While installing Archlinux on my IBM Thinkpad T41, the touchpad wasn't enabled after configuring X with Xorg -configure. This post is about how to get the touchpad working with scrolling and tapping.

I recently bought a gamer mouse (Trust Predator GM-4800 Laser Gamer Mouse Elite). After some trial and error I found a tool to easily enable and configure the extra mouse buttons that were not immediately recognized. In this tutorial I will explain how to install and configure a tool called btnx, to enable the extra mouse buttons.

With compiz enabled you can play with the opacity of your windows. This is done by putting your mouse over the window, pressing ALT and scrolling with your mousewheel. Now I wanted to try something different, I wanted all my windows, menus, popups, dialogs and tooltips to be transparent by default. This can easily be done with tweaking compiz in the CompizConfig settings manager. For your desktop to be useable, I suggest to use a very dark theme with light icons and a rather clean wallpaper. So in this tutorial I will explain how to get a completely transparent Linux Desktop.

I am a Die Hard fan from the first hour. After watching the 4th one, called Live Free or Die Hard I went looking after the theme the character Matthew Farrell uses on his desktop. I was pleasantly surprised to find a emerald theme, that looks exactly like it. But There was no GTK theme to go with it, so I made one.

After 2 days of messing around I managed to install and run Word, Excel and Powerpoint from Microsoft Office 2007 Enterprise on Ubuntu, using Wine 1.0 rc1. For now, this tutorial is only tested on feisty. I have to try it on my hardy box, before I post that it works, which I will when I find the time. But the steps will be very similar, so you can try it. This being said I just want to mention that Office is still buggy, Word and Excel only worked in safe mode, which is limited in functionality, Powerpoint worked in normal mode. I didn't manage to start the other apps. But what worked, is kinda usable (no math in Word e.g.). I could open, save and print files without a problem.

UPDATE: After a relog there were MS Office icons-links in the wine menu. Using those I could run Word, Excel, Powerpoint, OneNote and Publisher in normal mode (as opposed to safe mode), so with full functionality. Access, outlook and Groove didn't start.

Surfraw stands for 'Shell Users' Revolutionary Front Against the WWW'. It's a command-line shell program for interfacing with a big number of web-based search engines. With Surfraw you can search google and wikipedia a.o. from the command line. The results will be displayed with a browser of your choice. I suggest a text browser like links2, to keep it text based. Read more to find out how to install and use it.

After completing this tutorial you will be able to retrieve and send email from your favorite email client using your gmail, yahoo, and/or hotmail account. Normally this isn't possible with a free account (except for gmail), but with the help of a gateway that simulates a pop server in 1 direction, and connects to the mailserver in the other direction, it is possible. This tutorial is mainly aimed at Evolution and Sylpheed, but should also work for other Linux email clients, although there are other possibilities for Thunderbird.

I themed my Ubuntu after OSX in a rather dark style. My favorite theme so far. It's like having the best of two worlds. The best OS and the best design - OK, you may start your flame war now!
This was done on a IBM T41 running Feisty, so it wasn't easy to get the Avant-window-navigator (dockbar) running. If someone cares about them, I can post the details.
Click 'read more' for the screenshots.

I managed to get Itunes 7.3.0.54 running on Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron using wine 0.9.59 . First I setup Pulse Audio Server following this tutorial I found on ubuntuforums.org : http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=776739 . This will take care of a bug that is responsible for Ubuntu Hardy Heron not being able to play sound simultaneously from different applications, after the installation. Itunes doesn't need a introduction.

Ubuntu comes with a good system monitor. If you like to keep an eye on your system all the time, you can put up to 6 indicators on your panel. (Just right click on your panel, 'add to panel' and select 'system monitor'. Right click on a graph and select 'preferences' to edit it.)

But If that isn't enough, there's always Conky. Conky is a very configurable, light-weight system monitor that among others displays system stats on your screen, like in the screenshot.

A couple of months ago I upgraded to Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon. Being a fan of the Satanic edition, I installed that also. Because I like to have a functional desktop, I left the cube out. But there is still some eye candy there.