Beautify Your Desktop With 'Conky Clock and Date' Desklet - Ubuntu/Linux Mint

In this tutorial we will help you install the Conky_Clock_and_Date conky gadget on Ubuntu and Linux Mint. This amazing conky script will display on your desktop a clock and current date. The widget will stick to top right corner of your screen. Here is a screenshot of it under Ubuntu 12.04:

Installation

Open the terminal and run the following commands:

sudo apt-get install -y unzip conky conky-all

cd /tmp

wget -O conky-clock-date.zip http://goo.gl/v4XDi

unzip -q conky-clock-date.zip -d  ~/ && cd conky-clock-date

mkdir -p ~/.fonts

cp *.ttf ~/.fonts

cp -r scripts ~/

cp *.lua ~/

Start now the clock with this command:

conky -c ~/conky-clock-date/conkyrc &

To close it, run this command:

killall conky

Script Source: deviantart

Parted Magic 2012.09.12

Patrick Verner has announced the release of Parted Magic 2012_09_12, a specialist live CD providing utilities for disk management and data rescue tasks: "Parted Magic 2012_09_12. GParted LVM support - this is a list of new LVM features: physical volume creation, checking, resizing (no compaction, just adjusting size above highest used block), moving (using GParted's offline move capability), activation and deactivation, deletion. A large number of programs have been updated: Midnight Commander 4.8.4, Firefox 15.0.1, kmod 10, ALSA libraries 1.0.26. OpenSSH 6.1p1, X.Org Server 1.12.4, Linux kernel 3.5.3. The split_initrdimg.sh has been updated so it works with atftpd again. There were actually two issues. The bigger initbase file was 41 MB and atftpd can only handle 32 MB maximum file size." See the project's news page for a complete list of bug fixes. Download (MD5): pmagic_2012_09_12.iso (238MB), pmagic_2012_09_12_i486.iso (237MB), pmagic_2012_09_12_x86_64.iso (239MB).

Qt Creator 2.6 Beta Fixes qmake Bug

Qt Creator, a cross-platform IDE (integrated development environment) tailored to the needs of Qt developers and part of the Qt Project, is now at version 2.6 Beta.

Qt Creator 2.6 Beta comes with a ton of new features and changes, including C++, QML/JS, and GLSL improved support.

Highlights of Qt Creator 2.6 Beta:

• A wizard for creating a temporary text file has been added;
• A menu for showing and hiding the output pane buttons has been added;
• A visual hint for canceled searches has been added;
• A context menu for adding and removing UTF-8 bom has been added;
• State engine has been adjusted to changes in GDB/MI notifications;
• Logging and output pane performance has been improved.

A complete list of change and modifications can be found in the official announcement.

 Download Qt Creator 2.6 Beta

5 New Unity 4 Games Will Come to Linux

We've announced a couple of weeks ago that with the release of the Unity 4.0 game engine more games will be published on Linux, especially on the Ubuntu platform, via Ubuntu Software Center.

In the last days, more game studios have announced that their "still in development" games will have native support for the Linux platform.

Without further ado, here are the five new games announced (you can click on each one to view its homepage):

1. FORCED, a gladiator combat-game based on tactical cooperative 2-4 player gameplay either online or locally (also includes full single-player game), published by Beta Dwarf.

2. Blackreef Pirates, a single-player adventure RPG (role-playing game) set in a unique fantasy world full of treasure maps, wild beasts, and rum, published by Subvert Games.

 

3. Kinetic Void, a SciFi Space Sandbox, which focuses on procedural content, and detailed customization, published by Badland Studio.

4. Folk Tale, a real-time comedy-adventure-strategy game published by Games Foundry.

 

5. Receiver, a game that explores gun handling mechanics, randomized levels, and unordered storytelling, published by Wolfire Games.

 

All these games and hopefully much more will be available for Ubuntu users, via Ubuntu Software Center, as soon as they are finished and the Unity 4.0 engine is out.

Unity 4.0 is developed these days by Unity Technologies, which are getting ready to release the final version of the award-winning game engine, and a collaboration with Canonical will make sure that game developers can publish their games directly into Ubuntu.

And to be honest, I just can't wait for both Unity 4 and Valve's Steam to break the ice, to destroy that giant door that keeps Linux users away from all those nice games we see on our neighbor's computer!

Bring 'em on, guys, I want to buy your games!   

Sway Black-Base ORANGE: A Nice Dark GTK3 Theme for Unity and Gnome Shell - Ubuntu 12.04/Linux Mint 13 (Maya)

Sway Black-Base ORANGE is an elegant GTK3 theme that uses a striking combination of black and orange colors. The theme can be enabled under Unity and Gnome Shell. Here is a screenshot of Sway Black-Base ORANGE under Ubuntu 12.04 (Unity):

Sway Black-Base ORANGE Installation

To install this theme under Ubuntu 12.10/12.04/11.10 or Linux Mint 13 (Maya), open the terminal and issue these commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:upubuntu-com/gtk3
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install sway-black-orange

You can use Gnome Tweak Tool to enable it, or run these two commands:

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface gtk-theme 'Sway Black-Base ORANGE'

gconftool-2 --set --type string /apps/metacity/general/theme 'Sway Black-Base ORANGE'

Theme source: gnome-look

How to Reset a Lost User Password on a PC Running Ubuntu 12.10/12.04/Linux Mint 13

Have you forgotten your user account password and you are unable to login to Ubuntu/Linux Mint? In this tutorial we will see how to use the Recovery Mode to reset a lost password so that you can log in again to your desktop. We will also help you set your computer to login automatically without entering the user password. You can use this tutorial on Ubuntu 12.10/12.04/11.10/Linux Mint 13 or older.

Getting Started

Let's firstly start the Recovery Mode. Reboot your computer and hold down the SHIFT key, the GRUB boot menu will show up, select the line having the "recovery mode" option and press Enter:

For Linux Mint 13:

Another menu will appear after a few seconds, select the line saying "root Drop to root shell prompt" and press Enter to enable the CLI mode:

The file system in this case is set to read-only which will prevent us from resetting the user password. To set read/write permissions, you need to run this command:

mount -rw -o remount /

If you have also forgotten your username, you can use this command to get the list of all system user accounts:

cat /etc/passwd

Once you decide which user to reset password for, run this command:

passwd username

Note: Replace username with your own user name.

Submit a new password two times for this username. If the operation is successful, you may get something like this:

Run now this command to exit:

exit

Then select the "resume normal boot" option to load your OS in normat mode.

   Enabling Automatic Login (Optional)

To make Ubuntu/Linux Mint start automatically without stopping at the login screen, follow these instructions:

- Open the terminal and run this command:

sudo gedit /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf

For Linux Mint 13:

sudo pluma /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf

- In this file, add your username as follows:

 autologin-user=USERNAME

- Save the file and close. The user password will not be asked again each time your system is starting-up.