More Compiz Fusion Woes: Reflexion Plugin

The Reflexion plugin is supposed to add a "reflexion" to transparent objects and shadows, rather like the immobile sun-rays that are rendered in the Windows Vista transparent places, except completely customisable.  It was always something I wanted to try, so when I found I could do it in Compiz Fusion, I naturally tried it.

It worked, in that I could see the reflexion.  The problem was that my computer slowed to a halt, just like with the alpha-blur in my other post.  I don't know if the plugin existed in the old Beryl, but I would hypothesise that it would have worked for me there, because the blur worked in Beryl.  I don't see why Compiz Fusion has such a hard time making cool features work with my graphics card, when an outdated software did just fine...

Blogged with Flock

Problems with alpha-blur in Compiz Fusion

I have an ATI Radeon Xpress 200M video card, or something along those lines, and am using the restricted drivers under XGL in Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon 7.10.  Most everything in Compiz Fusion works nicely and smoothly except for the alpha-blur.  Alpha-blur is when transparent objects blur the content behind them, sort of like in Vista window-borders, or behind "sheets" in Leopard, I think. Anyway, I have been trying to get it to work for ages, but whenever I get close, my computer starts to freeze up and it takes a few minutes before I can revert to the old settings.  An important thing to note is that the blur did work smoothly in the old Beryl, but it doesn't work in Compiz Fusion.  What has changed that makes it not work?  It is really quite annoying to me.

Blogged with Flock

A Nice Theme for Ubuntu, 2.0

A very long time ago, on my old blog, I wrote a post called 'A Nice Theme for Ubuntu'. It was one of my most popular posts for a while. The post featured a GTK and Metacity theme that was in Gilouche colours, but resembled Windows Vista.

I would like to introduce today, A Nice Theme for Ubuntu 2.0. That's right, folks. Here is a screenie before we start on how to reproduce the awesome-ness of my desktop:

We will start with the wallpaper. Therefore:

Wallpaper. Go to the following website to get the wallpaper: http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php/Greenome?content=55923

Icons. Tango, except for the Firefox icon, which is Human. http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php/Tango-Generator+2?content=55081

Emerald Theme (Window Decoration), requires Beryl and XGL/AIGLX. A modded version of http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/51131618/. The version used in this can be downloaded by clicking the following button: .

GTK Theme. The GTK theme is MurrinaAngelic Green. http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php?content=45482. Make sure that you have the Murrine Engine installed: http://www.gnome-look.org/content/show.php?content=42755

Firefox Theme. The Firefox theme is http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/45665026/?offset=1. You must download it, open up the Firefox Addons (or Themes) dialogue, and drag the file into it. It will be installed when Firefox is restarted. Needed for Firefox to look like mine is the extension Compact Menu Blue. After installation and restarting Firefox, edit your toolbars, drag the Compact Menu onto the menubar, and you can remove the main menu (File, Edit, etc...). Then, drag all the items previously contained in the Navigation Toolbar into the menubar. Then, (in order to have the glassy look on the Google Toolbar), drag all of the Google Toolbar items into the Navigation Toolbar. Then, disable all of the toolbars except for the Navigation Toolbar (unless you really need a bookmarks toolbar...).

Bottom Dock Bar. Avant Window Manager is a task-bar replacement that looks a little bit like the OS X dock, but note that it doesn't actually launch programs. http://code.google.com/p/avant-window-navigator/

I think that that is basically all that I needed to make my desktop look incredible. Best of luck!!!