation was pretty smooth, took about an hour to finish, being Debian, there is no option to encrypt your $HOME.
The whole base install uses about 4.8 GB of HDD, which really seems like a lot to me.
Suspend and hibernate seems to be working A Ok.
The system doesn't feel much snappier than the plain vanilla Linux Mint 13 version.

13K and counting!!!

And this including the whole bunch that I've lost due to the changes made switching to the newest Rhythmbox.

Okay, campers, rise and shine!

And don't forget your booties 'cause it's cooooold out there today.

The current Linux Mint desktop

With a little help of Rick Deckard.

Close, but no cigar

No snow, at least so far.

How green was my distro!

Yesterday installed Linux Mint 13 on stilgar. Out of the blue.
I was having some problems with my Gnome 3 setup, nothing serious, but annoying; there was also a recurring Nautilus crash open first login on the Gnome 3, which even tho innocuous, it was a PITA.

The option I was contemplating was making a re-install from scratch, but this time using Ubuntu GNOME Shell Remix, to see if things would not only work without the artifacts, but also getting a smaller and leaner install base.

Anyway, what I really, really want is to have a robust install -not mention a distro- in order to make it last the whole shelf life of this LTS, which is a pretty impressive 5 years.

I certainly hope that will be the case with Linux Mint.

Certainly I do like Gnome 3 default looks, but it was a bit of a pain get things done with it, specially if you had to do a lot of things at the same time :)

At last!!!!!

Winter, winter, winter, winter, winter!!!!!
There is even some speculation that it might even snow during Wednesday...

The current GNOME 3 extensions

On this one, yes, a buttload of extensions.
All of this are used in order to create this screenshot.

Last.fm Obsession (XII)

Another one...
 The number of artists doesn't move an inch... And it didn't for the last posts.

Ubuntu Gnome Shell Remix: remove user from login manager

I hate that login managers tend to display more info than they should, specially nowadays, because it is considered more friendlier.

On the Ubuntu GNOME Shell Remix, in order to get rid of your username being automagically printed onto the login manager you'll have to edit the file:

/etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf

You have to simply append this two line to the end of the file:

greeter-hide-users=true
allow-guest=false 

And then reboot, tried doing a simple login out, but it got stuck.

The current Ubuntu desktop

Extensions galore!