GNOME Desktop Too Bare!

I love Arch and I love GNOME. The problem is - the default GNOME desktop that comes with Arch is EXTREMELY BARE! Even after I change the wallpaper and add some new icons. It just feels so empty. Do you guys have any suggestions on how I can fix things up?

Wallpapers:
(install downloadthemall firefox extension. open all pics in new tabs, when you're done the click address bar, then downloadthemall from menu. this way you get them all in one click)
http://browse.deviantart.com/customization/wallpaper/
GTK engine + gtkrc:
(from repos, searc with pacman)
murrine, rezlooks
Icons and window borders (aka "metacity themes"):
(install by dragging tar.gz packs to theme preferences window, save your favourites to disk until next installation)
www.gnome-look.org (sort by highest rating)
Cursor themes:
(from repos, searc with pacman. These are the default cursors in ubuntu btw.)
xcursor-vanilla-dmz, xcursor-vanilla-dmz-aa
Conky is fun too, if you're into that sort of thing. It can be a bit tricky to use alongside a gnome/kde "root window" (desktop) though...
I myself installed xcompmgr and avant-window-navigator a while ago. fun stuff. pretty too.
You could also design your own panels backgrounds with "the gimp". curved or "glossy" panels is fun to experiment with

Similar Messages

How to merge title bar and tab bar on Gnome desktop?

Not exactly a Firefox issue, but if it works fine on Windows it should work on Gnome too...
How can I merge title bar and tabs bar?
In Windows if we hide the menu bar Firefox puts in a single line Firefox button, tabs and minimize, maximize and close buttons. But in Gnome it keeps the separated title bar (with the minimize, maximize and close buttons).
Is there any way to really implement it on Gnome Desktop?

I want to back up what was said here. Chrome and Chromium have done this for as long as I can remember and the Linux distribution is entirely irrelevant in this case (as in most cases). There is an option to use the "system title bar and borders" in Chrome. If applied Chrome will have that blocky, chunky effect of not having the tabs overlapping into the title bar that firefox has. By default chrome does not use the system-provided title bar and borders. They wrote their own. The result is it looks nice. I prefer firefox by miles over Chrome, but have to admit it is chunky and ugly around the edges by comparison.
The problem is not that it is "not possible in Linux." As a dedicated Linux user, hearing that oft-repeated phrase gets really old. There is nothing about Linux that makes things not possible when it comes to coding features. What is going on is the shortcuts available to make the coding quick and easy may not already exist. Fewer people use Linux, fewer people develop for Linux, and there is often less existing code base already written for Linux to make a coding job quick and easy. Also, there is less incentive to write original code to make something work for Linux because we are relatively few; the countless minions using Windows are all complaining about other things and much more loudly so.
There is no doubt the task could be accomplished--which I would love to see--but the developers have to prioritize. I get that. Just wish they'd be honest rather than use the lazy answer of "It can't be done on your system."

Automatic Time Sync on Gnome Desktop?

What would you do to sync time on your Gnome Desktop?
Gnome Settings for "Networktime" does not work for me caus it is deactivated after reboot....
All what i try to do with ntp does not work too...
Is there any "easy" way to sync time?

I am quoting from another thread:
wonder wrote:gnome-settings-daemon until gnome 3.4 used rc.conf to read and save the timezone in gnome-control-center.
now this functionality was dropped in favor of using systemd date dbus api.
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=140862
So network time will not work if you have sysvinit and gnome.

Gdm depends on gnome-desktop [SOLVED]

I have xfce and want to have a display manager so that I can automatically boot to the desktop. In (X)ubuntu I used to have gdm, so I would like to have that now too. The problem is that when I try to install gdm with pacman, gnome-desktop becomes a target. How come? Xubuntu uses gdm without having Gnome installed.
If it isn't possible I guess I will have to install SLiM, but gdm would be my first choice.
Last edited by jeypeyy (2010-01-24 10:21:51)

jeypeyy wrote:
I have xfce and want to have a display manager so that I can automatically boot to the desktop. In (X)ubuntu I used to have gdm, so I would like to have that now too. The problem is that when I try to install gdm with pacman, gnome-desktop becomes a target. How come? Xubuntu uses gdm without having Gnome installed.
If it isn't possible I guess I will have to install SLiM, but gdm would be my first choice.
gdm has the same depedencies in ubuntu as in arch but the thing is they have split packages. they split gnome-panel in libpanel-applet2-0 etc. the same can be on gnome-desktop.
http://packages.ubuntu.com/karmic/gdm
if you really want to get rid of gnome-desktop, i recommend abs and recompile it and see if is working without gnome-desktop and his dependencies

Newbie: EL6 "database server" installed - how do I get the Gnome desktop ?

I installed fresh EL6 on the same partition where EL5.6 was installed - did a reformat of "/" to take advantage of ext4.
While installing EL6, I chose "Database Server" option - and did custom partitioning to preserve my other OS-es. The installation ran fine
However I do not get Gnome ( or KDE will do too ) desktop.
How do I add that ? Will I need to run install again and choose a "desktop" option (without formatting the root partition ) ?
I have ULN registration if it matters
Thanks
Sumit
Edited by: user8602532 on Feb 13, 2011 11:21 AM
Edited by: user8602532 on Feb 13, 2011 11:22 AM

There are lots and lots of RPM packages which make up the GNOME or KDE environment. Trying to install them all piecemeal is a daunting task. To address this, yum(8) has a feature known as "package groups" whereby you can install or remove all of the components making up that group in a single command. This how you want to do it.
Unfortunately, neither ULN and public-yum.oracle.com appear to have support for these package groups. But, the RPM package groups are defined on the DVD installation media.
This is the general approach:
1) Make a clean install of the O/S and database product.
2) DO NOT UP2DATE ANYTHING JUST YET!
3) With the installation DVD still present, create a YUM repository which points to it. Something as simple as:
cd /etc/yum.repos.d
echo '[dvd]' >dvd.repo
echo 'baseurl=file:///path/to/where/you/have/the/iso/mounted' >>dvd.repo
echo 'enabled=1' >>dvd.repo
echo 'gpgcheck=false' >>dvd.reposhould do the trick.
4) Check your work:
# yum grouplist5) Install the GNOME group:
# yum groupinstall "GNOME Desktop Environment"6) Now, configure your ULN subscription at http://linux.oracle.com:
# /usr/sbin/up2date --registerThere are two tricks here:
1. The package group information is available only on the distro media.
2. To use the group information on the distro DVD media, all currently-installed packages must match the versions available on the media. Cannot mix-and-match between the distro media and up2date packages.
Hope this helps.

Gnome desktop icon description wrapping [Solved]

How is it possible to make the icon descriptions in gnome desktop not wrap so early? For instance, the name "Evolution" is wrapped just before "n":
Evolutio
n
And "Thunderbird" is wrapped as follows:
Thunde
rbird
Solution
It was a matter of opening "Places" --> desktop --> menu Edit --> Preferences and choosing a larger zoom for the Icon View Defaults (I had it set in 50% but obviously 75% is better, now only the "d" of "Thunderbird" is wrapped, but 100% is too big for my screen).

hmm, i'm not sure what could have happened
maybe you can get them back if you re-install gnome-menus, archlinux-menus ,, i don't think kde comes with any as a pkg.
you might also be missing /usr/share/applications, most of the entries also come from desktop files in that directory

Conky disappers when Gnome-Desktop starts

Hi there,
I've installed conky as a systemmonitor and would like to let it start when my Gnome-Desktop starts. To achieve this, I put the "conky"-command under System -> Preferences -> Session. In principle this works, because when Gnome starts, I can see that conky is startet, too.
But when Gnome starts Metacity, conky ist shifted to the background (or whatever). With "top" I can see, that it's still running, but I can't see it anymore.
Does anyone know, how I can start conky automatically when Gnome starts up?
If you're interested or may it helps - here is my .conkyrc:
# Create own window instead of using desktop (required in nautilus)
own_window yes
own_window_type override
own_window_transparent yes
own_window_hints undecorated,below,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager
# Use double buffering (reduces flicker, may not work for everyone)
double_buffer yes
# fiddle with window
use_spacer yes
use_xft yes
# Update interval in seconds
update_interval 3.0
# Minimum size of text area
# minimum_size 250 5
# Draw shades?
draw_shades no
# Text stuff
draw_outline no # amplifies text if yes
draw_borders no
xftfont Arial:size=10
uppercase no # set to yes if you want all text to be in uppercase
# Stippled borders?
stippled_borders 3
# border margins
border_margin 9
# border width
border_width 10
# Default colors and also border colors, grey90 == #e5e5e5
default_color white
own_window_colour black
own_window_transparent yes
# Text alignment, other possible values are commented
#alignment top_left
alignment top_right
#alignment bottom_left
#alignment bottom_right
# Gap between borders of screen and text
gap_x 10
gap_y 10
# stuff after 'TEXT' will be formatted on screen
TEXT
$color
${color orange}SYSTEM ${hr 2}$color
$nodename $sysname $kernel on $machine
${color orange}CPU ${hr 2}$color
${freq}MHz Load: ${loadavg} Temp: ${acpitemp}
$cpubar
${cpugraph 000000 ffffff}
NAME PID CPU% MEM%
${top name 1} ${top pid 1} ${top cpu 1} ${top mem 1}
${top name 2} ${top pid 2} ${top cpu 2} ${top mem 2}
${top name 3} ${top pid 3} ${top cpu 3} ${top mem 3}
${top name 4} ${top pid 4} ${top cpu 4} ${top mem 4}
${color orange}MEMORY / DISK ${hr 2}$color
RAM: $memperc% ${membar 6}$color
Swap: $swapperc% ${swapbar 6}$color
Root: ${fs_free_perc /}% ${fs_bar 6 /}$color
home: ${fs_free_perc /home}% ${fs_bar 6 /home}$color
CDRom: ${fs_free_perc /mnt/cdrom}% ${fs_bar 6 /mnt/cdrom}
DVD: ${fs_free_perc /mnt/dvd}% ${fs_bar 6 /mnt/dvd}
${color orange}NETWORK (${addr eth0}) ${hr 2}$color
Down: $color${downspeed eth0} k/s ${alignr}Up: ${upspeed eth0} k/s
${downspeedgraph eth0 25,140 000000 ff0000} ${alignr}${upspeedgraph eth0
25,140 000000 00ff00}$color
Total: ${totaldown eth0} ${alignr}Total: ${totalup eth0}
Inbound: ${tcp_portmon 1 32767 count} Outbound: ${tcp_portmon 32768
61000 count}${alignr}Total: ${tcp_portmon 1 65535 count}
${color orange}LOGGING ${hr 2}$color
${execi 30 tail -n3 /var/log/messages.log | fold -w50}
${color orange}FORTUNE ${hr 2}$color
${execi 120 fortune -s | fold -w50}

Gnome lays its desktop above the root-window in its own borderless window. But conky is drawn directly to the root-window so the Gnome Desktop is always on top of it. The only workaround is to configure conky to run it its own window or not start the gnome-desktop executable.

[SOLVED]Gnome desktop and KDE menu suddenly gone

I run Arch on a second machine with both KDEmod and Gnome installed. When logging in today Gnome desktop was gone (wallpaper, icons, etc), but the panels were still there. All applications seem to function normally. Switching to Kdemod brought the following result: Desktop and icons are still visible, panels too, just all menu entries and the Konqueror and home icon in the panel are gone. I can still call up applications from the cli.
The "kmenuedit" command gives me the following error: "... could not read from /home/raisuli/menu/applications-kmeduedit.menu" which is not surprising because the file doesn't exist (anymore?).
Should I just reinstall Gnome and KDEmod or could there be another way?
Last edited by Raisuli (2008-05-05 20:44:18)

hmm, i'm not sure what could have happened
maybe you can get them back if you re-install gnome-menus, archlinux-menus ,, i don't think kde comes with any as a pkg.
you might also be missing /usr/share/applications, most of the entries also come from desktop files in that directory

Gnome desktop icons dissappear

the gnome desktop icons, terminal,trash,computer etc. dissappear from the desktop ?
how do i get them back without exiting the session and logging back in ?

it appears the problem is occuring after the session had been idle for a period of time > 3 hours... the icons disappear but the terminal sessions are still available... this is the error information:
]0;oracle@aether:~[oracle@aether ~]$ (/usr/bin/gnome-session&)
]0;oracle@aether:~[oracle@aether ~]$ SESSION_MANAGER=local/aether:/tmp/.ICE-unix/13610
Window manager warning: Log level 32: could not find XKB extension.
Initializing nautilus-open-terminal extension
** (nm-applet:13705): WARNING **: <WARN> applet_dbus_manager_start_service(): Could not acquire the NetworkManagerUserSettings service.
Message: 'Connection ":1.54" is not allowed to own the service "org.freedesktop.NetworkManagerUserSettings" due to security policies in the configuration file'
Introspect error: A security policy in place prevents this sender from sending this message to this recipient, see message bus configuration file (rejected message had interface "org.freedesktop.DBus.Introspectable" member "Introspect" error name "(unset)" destination "edu.duke.linux.yum")
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/bin/puplet", line 467, in ?
main()
File "/usr/bin/puplet", line 464, in main
p.run()
File "/usr/bin/puplet", line 451, in run
self._refreshInfo()
File "/usr/bin/puplet", line 191, in _refreshInfo
if self.updatesObject is not None and \
AttributeError: DBusException instance has no attribute '_dbus_error_name'
Unable to open desktop file /usr/share/applications/redhat-email.desktop for panel launcher: No such file or directory
Unable to open desktop file /usr/share/applications/openoffice.org-1.9-writer.desktop for panel launcher: No such file or directory
Unable to open desktop file /usr/share/applications/openoffice.org-1.9-impress.desktop for panel launcher: No such file or directory
Unable to open desktop file /usr/share/applications/openoffice.org-1.9-calc.desktop for panel launcher: No such file or directory
is there any command to refresh the desktop ?

HDD icons not appearing on my Gnome desktop when mounted [SOLVED]

I have several ntfs partitons that I'd like to see as icons on my Gnome desktop. When I ran Debian/Lenny, I would mount them like so:
$ sudo mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda2 /mnt/D
After that command ran, a new icon (HDD) would appear on my Gnome desktop. I didn't mess with fuseblock at all. I'd like to get this behavior with Arch but don't understand what I need to do.
Thanks!
EDIT: foutrelis solved this, see his post below.
Last edited by graysky (2009-01-02 13:56:36)

foutrelis wrote:
graysky wrote:If I mount them via the applet, they DO show up on my desktop. If I mount them manually via $ sudo mount blah blah command, they don't show up at all.
It looks like if the mount point is under /media it will show up on the desktop. This is not the case with /mnt.
You're the man, foutrelis! That did it! I can't explain why it worked mounted to /mnt/D under Debian but /media/D works for me! Thank you for the reply!
Now if you can tell me how I can edit the list of partitions that Gnome gives users, you'll be batting 1000. Basically, I don't want every single partition to appear in the list.
Last edited by graysky (2009-01-02 13:58:12)

Hal start failure,relogin gdm,and cant see gnome desktop

Hal start failure,relogin gdm,and cant see gnome desktop
When system start ,I can see gdm. When you enter a user and name password to login the desktop, the screen flash, immediately logout from the desktop,Back to the login interface.
manual start hal ,failure.
Thanks.
Last edited by wevol (2009-12-18 14:12:35)

I had a similar issue with HAL on my netbook (Lenovo S10e) running arch i686 kernelversion 2.6.32. When typing as root
$ /etc/rc.d/hal start
it failed.
I then killed the hald process via
$ killall hald
and now it starts fine.
Don't know what caused the problem, has there been a hal update recently?

Desktop menu bar disappeared

why did my desktop menu bar disappear?

Don't know. I wasn't looking over your shoulder when it happened. What were you doing when it happened? Please describe in detail all you have attempted to do in order to resolve the issue.

[NEW RELEASE] Arista - Easy to use transcoder for the GNOME Desktop

I have created packages (regular and nightly releases) in the AUR for a new program called Arista.
http://programmer-art.org/projects/arista-transcoder
An easy to use multimedia transcoder for the GNOME Desktop. Arista focuses on being easy to use by making the complex task of encoding for various devices simple. Pick your input, pick your target device, choose a file to save to and go.
Arista has been in development since early 2008 as a side project and was just recently polished to make it release-worthy. The 0.8 release is the first public release and includes a to-do of items that will be completed for the 1.0 final release.
Features
* Presets for iPod, computer, DVD player, PSP, and more
* Live preview to see encoded quality
* Automatically discover available DVD drives and media
* Rip straight from DVD media easily (requires libdvdcss)
* Simple terminal client for scripting
Requirements
Arista is written in Python and requires the bindings for GTK+ 2.16 or newer, GStreamer, GConf, GObject, Cairo, and DBus. If you are an Ubuntu user this means you need to be using at least Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty). The GStreamer plugins required depend on the presets available, but at this time you should have gst-plugins-good, gst-plugins-bad, gst-plugins-ugly, and gst-ffmpeg. If you are on Ubuntu don't forget to install the multiverse packages.
Development
All development will happen on Launchpad, which provides bug tracking, distributed version control, milestone / roadmap planning and tracking, a forum and translation utilities.
EDIT: I guess I should add AUR links =-)
Regular release: http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=25872
Bazaar (nightly) release: http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=25876
Last edited by mrbug (2009-04-23 09:20:19)

fukawi2 wrote:
mrbug wrote:Is libdvdcss a required or optional dependency?
I'd say yes, since it is optional (only if you want to transcode from DVD)
"Yes" is a strange answer to an "Or" question

I add the google too;bar, but it never shows up. The box is checked in views-toolbars, but it I can't get it.

I add the google too;bar, but it never shows up. The box is checked in views-toolbars, but it I can't get it.

I'd first try downloading an installer from the Apple website using a different web browser:
http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/
If you use Firefox instead of IE for the download (or vice versa), do you get a working installer?

Gnome-desktop 1: prefix?

Here:
https://www.archlinux.org/packages/extr … e-desktop/
Does anyone know why the 1: prefix is used on this package?
gnome-desktop 1:3.8.1-1
Thank you!

If you look at the PKGBUILD you can see the epoch value, maybe that's the reason?

GNOME Desktop Too Bare!

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for