How to Uninstall OpenOffice.org

Why would I do that, you ask? Because of Abiword and Gnumeric. Abiword is a word-processor and Gnumeric is a spreadsheet and they’re both far superior to OpenOffice.org’s offerings. Now if you do presentations regularly, then this is not for you, but if you don’t you have no excuse. This frees up 200 MB on your hard drive, as well as bringing the added benefits of less memory usage and faster app start up times.

First, we have to uninstall OpenOffice.org. The best way to do this is to type this command into the Terminal (Applications>Accesories>Terminal):

sudo apt-get remove openoffice*

The “sudo apt-get remove” part of the code is the generic code to uninstall any program. “openoffice*” Means that any packages that start with “openoffice” should be targeted by the command.

And to install abiword and gnumeric:

sudo apt-get install abiword

and then

sudo apt-get install gnumeric

And Voila!

My Quest For A Black iPod Classic Icon

I like eyecandy. My last post was about the ubuntu studio theme. Now ubuntu studio provides the user with a generic icon for removable media player devices which is pretty sweet, but I wanted a black ipod classic icon like the one you have in mac. So I began my search, which didn’t take all too long. Here’s the link: http://good–fella.deviantart.com/art/iPod-classic-black-67337482. You can get one for the silver ipod Classic here: http://good–fella.deviantart.com/art/iPod-classic-64380426.

Now once you’ve downloaded the file to your desktop or wherever, extract it (right-click>Extract Here). Next, plug in your iPod. Right-click it when it appears on your desktop and go to properties. Click the boring, generic icon you have, and browse to the folder you just extracted. Select the .png file and you’re done.

I’ve found that the icon is a bit small, so you can right-click and select stretch icon and drag to resize it.

Install ubuntu Studio Theme

There are a few hundred thousand themes to choose from out there for linux users. My favourite theme is called ubuntu studio. This is similar to the default human theme, albeit much darker and easier on the eyes. To download it, open terminal and type the following commands:

sudo apt-get install ubuntustudio-gdm-theme

sudo apt-get ubuntustudio-icon-theme

sudo apt-get ubuntustudio-theme

sudo apt-get ubuntustudio-wallpapers

Now, go to System>Preferences>Appearance, and select ubuntu Studio, and watch as your desktop gets transformed. New icons, new wallpapers, BLACK!

Magic Folder for Linux

The Magic Folder is a program I first encountered while browsing for widgets for my sidebar when I first got Windows Vista (now, I know better than to use Vista or the sidebar). I never really got used to using it, but I loved the idea, and when I migrated to ubuntu, I wanted to find something similar. A bit of googling got me here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=508955.

I’d like to thank grishenko2000 for writing that little bit of shell script. It works perfectly, and recently, I’ve found myself actually using it, despite its being practically paleolithic compared to what I had on Windows. I just hope someone takes the idea a bit further and makes it a proper program with preferences and such. I’ve submitted the idea to ubuntu Brainstorm, so please vote for it there: http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/10883/

It would be such a useful little program.

Running Football Manager 2008 in Linux

Football Manager 2008 was one of the main reasons I still used Windows ’til last week. It sure is one helluva game. The best football management game ever IMHO. Now how to get it running in Linux? There are a couple of ways to do this, but I only found one of them on the net. Here’s the other, easier way (unfortunately it only works if you have the game installed on a Windows PC, either on another computer or on the Windows partition of a dual-boot setup).

Before doing this, make sure you’ve installed the latest patch from SI on the PC where you already have the game installed, because you can’t do that later.

1. Ubuntu includes a nifty program called Wine with the default installation. Wine lets you run Windows apps in Linux. If you’re running another distro, just download it by typing “sudo apt-get install wine” in the terminal.

2. Now, go to Applications>Wine>Browse C:\ Drive. If you’re dual-booting with Windows, navigate to C:\Program Files on your Windows partition (usually accessible through Places>”x” GB Media ), and copy the “Sports Interactive” folder to the virtual C:\ drive you opened in the last step.

3. Download the no-cd crack: http://www.gameburnworld.com/gp/gamefixes/footballmanager2008.shtml

4. Replace fm.exe in your new Football Manager folder with the one you downloaded.

5. Double-click fm.exe to play it for the first time. This creates some new folders in your home directory.

6. You can create a launcher on the desktop or on any panel by rightclicking where you want it and selecting “Create launcher…” Click browse, and select “recently used” on the right side. Double-click “fm.exe”. Also don’t forget to give the launcher a name.

7. If you have saved games or any other User data to import, you’ll find a Sports Interactive folder in your home folder.

Happy managing.

Getting Compiz Fusion to Work with nvidia Graphics

With Windows Vista, Microsoft introduced Aero with much fanfare. Aero was a slicker version of the old interface. It added transparency and special effects like Flip3d, which is like a cooler alt-tab that lets you switch windows in 3d. The whole world was left open-mouthed at Aero’s amazing features… not. It sure looked pretty, but the hardware requirements were sky-high at the time, and it had all been done before.

Yeah, meet Compiz Fusion. Compiz is a compositing window manager available for Linux. It really doesn’t matter what that means, what matters is this:

Now Compiz Fusion comes with ubuntu Hardy, so as long as you meet the minimum requirements, which are very, very low, you can enable it. Of course, as with a lot of things in Linux, it’s not as simple as it seems, especially if you have a nvidia 7300LE graphics card (not sure about ATI and Intel, though). So here’s a little walkthrough:

1. Just to see if it works out of the box, you can click System>Preference>Apperarance, and go to the Visual Effects tab. Try chnaging the level of effects. If this works, great.

2. If not, go to System>Administration>Software Sources and in the first tab, make sure everything is ticked. By doing this, you’re allowing ubuntu to download proprietary (non-open-source) software.

3. Go to Application>Add/Remove click the drop-down menu and change it to All available applications. Search for “nvidia” in the bar. Check “NVidia binary X.Org driver (‘new’ driver)”, and click apply changes. Do step 1, and you should be all set.