Top Things To Do After Installing Luna

After elementary OS Luna has been officially released, a surge of new eOS users has arrived, and we are here to help. Everyone, including me, loves a "Top Things To Do After Installing..." list, so let's get you started.

UPDATE

After you have a freshly installed copy of elementary OS Luna at your hand, the first thing you should do is check for updates. You can either use the Update Manager by clicking on Applications (located on the top left corner) and looking for it there, or by opening your terminal (shortcut to open: CTRL + ALT + T) and typing:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
Updating your system is always a good idea. Updates include bug fixes, security patches, and new features!

MIDORI AND FLASH

eOS comes with the awesome lightweight browser Midori (pronounce it “midoɺi”, with a Spanish/ Japanese “r”). To get Flash working for it, you'll need to install ndiswrapper and do some tweaking, but don't fret, it's easier than it sounds. Just open up your Terminal (CTRL + ALT + T) and type in:

sudo apt-get install flashplugin-installer nspluginwrapper
sudo nspluginwrapper -i /usr/lib/flashplugin-installer/libflashplayer.so
nspluginwrapper -v -a -n -i

Update: Lewis Goddard has created a script that fixes flash in Midori if the above does not work for you here. Just follow the instructions provided there.

That's it, Midori should run Flash now!

OTHER BROWSERS

If you prefer to use Firefox or Chromium, no problem!

Install Firefox
You can set up Firefox to fit in elementary OS perfectly as described here.

Like Chrome/Chromium? No Problem.

Install Chromium
Theme Chromium to fit into eOS as described here.

COMMUNITY PPA

Elementary Update has set up a community driven repository for third party applications, themes and more, all tailored to fit right into eOS. You can easily add the PPA to your system by opening your Terminal (CTRL + ALT + T) and typing:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:versable/elementary-update
sudo apt-get update
With the community PPA enabled you can now do the following.

ELEMENTARY TWEAKS

You might be familiar with Gnome Tweak Tool or Ubuntu Tweak. Well, for elementary OS we have elementary Tweaks. With elementary Tweaks you can easily change advanced settings that are otherwise hidden in elementary OS and more!

Install elementary Tweaks
Once installed, you'll be able to access it by opening the System Settings and clicking on Tweaks. There are even more options in Tweaks that you can unlock by reading on and following the instructions.

WINGPANEL SLIM

Wingpanel, the super sexy space-saving top panel of eOS, is great as it is, but you might want something even more space saving due to a small screen or your personal preference. +Heath Paddock has forked Wingpanel and coded the awesome Wingpanel Slim. It is customizable through elementary Tweaks once installed.

Install Wingpanel Slim
Once installed, open elementary Tweaks, activate Wingpanel Slim by hitting the switch, and customize it to your liking.

INDICATOR SYNAPSE

+Tom Beckmann, the developer behind Gala, elementary's Window Manager, has coded a search indicator based on Synapse.

Install Indicator Synapse
Once installed, log out and back in and you'll have a search icon in your panel. You can change the keyboard shortcut with elementary Tweaks!

APPS

There are also a bunch of elementary styled applications in the Community PPA. Here is a list of their package name and a short description:

• audience - A modern media player
• birdie-granite - Twitter client for elementary OS
• cable - IRC client for elementary OS
• etube - Youtube viewer for elementary OS
• feedler - Awesome RSS reader
• foto - A very simple image viewer
• gazette - Clock, news and weather for your desktop
• nuvolaplayer - cloud music integration

Install Third Party Apps

THEMES

Albeit the awesome default elementary theme, the community has created a slew of astonishing themes and icon themes too.

• elementary-blue-theme
• elementary-champagne-theme
• elementary-colors-theme
• elementary-dark-theme
• elementary-harvey-theme
• elementary-lion-theme
• elementary-matteblack-theme
• elementary-milk-theme
• elementary-plastico-theme
• elementary-whit-e-theme

Install Themes

ICON THEMES

The same goes for icon themes that have been customized to fit eOS, here is the available list:

• elementary-elfaenza-icons
• elementary-emod-icons
• elementary-enumix-utouch-icons
• elementary-nitrux-icons
• elementary-taprevival-icons

Install Icon Themes

OTHER THEMES

If you like the default elementary OS icon theme, you should install elementary-thirdparty-icons, which provides additional icons for thirdparty apps:

Install Icons for Thirdparty Apps
Additionally, you can install extra Plank (the Dock that elementary OS uses) themes:

Install Dock Themes
How about some awesome new wallpapers?

Install Wallpapers Collection

UPDATE YOUR KERNEL

Since elementary OS is based on Ubuntu 12.04, it uses a rather outdated kernel. If you have any hardware issues, you might be able to fix them by installing a backport of Ubuntu's 13.04 Kernel. Although some users report that newer kernels don't work well for them. Note: You can always revert.

Install Raring Generic Linux
Reboot and it should work! If booting fails, you can boot with your old kernel by holding down SHIFT during the boot process, you can now choose your old kernel, boot up, and remove the linux-generic-lts-raring package from Software Center.
That's it! You should be all set to customize elementary OS Luna to your needs.

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eNumix uTouch Icon Theme

The famous and gorgeous icon theme Numix uTouch from Deviantart user me4oslav with over 245 icons has been modified by us to work with elementaryOS Luna.


We dig it's style and love how complete it feels with the large collection of application icons.


It is now available through the Community PPA, if you haven't added the PPA, check out this post. If you have it added, continue installing it in the Terminal with:
sudo apt-get install elementary-enumix-utouch-icons

Apply the theme with elementary Tweaks and enjoy.

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5 New Awesome Elementary Themes

Recently, Deviantart users kxmylo and rhoconlinux have been working hard on themes, specifically tailored to work with elementaryOS. We have added them to our Community PPA for your convenience. Let's have a look, shall we?

Blue

The Blue theme from kxmylo does not only bring a warm and friendly feeling to your desktop, it also comes with custom icons to polish this great theme. If you have the Community PPA enabled, simply install the theme with your Terminal:
sudo apt-get install elementary-blue-theme Use elementary Tweaks to change your theme and don't forget to use the Blue icon theme as well.

Colors

Another great theme from kxmylo is Colors. It playfully brings a colorful and beautiful palette to your elementaryOS desktop. Install it with:
sudo apt-get install elementary-colors-theme

Lion

The OSX inspired theme Lion from kxmylo brings a vibrant and polished look to your Desktop that is definitely worth checking out:
sudo apt-get install elementary-lion-theme

Champagne

This elementary based theme from rhoconlinux brings a nice alternative to the default elementaryOS theme. Get it with:
sudo apt-get install elementary-champagne-theme

Milk

The final and very professional theme Milk from rhoconlinux brightens up your desktop and brings a lot of features with it, such as Wingpanel Slim compatibility. Install it with:
sudo apt-get install elementary-milk-theme
Be sure to thank Camilo "kxmylo" Higuita and Rho Con Linux for their hard and awesome work!

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Community PPA Update #1

A lot has happened recently in the elementary community, so it's time for a round up.

CABLE

For starters, +Eduard Gotwig released a new version of the IRC client Cable, which is based on Sushi IRC. It brings visual improvements and a lot of bug fixes, like the buggy user list it used to have, with it.

The newest version is available through the Community PPA, and can be installed with: sudo apt-get install cable

elementary Tweaks

Elementary Tweaks has gone through a lot of changes. The most obvious is the new UI, which was done by +Tom Beckmann. The flexibility of the new UI allows more settings to be added.
Additionally to the new UI, Terminal settings have been added by Tom Beckmann and, thanks to the work of +Heath Paddock, Wingpanel Slim can now be aligned.

Icon theme emod

+Luca Di Martino has been working on an impressive new flat icon theme for elementary OS. He recently release the icon theme, which, of course, is also available through the Community PPA: sudo apt-get install elementary-emod-icons

New Plank Themes

Due to the new popular trend of using Plank in Panel mode, +Kevin Kleinman released 3 new Plank themes: sudo apt-get install elementary-plank-themes

Time off

Elementary Tweaks development and the Community PPA maintenance will be put on hold for a week, as I am taking some time off for a beach vacation. You can still send me questions/feedback/suggestions for elementary Tweaks and the Community PPA per email at versable@gmail.com and I will check my inbox when I get back.

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Safely use Wingpanel Slim

There has been an uproar in the elementary community ever since +Heath Paddock introduced Wingpanel Slim, a Wingpanel hack that greatly reduces Wingpanels size and increases the usable space on the desktop.

When Wingpanel Slim was introduced it brought a couple of problems: It replaced Wingpanel, making it rather complicated to switch back to the original Wingpanel, and it broke Galas Workspaces. These problems have been taken care of recently.

I have packaged Wingpanel Slim, so it doesn't collide with Wingpanel, and +Tom Beckmann has fixed the Gala Workspace issue. Additionally, elementary Tweaks now includes an option for Wingpanel Slim, making it easy to switch between the two panels.

Installation

You will need to have the Community PPA activated, elementary Tweaks installed and an updated system for the Gala fix. Check this post for instructions on installing the Community PPA and elementary Tweaks. If you already have the Community PPA and elementary Tweaks installed, open up your Terminal (CTRL+ALT+T) and type in:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install wingpanel-slim
That's it! Switching to Wingpanel Slim and back to Wingpanel is easily done by opening up the elementary Tweaks plug from your System Settings and activating or deactivating the Wingpanel Slim option located under the Appearance tab. You might want to log out and back in for the Gala fix to take effect.

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Promising Icon Themes

With the new elementary-tweaks, you may be looking to mix things up a bit on your elementary desktop. Here are two promising icon themes in progress that you should keep your eye on.

Tap Revival

~spiceofdesign is back at it again, this time with a new icon set. And it's beautiful.

We love the flat feel and the consistent look. It feels right at home in elementary luna.

Google Services Icons

TraumaD91 is also back! His Google icon set continues to expand in scope while retaining its beauty.

Check them both out, and thank the designers while you're at it!

Update: The icon theme Tap Revival has been added to the Community PPA. So update your repository cache (sudo apt-get update) and install the icon theme package:
sudo apt-get install elementary-taprevival-icons

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Finally, Elementary Tweaks!

While elementary OS is certainly great out-of-the-box, users have and will always tweak it to their preferences. We have posted a lot of How-To articles that let you delve deep into the system and add new functionality, change appearances and so forth.



A tool similar to Gnome Tweak Tool or Ubuntu Tweak, specifically tailored to elementary OS, has been requested many times before. Well you are in luck my friend, because here is just that: elementary Tweaks!



With elementary Tweaks, you can change themes, configure advanced Plank options, tweak animation timings, configure Files and Slingshot. And the best of all? It is written as a plug and therefor integrates into switchboard!



But that's just the icing on the glorious tweaking cake, now comes the frosting. I have packaged the Nitrux and the El Faenza icon theme that were specifically tailored for elementary OS for you. Additionally, I've thrown in some awesome elementary themes from DeviantArt user kxmylo.



It doesn't stop here! You may have noticed the Workspace Overview and Show Desktop icon settings in the first screenshot. They add functional icons that just do what they say to Plank and are based on +Tom Beckmanns Vala script, Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoffs .desktop file and the icons from our friend TraumaD91.



Enough with the teasing, let's get you hooked up with elementary Tweaks. First of all, if you haven't already, activate the elementary Community PPA by opening your terminal (CTRL+ALT+T) and typing:
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:versable/elementary-update
sudo apt-get update
Then install elementary Tweaks:
sudo apt-get install elementary-tweaks
Optionally, install additional elementary themes: sudo apt-get install elementary-dark-theme elementary-plastico-theme elementary-whit-e-theme elementary-harvey-theme
And the optimized icon themes: sudo apt-get install elementary-elfaenza-icons elementary-nitrux-icons
How about a bunch of Plank themes: sudo apt-get install elementary-plank-themes

ISSUES

Elementary Tweaks works great as it is. There are, however, some issues with the theming. After you have changed a window decoration or an interface theme it might not apply correctly. Just log out and back in and everything should be fine. Also bear in mind that elementary OS only supports GTK 3.4 themes. If there is another problem, don't hesitate to post a bug here and I'll try to fix it as soon as possible.

TRANSLATIONS

Currently elementary Tweaks is available in English and German, but with your support it can be available in your language too! Just set up an account on Launchpad, read the Translation Guide and start translating!

CREDITS

Although I did write this plug, it is heavily based on code from +Tom Beckmann, so much credit goes to him as well.

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Wallpaper Collection 2

Hello again my friends!

I am back with another fabulous pack of wallpapers to make your elementary OS install look even better! (if that is possible)

There are much more than 3, be sure to grab the full zip below!

Wallpaper Collection 2

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Customizing Your Window Controls

Would you like to add a minimize button to your elementary OS application windows? Many people do, and many have good reasons for why they want to. But for some reason elementary has opted-out of a minimize button...

Believe it or not, the great people of elementary are not mad. They have a very logical explanation for why there is not a minimize button on your application windows.

So, first I am going to show you how to enable the minimize button, but by doing so you are promising me that you’ll read to the end of this article and hear the whole story.

Deal?

To customize your window controls, open up dconf-editor, navigate to org →pantheon → desktop → gala → appearance and notice the button-layout attribute (second one down, from the top).

To enable a minimize button, change the field to close, minimize:maximize

This places the minimize button to the right of the close button (that’s just my personal preference). Think of the ‘:’ as a fence, objects to the left of it are anchored on the left and objects to the right are anchored (you guessed it) on the right. You can div and dabble as you please with your custom window configuration!

This topic has caused some buzz over through the development of elementary OS. 

What should the default window controls be?

Is there some standard or protocol for the types of window controls that should be displayed for the user?

Not too long ago, in November of 2011, Daniel posted an entry on the elementary OS journal entitled, What’s Up With Window Controls? In this article, he gives a great background of window controls, their different patterns of use on different operating systems and why they are used that way. Towards the end of the article he tells us that from this point forward in elementary OS, there will be two window controls; Minimize and Maximize.

This choice resulted in a tsunami of comments from various users voicing their opinion, for and against. About a year later, Daniel posted another journal entry entitled, What's (Still) Up With Window Controls? This article illustrated the overwhelming success of their previous choice.

Now onto my story...

I don’t know if this is a conditional response that I have developed over my years of computing, but I often feel the need to have a minimize button. I've added the minimize window control to every fresh install of elementary and never bothered reading elementary's reasoning as to why it wasn't enabled by default.

Once I had the idea for this article, I pitched it to my editor Aaron and he urged me to read those previous journal entries I spoke of. After reading, I was convinced. Daniel's journal entries convinced me to break a habit I've had for 16 years. I urge you to read those entries. I could give you a cheap summary of them, but the source is much greater than run off. The people of elementary have thought long and hard about their user experience, so why not benefit from the fruits of their labor?

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Wallpaper Collection 1

Hello there!

These are just a few wallpapers I have collected and archived over the past year. All have been tested and look beautiful on elementary!

I did not create these wallpapers, I have just accumulated them over the past year from various sites.

Don't fret, there are much more than 3, grab the full zip below and get your wallpaper on!

Wallpaper Collection 1

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Welcome to elementary OS

So, you made the decision to switch to elementary OS? Great!

Now, maybe you are new to the elementary world and want to test some things out, tweak here-and-there a bit, install this, customize that...

Well, here are things you could do after installing elementary OS.

CUSTOMIZATION

After a fresh install, elementary already looks nice, but there are some nice tweaks you can do.

PLANK

So, why not give Plank another theme? There are many nice ones, but there are already some included in elementary.

It may look like this:

Here's how to install plank themes, and here is the Top 5 best Plank themes.

You may want to categorize applications, grouping icons in Plank. These look like this:

Here is the guide.

OTHER THEMES

If you don't like the grey-ish window (eGTK) theme of elementary, you may enjoy the dark elementary theme.

Find out more about it here.

Oh, and why not make Chrome fit in more in elementary?

ICONS

Some icons of 3rd party applications, such as Dropbox, look horrible in elementary. Thankfully, there are icons made by the community to fit them elementary's theme.

Dropbox Wingpanel icons 

Dropbox System Folders

Make LibreOffice look elementary-ish

You may also try a whole new icon set:

Nitrux Icons

El Faenza

APPLICATIONS

There are many cool and useful elementary-style applications that most people don't know about about. Here are some you may want to try out.

The Top 5 of the best elementary-Style 3rd party applications...

... such as Birdie:

You may also want to get stuff done... Pomidor Style.

"Gazette" by +Eduard Gotwig, is a news service for your desktop, showing current news, the local weather, and recently changed / used files.

And that's how you install it.

GENERAL TWEAKS

Besides applications you can install, and themes you can apply, there are also general tweaks you can do.

Maybe, you're often visiting Google+, so you want to easily visit it with a shortcut. For things like this, you can create web apps. Check out this 4 part web-app series.

Midori, elementary's standard web browser, does not have the ability to run flash, which is needed for things such as YouTube. Don't worry, you can easily add flash to Midori.

You can preview files, such as documents and photos with the application Gloobus.

You may also upgrade the Kernel to version 3.9 in Luna Beta 2. Just follow these kernel upgrade steps.

OTHER THINGS

Are you a gamer? Then you should read these popular articles by +Lewis Goddard.

Say "Hello!" to the community and check out other places, where you can find a community around elementary.

But that wasn't everything! There's still much you can do. Browse through elementary update and other places. And let us know when you find cool tweaks and things to improve the elementary experience.

Contact Us

Email

Describe yourself

• eOS developer
• eOS user
• app developer
• other

What's on your mind?

Thank You

Thanks for dropping us a line. elementaryupdate is a community effort. The more we care, the better this project becomes!

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