Funsurf

Get some Plasma goodness in Gnome shell

2012-02-08T18:33:00.000+05:30

Gnome Shell is not mature, but I'm starting to love it :) The main thing I miss while using any Gnome based desktop environment is desktop widgets. Sure, there are many alternatives from screenlets to conky etc. But none of them come as close to the variety of widgets the Plasma Desktop in KDE provides. But thanks to the versatility of Plasma Desktop, you can use it anywhere you want, even on Gnome Shell (yes Unity fans, Unity too).

So what do you have to do? Not much, just install Plasma Desktop and you are ready to go! if you use Ubuntu, click here to install Plasma Desktop or run the following commands in a terminal.

sudo apt-get install plasma-desktop

Now just open up the run command dialog by pressing Alt+F2, enter plasma-desktop and press enter! Now you can add widgets as you would do on KDE. Right click the desktop and select "Add Widgets", search for your desired widgets and add. Pretty neat :)

Installing new widgets is as easy as it is in KDE.

You might want to add plasma-desktop to the startup applications to have it start automatically when you login.

To fix the font smoothing in GTK apps, create a file ".fonts.conf" in your home folder, open it with gedit and paste the following in it,

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
<match target="font">
<edit name="autohint" mode="assign">
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
</match>
</fontconfig>

Also, configure the KDE apps to use the GTK style, so you have a more uniform look. Go to "System Settings > Application Appearance > Widget Style > GTK+"

You might want to move the activities button to bottom. You might also want to remove the KDE Panel as it won't match with your desktop. When in overview mode, you will notice the wallpaper in the workspace thumbnails is not the current wallpaper of Plasma, but the previous one, so setting the same wallpaper for both Gnome and Plasma will fix this behaviour.

You can quit Plasma Desktop and return to your regular desktop by pressing Alt+F2 and running pkill plasma-desktop.

Orion - A modern light theme for GTK3

2012-01-27T17:39:00.001+05:30

Orion, my latest GTK3 theme, is a light, clean and beautiful theme using the Unico engine. The metacity theme used in Orion is actually a modified metacity from the Boomerang theme. Mutter and xfwm4 themes are also included. It also includes a GTK2 theme which uses the Murrine engine. May be some parts are not finished yet, as it is a work in progress.

The theme is available in my themes PPA, so Ubuntu Oneiric and Precise users can easily install it and stay updated. Just open the terminal, and type the commands,

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:satyajit-happy/themes
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install orion-gtk-theme

You can also download it from the DeviantArt page, in case you use other distros.

What is Rooting an Android Phone?

2011-11-28T23:43:00.001+05:30

Rooting? Are you gonna plant trees? :) Let's face it, most of us don't know what is rooting, and what do we get from it. It can be easier to understand for someone who is a Linux user, but for others, it could be a big mystery. So here is my attempt to explain what I know.

When you buy a shiny new Android phone, you have many limitations imposed by the manufacturer. For example, you can install apps, uninstall them, make calls, send messages etc. But if you don't like a preinstalled application, can you remove it? The short answer is, "No". Can you change the system files? "No". And many things you cannot do with your phone. This is where rooting comes into action.

Did you ever used Windows? If yes, then you must have heard of the "Administrator" account. Having an Administrator account means you have more control over the system. Similarly, in Linux, the Administrator account is called "root", and so in Android. After all, Android is Linux, isn't it? Rooting can also be explained as a process which enables 'su'(Superuser) access to the underlying operating system.

When you root your phone, you gain the ultimate control over the phone. You can do anything you want. You can modify the system files, you can enhance the features and you can brick your phone too! Compare it to "Jailbreaking" on an iPhone.

Why I'm restricted?

It is your phone, so why are you restricted so much? This is because of your safety. If you don't know what you are doing, you could make your phone unusable, and no one would be responsible for it.

Should I root my phone?

Rooting is not that much hard, thanks to many hard working developers. Mostly, rooting doesn't involve breaking your bootloader and in most cases, can be easily undone. Keep in mind that rooting doesn't give ultimate power to all apps installed, you must confirm if you want to allow an app. This is done via an app called "Superuser".

But should you really root your phone? If you are happy with your phone, no need to take the risk. Remember, rooting can void your warranty. If something goes wrong, you are on your own and no one will be responsible.

Also, rooting means, the apps you download can have access to the internal file system of the phone which can be dangerous if it is a malicious app.

How rooting works?

Rooting includes exploiting a known vulnerability in the Operating System to gain root access, then it pushes the "su" binary and the "Superuser" app to the system, which then help in retaining the root.

Why to root?

Rooting can give you lots of advantages, the list being endless. Here are few of the examples you might be interested in,

Access and modify the internal file system
Optimize system for faster operation
Free up space by removing preinstalled apps
Use the phone as a Wi-Fi hotspot, in case your operator blocked it
Install new Kernel for a better experience
Try out new ROMs and updates even if your manufacturer has ceased it
Modify the visual appearance and theme of your phone
Install a Recovery for easy backup and restore of the entire ROM
Run many applications supported only on rooted phones

And much more...

Before rooting...

Before rooting your phone, you should keep few things in mind...

Search for your specific phone model: Though it is Android, the different versions and manufacturer customization make the process of rooting different for different phones. If you follow incorrect procedures, the damage might be irreparable.
Follow trusted sources: Before attempting anything on your precious phone, see if it is already tested by other users. Read the comments and you can make sure if you want do do it or not. It is always advisable to search in well known sites such as xda-developers.com.
Learn how to revert the changes: First learn how to un-root. Rooting is reversible in most phones. So it is a good idea to know how to un-root in case you need to, for example take your phone to service center.
Have the battery fully charged: The rooting operation is very sensitive and you must have a fully charged phone before attempting to hack your phone. Otherwise something might go wrong if your phone turns off in the middle of the process.
Don't be Greedy: Often you may read methods to increase performance to max, which mostly include overclocking etc. Remember, it can damage the phone hardware and only you will be responsible for it.

Some Apps for rooted phones

Superuser: It should be automatically installed when you rooted your phone. It manages the root permissions of different apps, grants or denies root permission etc.
Root Explorer: It lets you access and modify the internal file system of the OS.
Titanium Backup: It can backup your applications and their data.
App Manager: Another backup utility, have more features than free version of Titanium Backup.
SetCPU: It can be used to overclock your phone. Works only with supported kernels.
ROM Manager: It can manage installation of custom ROMs. Be warned though! It might be unsupported on some phones and brick them.
Barnacle Wifi Tether: If you are on a older Android version which don't have native tether capabilities, this will certainly come handy in sharing your phone's internet connection.

And much more...

What's next?

So you know the basics now, go and explore the endless possibilities and freedom you now have. And let me know your experience. Play safe. :)

Gnome 2 and Gnome 3, Now and Then

2011-11-11T22:32:00.001+05:30

Gnome 2, probably a much loved desktop till the date. It is both friendly and customizable. In the past I had posted a post Do We Really Need Gnome 2 Forks? I then emphasized on making the Fallback mode more usable to use like Gnome 2. But conditions are different now. Fallback mode will be no longer maintained, as in Fedora 17, Gnome Shell won't require 3D acceleration to work, and there will be no use for fallback mode.

So the Gnome 2 Fork called Mate seems to enlighten all those Gnome 2 fans. So much like Trinity was to KDE3 fans. Even some distros like Fuduntu, have resisted the change and forked completely to maintain the obsoleted. Obsoleted? Why you ask, but it is the truth, Gnome 2 is of no interest to its original developers now, it is abandoned, no new features will be there. If you can live with a static desktop with no new features, then it is for you. It is already very much stable and user friendly.

So why do some dislike Gnome Shell? Because there is a habit in us to resist change. And Gnome Shell was a massive change.

But back then, when Gnome Shell was first released, it was in its infancy, barely usable and difficult to customize. Now, everything has changed. It is beginning to get more and more features, and many new applications are being planned to be included in the Gnome 3 stack. Now we can even bring back the old Gnome 2 like experience using extensions. Some distros like Linux Mint are already trying to implement it.

So why should we still remain with Gnome 2? May be because we are accustomed to. But I'm in those persons who like to accept the change and adapt to it. I see the point why some don't want to switch, I also see the part they are missing. But whatever, I'm much more happy with Gnome Shell and it feels much snappier than Gnome 2 + Compiz did.

Install Jockey Driver Installer in Fedora 16

2011-11-11T21:14:00.004+05:30

Jockey driver installer is an application which can install various hardware drivers, originally intended for Ubuntu. The guys at Parsidora have ported it to Fedora. The problem is, it is only for Fedora 15. So we will install it in Fedora 16 here. First, we need to add the Parsidora repo.

cat <<EOF | tee /etc/yum.repos.d/parsidora.repo [parsidora] name=Parsidora 15 – \$basearch baseurl=http://parsidora.sourceforge.net/releases/15/repos/parsidora/\$basearch enabled=0 gpgcheck=0 EOF

The repo is intended for Fedora 15, so we should not enable it by default. Now let's install Jockey :)

yum --enablerepo=parsidora install jockey-selinux jockey-gtk

You can alternatively install the KDE package if you use KDE.

yum --enablerepo=parsidora install jockey-selinux jockey-kde

Now that you installed the Jockey GTK interface, try to start it from the menu "Additional Drivers". But it won't start for some reason. So let's troubleshoot it. This problem occurs since Fedora 16 uses a newer version of the library python-gobject, where gobject now called GObject. But in the jockey-gtk package, it is referenced as gobject. So we just need to change the names.

sed -i 's/import gobject/\# import gobject/g' /usr/bin/jockey-gtk sed -i 's/gobject/GObject/g' /usr/bin/jockey-gtk sed -i 's/from gi.repository import GdkPixbuf, Gtk, Notify/from gi.repository import GdkPixbuf, Gtk, Notify, GObject/g' /usr/bin/jockey-gtk

Now, if all goes well, Jockey should start. Note that in the latest version of Fedora Utils, it is automatically taken care of, and installation of jockey no longer fails in Fedora 16.

Fedora 16 Releases Tomorrow, Keep Fedora Utils Handy!

2011-11-07T10:48:00.001+05:30

So Fedora 16 is releasing tomorrow, which will bring many new features and upstream improvements in Gnome 3.2. While configuring Fedora for the first time could be a boring task (if not difficult), having a post install script certainly makes it easier.

So I've released Fedora Utils 1.7.5 which comes with a couple of handy tools and features to get you started with few clicks. While Fedora Utils is not that great, the thing which make it stand out in the crowd is autoupdate, ability to do things in batch, save downloaded files etc. It was great fun developing it and making sure it is easier for you to use. If you don't know about Fedora Utils, it is because it is relatively much newer than other post install scripts.

Complete featurelist:

Add current user to sudoers
Enable autologin for current user
Set yum to keep cache
Install yum tidy-cache plugin
Add repositories - RPMFusion, Google, Adobe, Chromium, Skype
Enable touchpad clicks
Install multimedia codecs
Install Adobe Flash
Install Java Runtime Environment
Install wine with gecko
Install Google Talk plugin
Add colors and fortune messages to Terminal
Set SELinux in permissive mode
Install Microsoft fonts
Install Jockey driver installer (From Parsidora repo)
Install essential software
Fixes - Fix font smoothing, Fix bad theme in root apps, Fix rpmdb error, Fix gnome keyring, Fix picasa not starting, Fix anaconda causing revisor not to start, Fix MPlayer driver error, Fix ntfs-config not starting
Install Gnome Shell Extensions - GPaste, Media Player, Weather, Alternate Status Menu, Dock Extension, Places Menu, User Theme, Window Navigator, Zeitgeist
Install Software - Google Chrome, Picasa, Google Earth, HandBrake, Skype, WinFF, Unico Theme Engine
Clean up system
Optimize boot by turning off unnecessary services
Show system info

I have also made it easier to use. Just download the script from here, make it executable, and either run it from terminal or double click it.

You can also install the RPM Package in your system and then launch Fedora Utils from the menu.

su -c "yum localinstall http://fedorautils.sourceforge.net/fedorautils-latest.noarch.rpm"

The latest version also has a "View Help" section which helps you in few things like adding/removing the repo, installing/uninstalling Fedora Utils, view changelog and the FAQ easily.

The full changelog can be found here.

And finally, please spread the word to get others know about this useful script.

Evolve - A Light GTK3 Theme

2011-10-28T07:42:00.003+05:30

Please forgive me for so much posts about Gnome 3/Gnome Shell themes. But I had to write it. I made it, if I won't write on my blog then who will?

Evolve is a new, simplistic, minimal, light GTK3 theme. It is easy on the eyes and comes with a matching theme for GTK2 apps. The theme is compatible with the latest GTK 3.2. Evolve uses the Adwaita engine for the GTK3 theme and Murrine for the GTK2 theme.

To be frank, though GTK3 theming is a lot easier than GTK2, the biggest challenge is making a matching GTK2 theme. I don't understand GTK2 theming and it is much of work for me to learn it. But then, people won't use your theme, no matter how beautiful it is. Because lots of apps are still in GTK2 and they will look out of place.

Thanks to Andrew for writing about it in his famous blog here, as well as hosting it in the WebUpd8 themes PPA, making it easy for Ubuntu users to install. These are the things that encourage me to create more themes and dedicate more time. Especially Andrew has helped me a lot and he is the best blogger I met ever :)

As, Evolve is available in the WebUpd8 themes PPA, Ubuntu 11.10 users can install it using the commands below,

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/themes
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install evolve-gtk-theme

And just for Ubuntu users, the theme also supports Unity :) The Unity panel is also themed and gets its own Window controls.

If you use any other distro, you can download it here, complete with installation instructions.

Aqua - A Light Theme For Gnome Shell 3.2

2011-10-28T07:28:00.000+05:30

After a Dark Shell theme, I thought I would bring some fresh air to my Shell. Then I made Aqua, a light theme for Gnome Shell. I must say, making those Gnome Shell themes are not difficult. The thing that is difficult is to think of a new design with the presence of so many good designs. But once you make a design, and know little CSS, then theming is very easy. Gnome 2 was customizable, but not so much. You had to depend on experienced theme developers, and then you might not like some elements or the entire theme. But there was no easier way to make themes. Kudos to Gnome Team to make Gnome Shell as well as GTK3 so much customizable :)

Ok, let's come back to topic. Aqua is compatible with the latest Gnome Shell 3.2 and you can get it here. Installation instructions are there in that page and also in the README file included in the download.

You might not like it. But then you should think of creating your own. Believe me, if you learn CSS, you have the advantage of being capable of web designing, as well as Gnome 3 theming.

Ambiance Blue Updated - Now Available in PPA

2011-10-19T03:05:00.001+05:30

I've updated the Ambiance Blue theme today, rewriting it and making it even better and free from visual glitches. And now it is also available in the WebUpd8 themes ppa. Making it even easier to install. Also the Elegance Gnome Shell theme received few changes too, including new close buttons.

Ubuntu 11.10 users can now install Ambiance Blue using the commands below,

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/themes
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ambiance-blue-theme

New changes in Ambiance Blue include,

Complete rewrite of the Shell Theme
New toggle and close buttons
New scrollbars

If you don't want to add the PPA, or don't use Ubuntu, get Ambiance Blue here.

You can download Elegance Gnome Shell theme from here.

Customize the Linux Terminal

2011-10-17T01:07:00.000+05:30

The Linux Terminal is powerful, but sometimes can be dull and boring. Here are some of my customizations that make the Terminal a little more attractive. All of these can be done by editing the .bashrc file in the Home folder. All these are not for Linux Mint by the way, as Linux Mint already has these customizations.

Add Some Color:

Wanna display the current directory and your username in bash? But with some colors? Then just add the following in the .bashrc

# Colors
PS1='\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\] \[\033[01;34m\]\W\[\033[00m\]\[\e[1;32m\]\$\[\e[m\] '

if you want to show those in red for root, you can add,

# Colors
if [ $USER = root ]; then
PS1='\[\033[1;31m\][\u@\h \W]\$\[\033[0m\] '
else
PS1='\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\] \[\033[01;34m\]\W\[\033[00m\]\[\033[1;32m\]\$\[\033[m\] '
fi

Display a Fortune:

You can display random quotes in bash. First install fortune-mod.

For Ubuntu,

sudo apt-get install fortune-mod

For Fedora

su -
yum install fortune-mod

Now add the following to the .bashrc

fortune -s

Here is my Terminal(Konsole) in KDE.

If you want to display animals as above, first install cowsay,

For Ubuntu,

sudo apt-get install cowsay

For Fedora

su -
yum install cowsay

Then add,

fortune -s | cowsay -n

In stead of

fortune -s

To randomize cows, you can replace it with

fortune | cowsay -f \$(ls /usr/share/cowsay | shuf -n1)

You can refer this wiki for further details.

Elegance Theme for Gnome Shell 3.2

2011-10-17T00:51:00.000+05:30

Gnome Foundation's latest Gnome Shell is much more customizable than Unity. But it is new, and lacks in number of the available themes. But as the themes are written in CSS, it becomes easier to make the themes who know more or little CSS. So I also made my first Gnome Shell Theme from scratch. The theme aims to be clean while being smooth and beautiful.

The theme has a nice HUD interface with smooth CSS transition animations. The different elements are semitransparent and I've tried to maintain a balance between usability and eye candy.

The theme matches any type of wallpaper since it is not made focusing any specific colour. The colours used in the theme are mostly shades of gray. But that doesn't make it less beautiful:) So give it a try and tell me what you think.

Download Gnome Shell Elegance

Ubuntu 11.10 Released - New Features, Review & Tips

2011-10-15T02:47:00.002+05:30

So, Ubuntu 11.10 released two days ago. I decided to get my hands on it, downloaded and installed alongside my Windows 7 and Fedora 16 (Beta) installation. Then I installed the multimedia codecs and some necessary packages. Then I started to explore.

First, let's take a look at the new features,

Unity Changes - The Dash is now opened by a launcher icon. The colour of the Dash is also derived from your desktop wallpaper. Places have been renamed to Lenses and sport many changes including faster loading times, improved results, new filtering options, and addition of new lenses such as a new ‘Music Lens’.
Looks - The default Ubuntu themes look better than before. ‘LightDM’ is the default login manager in Ubuntu 11.10. Me menu has been removed and the indicators have undergone many changes.
Default Apps - Firefox 7, LibreOffice suite, Mozilla Thunderbird, Shotwell , Gwibber. Deja Dup, Banshee music player, Totem movie player, Tomboy notes, new revamped Ubuntu Software Center 5.0, six games and more.
Installer Changes - The Ubuntu Installer now has a ‘Wifi’ connection step (if applicable) and the option to take a user account photo via your webcam.
Multi-arch Support - Ubuntu 11.10 allows 64bit Ubuntu users to install 32bit applications and utilities on their systems with easily.
One Conf - OneConf is a new Software Centre feature that helps you keep a list of installed applications in sync across multiple computers. To activate it, open the Ubuntu Software Centre (icon on the Dash) and head to “File > Sync between computers…“.
Downsides - Boot time has slightly increased from Ubuntu 11.04, Battery drain due to a the new Kernel

I must say, Ubuntu devs have done a great job. The Unity desktop feels very solid and beautiful with the default theme. The compiz animations are very well thought too. The overal desktop seems nice. But hey, looking nice is not everything. Performance and stability play a major role. So does it pass here?

Even if the desktop was pretty stable, I faced some issues though. First, Banshee was facing force closes many times. Also the volume up in banshee didn't work. I had to disable the soundmenu extension and re-enable it to get it to work. Then I decided to try the unity-2d interface. I logged out and logged back into unity-2d. After few minutes, when I tried to logout, it seemed like taking forever. I had to forcibly shutdown and again log into unity-2d. Faced the same issue again. Then I fed up with Unity (certainly I'm not a unity fan) and decided to install Gnome Shell.

Installed Gnome Shell with few extensions. And now I began trying stuffs. I was very disappointed that though I didn't face any major issues here, Nautilus was crashing a lot. Didn't face more problems though.

I'll stick to using Ubuntu, hoping that future updates will fix the issues. But I think there is something wrong in the release schedule. I believe it should be released when it is ready, not when it is planned to even if it is not ready. Ubuntu needs more thorough testing, even though it is pretty more stable than previous Unity.

Here are some links you may find useful (especially the webupd8 link),

Guide to dual booting

2011-09-26T05:45:00.000+05:30

I just wanted you to know that I updated my Guide to Dual Booting. It now includes a Fedora installation Guide too. I won't be publishing that guide in my blog and you have to download the PDF to read it. Let me know your comments and suggestions.

Download

Fedora Utils just got easier

2011-09-26T05:23:00.000+05:30

I initially created Fedora Utils so that I could save the hassle of configuring Fedora manually each time I install. From a simple terminal script, it got a new life with a GUI using zenity. Then, I got to know about other options like Auto Plus and easyLife. They made it easier for me to include many of the functionality they had to include in Fedora Utils. Probably Fedora Utils wouldn't have been born if I had found them earlier, and I'm happy I didn't. Eventually, Fedora Utils got new and new features. Finally it has a lots of options now, a lot more than Auto Plus and easyLife have. But one thing Fedora Utils was still lacking.

If you look at Auto Plus and easyLife, you install the RPM pacakges, find them in the menu, run them and all options are listed. Quite easy for a novice user. Isn't it? But there are no RPM packages available for Fedora Utils. Not only because I don't know how to package, but also I feel there is no need to create a RPM for a post installation script. But again, this makes running Fedora Utils a little difficult.. You download the script, make it executable, then run it in Terminal with sudo, then you have to accept the license and then you'll see the options. Longer if you run it as normal user though.

Dangermouse, the creator of Auto Plus, kindly provided me a RPM and Source RPM of fedorautils-1.6.0. And I plan to release RPMs from the version 1.7.0. But what about "I feel there is no need to create a RPM for a post installation script"?. Yeh, the normal not-packaged script will still be available, for them who don't want to install it. And I've made it easier to run. Now you have to download the script, make it executable, then double click it and click on "Run in Terminal". It will ask confirmation about if you want it to run it as root. if you choose yes, it will check sudo access and if it exists, it will run itself as root. The new method for detecting sudo fixes the multiple password prompts. with the previous code, it would first ask to check sudo, if you click "No", then it will attempt use sudo and exit if it doesn't succeed. If you click "Yes", it would ask password for checking, then if it exists, again ask password for using sudo, annoying! Then you face the License screen which I removed in the latest version to make you start faster.

I'm constantly working to improve Fedora Utils so that it would be more useful and easier to use. And is has seen increase in downloads in recent days, which encourages me to work on Fedora Utils. Thanks for the support.

UC Browser 7.9 Released - More Awesomeness

2011-09-22T12:36:00.001+05:30

UC Browser, facing tough competition from Opera Mini, Bolt and perhaps many other browsers, is no doubt constantly improving and taking steps forward to a better browsing on mobiles. It has evolved from just a crap browser with a great download manager to an excellent browser. Perhaps UC Browser is the most feature rich mobile browser till date. While some may argue it lacks javascript support, Opera Mini also don't. And it is not possible to provide javascript on low end phones. On high end phones like Android, it supports javascript though. I must say it provides much smoother mobile browsing experience that you can enjoy on the go always.

Download here - Getjar
Get the latest Android Version - Android Market
Get the latest version - Official Site

UC Browser 7.9 - Smooth your browsing

Each release of UC Browser always earns a lot of amzing things. Now with the 7.9 for Java/Symbian, UC is concentrating itself to solve the main problems of users and improve user experience palways. I think that’s why UC Browser already has 200 million users around the world and keeps attracting new users every day. Let’s experience the new 7.9 release by ourselves.

Taking care of your eyes- Auto Notification between night mode and day mode

UC Browser is more than a browser, taking care of your eyes. It notices u to switch ‘Day mode’ and’ Night mode’ intelligently according to the time. Everything UC has done is for taking care of users.

Browsing whenever and wherever - More powerful bookmark management

Plenty of people are anxious about the missing of their bookmark they’ve collected for a long time. Now the bookmark backup feature comes to rescue. Now you can save them to your memory card and never miss them again.

Filling the Laguage gap

Users of UC Browser are still increasing and covered 145 countries, 200 million. UC Browser tries its best to take care each users with different languages.

Language pack for Java, You can select language during installation.
More than English and Russian, Arabic, Farsi and Urdu are also supported. In the near future, more number of languages will be supported.

More changes and bug fixes

Fixed access connection timeout error : Fixed timeout problem during webpage browsing.
Fixed image loading failure: Fixed timeout error in loading image.
Optimized Cache management: Cache will be adjusted automatically. You don’t need to reset and clear Cache manually anymore.
Make your eyes more colorful: More Picture formats are supported. The new WebP image is near 40% smaller than jpeg image of similar quality.

That’s what UC Browser 7.9 for Symbian /Java brings to us. Let’s look forward to more suprises from UC Browser.

Fedora Utils 1.6 Released

2011-09-21T12:24:00.001+05:30

Fedora Utils 1.6 has been released on 15-09-2011. But I was unable to post it here. Well, it now includes many improvements including, the installation status about different tasks is now shown and logging was little bit improved. The changes since 1.5 is given here. You can read the full changelog here.

Changelog 1.6

Now shows current status about installed options
Added options for clean up
Added option to install many shell extensions
Previous additional software section was removed and new simplified one is added
Now many softwares not available in Fedora repos can be automatically compiled from source and installed
Better detection of latest version
Improved logging
Updated softwares to latest versions
More changes

Fedora Utils is both free and open source. Feel free to use it and modify it according to your needs. if you have a suggestion or want to contribute, then it will be highly appreciated. Finally, you can always download the latest version of Fedora Utils here.

Xperia X10 Mini, X10 Mini Pro and X8 bootloader cracked, finally!

2011-09-11T02:12:00.002+05:30

May be new devices have popped up with the latest versions of Android and old ones are forgotten. But there are still users out there. The devs work day and night to get the best of these devices even if its manufacturer has dropped support for them. Sony will not update its older devices such as X10 Mini, X10 Mini Pro, X8 etc. But they dtill can have Android 2.3 due to the amazing work done by devs. But the work was not complete. The bootloader was still locked. Means the inability to install custom kernels. But the wish has come true. Finally, the bootloader of Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini, X10 Mini Pro and X8 has been cracked. You can read the instructions here about how to unlock your bootloader at xda. But beware, it is permanent, so you will void your warranty! Many custom Kernels also have began popping up in the forums. So now we have native tether, recovery built into kernel and more:)

Test Hub to Test HTML on the Go

2011-09-10T03:07:00.001+05:30

After struggling with eclipse for overnight, I have made an android app named Test Hub. The app is pretty simple. You can practice or test HTML tags with it. It uses your phone's Webkit engine and result is displayed as you type.

I've also included a input method meant for web development. To activate the input method, go to "Settings > Language & Keyboard" and check the box next to "Test Hub". Now when in a text box, long touch the screen and choose "Input Method". Now choose "Test Hub" and now you can use the input method. The most used keys in web designing are easily accessible. May not be a big success, but hope it will help some people.

Here are some more screenshots,

And this,

And finally,

I know, it's not great, but it's just start:)

How to Add Auto-Update to Your Bash Script

2011-08-31T01:56:00.004+05:30

It was the time when I was developing my Fedora Utils script and wished to add autoupdate to it. It was not difficult. But certainly I had no clue about what to do. I didn't want to make another text file with update details on every new release and upload. I just wanted the process should be automatic. I asked in different forums, but no one could give an answer. But at last I did it! And I became the happiest man on the earth thereafter:)

So, the thing you need is the RSS feed of your Program Updates (Limited to the last update only). If you use Sourceforge to host your script, then you are lucky. So let's take a look at the update function of Fedora Utils,

function Update()
{
echo -e $BLUEBOLD"Checking Update"$ENDCOLOR
curl -s -o update http://sourceforge.net/api/file/index/project-id/504600/mtime/desc/limit/1/rss
latest=$(grep "guid" update | sed -e 's/^[ \t]*//' | cut -c77-93)
vdir=$(grep "guid" update | sed -e 's/^[ \t]*//' | cut -c59-73)
current=fedorautils-$VERSION
rm update
if [ $latest = $current ]; then
echo -e $GREEN"Fedora Utils is Up-to-date"$ENDCOLOR
elif [[ $latest < $current ]]; then
echo -e $YELLOW"How come you are using a newer version than the latest?"$ENDCOLOR
else
if [ $AUTOUPDATE = "ON" ]; then
echo -e $BLUE"Update found. Downloading Update..."$ENDCOLOR
curl -s -o $HOMEDIR/$latest http://master.dl.sourceforge.net/project/fedorautils/$vdir/$latest
if [ -e $HOMEDIR/$latest ]; then
chown $USER $HOMEDIR/$latest
chmod a+x $HOMEDIR/$latest
zenity --info --title="Update Available" --text="An updated version of Fedora Utils has been automatically downloaded and saved to $HOMEDIR/$latest. Please use that script instead."
Complete
else
echo -e $RED"Update failed"$ENDCOLOR
fi
else
echo -e $YELLOW"An update to Fedora Utils is available. It might contain new features and bug fixes. You are recommended to use the new version instead. Visit http://fedorautils.sf.net for details."$ENDCOLOR
fi
fi
}

The first part curl -s -o update http://sourceforge.net/api/file/index/project-id/504600/mtime/desc/limit/1/rss downloads the latest version RSS feed and saves it as a file named "update".

So let's take a closer look at the update file. I'm posting a small part as the whole file would be longer.

<title><![CDATA[/fedorautils-1.5/fedorautils-1.5.9]]></title>
<link>http://sourceforge.net/projects/fedorautils/files%2Ffedorautils-1.5%2Ffedorautils-1.5.9/download</link>
<guid>http://sourceforge.net/projects/fedorautils/files%2Ffedorautils-1.5%2Ffedorautils-1.5.9/download</guid>
<description><![CDATA[/fedorautils-1.5/fedorautils-1.5.9]]></description>
<pubDate>Mon, 22 Aug 2011 07:26:17 +0000</pubDate>
<files:sf-file-id xmlns:files="http://sourceforge.net/api/files.rdf#">4831249</files:sf-file-id>

Now, we see that the link between the <guid> tags contains the link to latest version. We will use grep to extract that specific line from the file. Note that the link between the <link> tags also contains the link to latest version, but there are more than one lines with the <link> tags inside the file. So we won't choose it.

So using "grep", we extract that line with the command grep "guid" update.

Now, that line would contain spaces and tabs along with the link. So we remove those unneeded spaces and tabs with "sed" and the command sed -e 's/^[ \t]*//'. Let's pipe the too commands to make "sed" work on the output given by "grep".

grep "guid" update | sed -e 's/^[ \t]*//'

Now what we get would be http://sourceforge.net/projects/fedorautils/files%2Ffedorautils-1.5%2Ffedorautils-1.5.9/download. But it is not the download link, instead a link to the download webpage. The part which is fedorautils-1.5%2Ffedorautils-1.5.9 tells us that the updated script is named as fedorautils-1.5.9 and is inside the folder fedorautils-1.5. So that's enough information to make the download link out of it.

We will extract the file name and folder name by counting the characters before and after it. My versioning system is so that the name with version always has the same no. of characters. So this makes our work easy. We will use the "cut" program for this purpose.

The lines below will do all text processing, extract the file name and folder name and assign them to variables "latest" and "vdir" respectively.

latest=$(grep "guid" update | sed -e 's/^[ \t]*//' | cut -c77-93)
vdir=$(grep "guid" update | sed -e 's/^[ \t]*//' | cut -c59-73)

Now we have to make the link out of it! Not too difficult. It would be http://master.dl.sourceforge.net/project/fedorautils/$vdir/$latest. Here "fedorautils" would be the project name (unix name) of your project and $vdir and $latest are the variables which will represent the folder and file names respectively.

So done! the line curl -s -o $HOMEDIR/$latest http://master.dl.sourceforge.net/project/fedorautils/$vdir/$latest will download the latest version automatically!

The other commands you see provide additional functionality. You only need to know what I explained to implement it in your script in your way. Sure, there are many more methods, might be easier and more accurate. But it's what I could think of. Please test and if you liked it, then Enjoy!

Ambiance Blue Theme Suite

2011-08-29T21:06:00.007+05:30

I was unable to find a good theme for Gnome 3 that will contain both GTK2 and GTK3 themes (yes, there are, but none is satisfactory, at least to me). I liked the Ambiance theme a lot, but I'm not a fan of those Orange colors especially. I had made a Ambiance Blue for GTK2 before. So I decided to port it to GTK3. Now I had to find a matching Gnome Shell theme, and after getting disappointed, I made one.

This theme suite includes,

GTK2 Theme (Uses Murrine engine)
GTK3 Theme (Uses Unico engine)
Gnome Shell Theme
AWN Theme

So, you have to install Murrine engine and Unico engine to get both GTK2 and GTK3 themes working. To install latest murrine engine in Ubuntu, run the following in the terminal,

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:murrine-daily/ppa

Then run,

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install gtk2-engines-murrine

To install murrrine engine in Fedora, open a terminal and run,

yum install gtk-murrine-engine

To install latest unico engine in Ubuntu, run the following in the terminal,

bzr branch lp:~ubuntu-desktop/unico/ubuntu
cd ubuntu
./autogen.sh
./configure --prefix=/usr
make
sudo make install

To install unico engine in Fedora, open a terminal and run,

bzr co -r 69 lp:unico
cd unico
./autogen.sh
./configure --prefix=/usr
make
sudo make install

You might need to install bzr and GTK3 Developement packages for your platform.

Installation Instructions

Extract the zip file. Then extract the tar.gz file to the themes directory i.e. "~/.themes/". Install the User Theme Extension and use the Gnome Tweak tool to choose the themes. To install the Gnome Shell theme without the User Theme Extension, first backup your Gnome Shell theme directory i.e. "/usr/share/gnome-shell/". Extract the tar.gz file and rename "gnome-shell" directory to "theme", then copy it to "/usr/share/gnome-shell/". Restart GNOME Shell by pressing "Alt+F2", then type r and press Enter. Install the AWN theme via the preferences dialog of AWN.

Download Link

Deviant-Art

If you have any suggestions for improvement, please let me know. And thanks to Andrew for posting it in his blog:)

Do we really need Gnome 2 Forks?

2011-08-22T01:50:00.002+05:30

I came across an article on OMGUbuntu! about a new Gnome2 fork, called Mate. In the past, we also have seen another attempt called the Blue Bubble project. The point is, do we really need such a totally unnecessary wastage of time and resource to keep the old (Which will obsolete soon) software alive? No I'm not just a Gnome Shell fan. Yes, I like Gnome Shell, but agree on that it is not quite feature complete. But I just don't see any point in maintaining the old packages.

Gnome Shell is way smoother than Gnome 2+Compiz. And doesn't feel buggy like Compiz now feels. I use Gnome Shell with Fedora and Gnome 2 with Linux Mint. And I can say, I quite love Gnome Shell, except those few things to which was habituated. But once you get used to it, you will enjoy it.

Don't like Gnome Shell? Well, it's not the only choice GTK3 is giving. If you are so willing for a Gnome 2 like panel based experience, why not use XFCE? It's lighter and mature too. If you want and only want to use Gnome that way, then you can. I'm talking about the Fallback mode. If you don't already know, you can enable a Gnome 2 like fallback mode in Gnome 3. Just navigate to the System settings from the User menu and you will find it under System Info.

Yes, you'll get Panels, like in Gnome 2. The whole interface quite resembles Gnome 2. Including those Minimize and Maximize window buttons. The only difference is that it is in GTK3.

Yes, you cannot customize them by right clicking. You have to Alt+Right Click! And you get a menu similar to Gnome 2.

If you like having applets, then you can also add them. For now, there are not quite a lot, but I'm sure the things will change, only if we spend our resources on this in stead of keeping those old bits.

Removing an applet or moving it, all are there like in Gnome 2. The only thing changes is that you have to Alt+Right Click!

The panel is as customizable as in Gnome 2. You can set it to autohide, change its size and orientation just like in Gnome 2.

The only annoyance is that the panel theme looks horrible. I guess the panel can be also themed, but no one has attempted due to ignorance. May be I am wrong. But why care? You can change its color or set a background image as well.

And if you want visual effects, you can also install and use Compiz(compiz --replace). It is not compatible with Gnome Shell, but that doesn't mean it won't work with Gnome 3. Ubuntu uses Compiz in Unity and Unity is also based on GTK3 in Oneiric. I know, Compiz is buggy in fallback mode. But that's probably Compiz's fault. You also can use Mutter as the window manager(mutter --replace). it's nowhere close to Compiz, but will provide you simple visual effects.

You might say GTK3 doesn't have those lots of cool and nice themes like in Gnome 2, or may say it lacks many settings options. Well, Gnome 3 is relatively new and not mature enough. Many themes for GTK3 have been released and more will gradually come out. About the settings options, I see many are there, but hidden. It would be worth the effort to make those settings more accessible, or making front-ends for those which don't exist.

If you are a human and have thinking power, you will certainly realize that the Gnome 3 panels have all those glory and customization options that Gnome 2 had. I didn't find a single option missing.

And you cannot deny that GTK3 has lots of improvements over GTK2. Then what is the point in maintaining Gnome 2? I personally think it will be more reasonable to contribute for improvement of Gnome 3 rather than sticking with Gnome 2. Forking or porting diverges developers and the maximum benefit would be obtained only by collaborating. I know Gnome 3 is not mature and needs lot of improvements. But it'll take time, especially if developers continue creating forks and ports instead of improving the existing one.

Fedora Utils reaches 1.5.5: Updates, Fixes, New Features and more

2011-08-19T19:33:00.006+05:30

Today after my overnight work on Fedora Utils, I have released version 1.5.5. This new version includes few fixes and updates to Java Runtime (updated to 7) and Flashplayer (Updated to 12 beta 2).

A new option for cleaning up the system added. Now you can clean up backup files, old kernels, empty directories, bash history etc easily from within Fedora Utils.

The "Install Shell Extensions" option is now moved to the main menu. This option now lets you choose from many Gnome Shell extensions to install. Not to mention about the extensions GPaste, Weather etc. which are not in the Fedora Repos. They are automatically compiled and installed.

Also many new "Fixes to common problems" were added. Due to user request, font smoothing option was also added.

After the addition of auto-update feature, you can now get this latest update directly downloaded to your home folder when you start Fedora Utils. If the version you have is too old, get the new version here.

Script to customize Ubuntu Live CD

2011-08-15T01:51:00.002+05:30

After a lot of trial and errors, I've finally completed my script to customize Ubuntu Live CD, which can also be used to customize Live CD of Ubuntu based distros. I know, there are tools like UCK for customization purpose. But I wanted something simpler and easier. The result is "Customize It!". Customize It! handles all cleanup operations and also regenerates the boot files required in case you changed the kernel. It also copies your package cache so that you don't need to download same files again. It has a straightforward syntax

customize-it [option] filename

In place of "filename", you need to provide the ISO filename. The options could be,

-m, --manual manually customize the live cd -u, --update update all packages in the live cd -s, --script use external script "custom.sh" -i, --install install to "/usr/bin" and exit -h, --help show help message and exit

Manual customization option gives you a root shell inside the Live CD. All changes you do will be reflected in the Live CD. The update option only updates all packages installed in the Live CD. You can also use a script to automate the customization process. Just name it "custom.sh" and place in your home directory. I've successfully used it many times. You can download it here.

How to Customize a Ubuntu Live CD

2011-08-03T00:43:00.005+05:30

Ubuntu has a very good documentation for customizing Live CDs. But for a novice, the information given can be a little overwhelming. Especially if you just want to create an Live CD just with all system updates and your custom software. Here i will describe how to create a updated Live CD image with all the updates and custom software. You can follow the procedure to customize the Ubuntu Live CD or other distros based on Ubuntu.

First, we need a Live ISO image which we will customize. Let's assume the file name of the ISO file is "ubuntu-11.04-desktop-i386.iso".

Then we need to install the required tools,

sudo apt-get install squashfs-tools genisoimage

Now let's get started. First, remember to keep a backup of the original ISO file. Now place a copy in your home folder and open a terminal. Now execute the following commands,

# Move or copy the ISO into an empty directory
# Use the name of the ISO file in place of ubuntu-11.04-desktop-i386.iso
mkdir ~/livecdtmp
mv ubuntu-11.04-desktop-i386.iso ~/livecdtmp
cd ~/livecdtmp
# Mount the ISO image
mkdir mnt
sudo mount -o loop ubuntu-11.04-desktop-i386.iso mnt
# Extract .iso contents into dir 'extract-cd'
mkdir extract-cd
rsync --exclude=/casper/filesystem.squashfs -a mnt/ extract-cd
# Extract the SquashFS filesystem
sudo unsquashfs mnt/casper/filesystem.squashfs
sudo mv squashfs-root edit
# Copy system APT cache, in case you want to update the system, to avoid unnecessary download
sudo cp /var/cache/apt/archives/*.deb edit/var/cache/apt/archives/
# Prepare and chroot
sudo cp /etc/resolv.conf edit/etc/
sudo cp /etc/hosts edit/etc/
sudo mount --bind /dev/ edit/dev
sudo chroot edit

Now you'll get a chroot environment, means the root system now will be the file system of the Live CD. Now when inside the chroot prompt, execute the following commands,

mount -t proc none /proc
mount -t sysfs none /sys
mount -t devpts none /dev/pts
export HOME=/root
export LC_ALL=C

Now you can install or remove packages and update the system using apt-get as you would do on a real system.

# Add Repositories
# Update APT sources
sudo apt-get update
# Remove Packages
sudo apt-get purge packagenames
# Update System. Don't use dist-upgrade as it will update kernel.
sudo apt-get upgrade
# Install Packages
sudo apt-get install packagenames

Avoid updating your kernel as you'll need some advanced skills to do it. Check Ubuntu's documentation page. If you update the kernel in the usual way, I'm afraid you won't be able to boot the Live CD.

Now after you are done, check if any user exists with an UID greater than 999. Otherwise your image won't boot because no initial user is available. Execute,

awk -F: '$3 > 999' /etc/passwd

If you find any output, execute,

usermod -u 500 $hit

Where $hit is the username (the first word) you get in the output.

Now after everything is finished and you want to rebuild the ISO, execute,

# Unmount Directories
umount /proc || umount -lf /proc
umount /sys
umount /dev/pts
# Exit chroot
exit
sudo umount -lf edit/dev

Now time to build the ISO, just execute the following,

# Regenerate manifest
chmod +w extract-cd/casper/filesystem.manifest
sudo chroot edit dpkg-query -W --showformat='${Package} ${Version}\n' > extract-cd/casper/filesystem.manifest
sudo cp extract-cd/casper/filesystem.manifest extract-cd/casper/filesystem.manifest-desktop
sudo sed -i '/ubiquity/d' extract-cd/casper/filesystem.manifest-desktop
sudo sed -i '/casper/d' extract-cd/casper/filesystem.manifest-desktop
# Compress filesystem
sudo rm extract-cd/casper/filesystem.squashfs
sudo mksquashfs edit extract-cd/casper/filesystem.squashfs
# Update the filesystem.size file, which is needed by the installer. The method given in Ubuntu's page didn't work for me.
cat <<eof | tee -a /tmp/filesystem.size
$(sudo du -sx --block-size=1 edit | cut -f1)
EOF
sudo mv /tmp/filesystem.size extract-cd/casper/
# Remove old md5sum.txt and calculate new md5 sums
cd extract-cd
sudo rm md5sum.txt
find -type f -print0 | sudo xargs -0 md5sum | grep -v isolinux/boot.cat | sudo tee md5sum.txt
# Create the ISO image
sudo mkisofs -D -r -V "$IMAGE_NAME" -cache-inodes -J -l -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/boot.cat -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -o ../ubuntu-11.04-desktop-i386-custom.iso .

You can also use your preferred name in place of "ubuntu-11.04-desktop-i386-custom.iso".

To cleanup all the files generated during this, execute,

cd ~
sudo rm -rf livecdtmp

Now you will find your custom ISO file in your home folder. Test it in Virtual Box and do whatever you want with it. Enjoy!

Make Your Ubuntu Faster!

2011-08-01T23:27:00.013+05:30

As you would probably know that I'm a Linux Mint user if you visit my blog regularly. Recently, I was starting to feel that my Mint was a little bit slower on my old hardware. So I dug the web to find out what can I do. In the past I had tried elementaryOS and is was quite snappy. So I researched about the packages removed from elementaryOS. I got the ebuild script used to convert a Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot) ISO images to elementaryOS Luna ISO images. I dug the script and finally I came up with my own script which I want to share with you. I will post the various almost never used packages you can safely remove. These may vary depending on the packages you use. But they should be ok for most home users. By removing the unused packages, you prevent running of the services you don't use, thus making the system faster.

I initially made this for my Linux Mint setup, but it can be also used for Ubuntu. I recommend to run these commands right after installation of Mint/Ubuntu before installing any software and system update to avoid removal of any packages you have installed. Just open the terminal and execute the following command.

# Remove Unnecessary Packages and Games
sudo apt-get -y -f purge aisleriot apport apport-gtk apport-symptoms aspell aspell-en at at-spi avahi-utils baobab bluez-alsa bogofilter bogofilter-bdb bogofilter-common brltty brltty-x11 busybox-static byobu checkbox checkbox-gtk computer-janitor computer-janitor-gtk couchdb-bin cpu-checker dc desktopcouch dnsmasq-base dnsutils doc-base ed erlang-base erlang-base-hipe erlang-inets erlang-mnesia erlang-public-key erlang-runtime-tools erlang-ssl erlang-syntax-tools erlang-xmerl espeak espeak-data gbrainy gdb geoip-database ghostscript-x gnome-accessibility-themes gnome-dictionary gnome-games-common gnome-mahjongg gnome-nettool gnome-orca gnome-sudoku gnome-mag gnome-search-tool gnome-system-log gnome-themes-selected gnomine gstreamer0.10-pitfdll gvfs-fuse guile-1.8-libs ibus-pinyin ibus-pinyin-db-android intel-gpu-tools iptables iputils-tracepath kerneloops-daemon launchpad-integration libavahi-gobject0 libdotconf1.0 libelf1 libfolks-telepathy22 libfs6 libgadu3 libgail-gnome-module libgconfmm-2.6-1c2 libgd2-xpm libgdict-1.0-6 libglademm-2.4-1c2a libgnome-mag2 libgraph4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0 libiptcdata0 libmp4v2-0 libnfnetlink0 libopencc1 libpst4 libspeechd2 libtagc0 libtelepathy-farsight0 libutempter0 libxp6 lftp lksctp-tools lm-sensors logrotate ltrace lsof manpages manpages-dev memtest86+ mono-csharp-shell mono-gmcs mousetweaks mtr-tiny myspell-en-au myspell-en-gb myspell-en-za nano netcat-openbsd ntpdate onboard popularity-contest protobuf-compiler pulseaudio-esound-compat quadrapassel rdesktop rsyslog sane-utils screen screensaver-default-images speech-dispatcher ssh-askpass-gnome strace tcl tcpd tcpdump telepathy-logger telepathy-salut telnet time toshset ufw vbetool vino w3m wamerican wbritish x-ttcidfont-conf x11-apps x11-session-utils x11-xfs-utils xbitmaps xfonts-100dpi xfonts-75dpi xfonts-base xfonts-encodings xfonts-mathml xfonts-scalable xfonts-utils xinit xinput xorg xorg-docs-core xscreensaver-data xscreensaver-gl xterm
# Remove font packages
sudo apt-get -y -f purge ttf-dejavu-core ttf-indic-fonts-core ttf-kacst-one ttf-khmeros-core ttf-lao ttf-punjabi-fonts ttf-takao-pgothic ttf-thai-tlwg ttf-unfonts-core ttf-wqy-microhei
# Install the ttf-unifont package which works better
sudo apt-get -y -f install ttf-unifont

And that's it. now install all those stuff you need to install. Here is what I do usually,

# Remove Unity and Ubuntu One
sudo apt-get -y -f purge gir1.2-soup-2.4 gir1.2-unity-3.0 libnux-0.9-0 libunity-misc0 python-ubuntuone-client python-ubuntuone-control-panel python-ubuntuone-storageprotocol ubuntuone-client ubuntuone-client-gnome ubuntuone-control-panel ubuntuone-control-panel-gtk unity-asset-pool unity-common unity-place-applications unity-place-files
# Remove Misc Suff
sudo apt-get -y -f purge brasero brasero-cdrkit brasero-common gthumb gthumb-data libbrasero-media1 libburn4 libisofs6 liboil0.3 libquvi0 libsyncdaemon-1.0-1 libtotem-plparser17 tomboy totem totem-common totem-mozilla totem-plugins
# Add Some Repositories
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:docky-core/stable
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:elementaryart/elementarydesktop
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:tiheum/equinox
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ferramroberto/gimp
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:hel-sheep/pastie
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:tualatrix/ppa
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:n-muench/vlc
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:synapse-core/ppa
# Update Software Sources
sudo apt-get -y -f update
# Upgrade System
sudo apt-get -y -f dist-upgrade
# Install Needed Packages and Codecs
sudo apt-get -y -f install aptoncd aria2 axel bleachbit cheese dexter ejecter elementary-theme elementary-icon-theme equinox-theme faenza-extras faenza-icons-mono faenza-icon-theme gimp gimp-gmic gmic gloobus-preview gnome-disk-utility gnomebaker gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-multiverse gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly-multiverse indicator-applet-complete libavcodec-extra-52 libavutil-extra-50 libcdaudio1 libcelt0-0 libflite1 libgme0 libid3tag0 libmimic0 libmjpegtools-1.9 libmms0 libofa0 libopencore-amrnb0 libopencore-amrwb0 libopenjpeg2 libopenspc0 libquicktime1 librtmp0 libsidplay1 libwildmidi1 libzbar0 lzma mozilla-plugin-vlc p7zip p7zip-full p7zip-rar pastie pitivi shotwell synapse tasque ubuntu-tweak unarchiver unrar vlc youtube-dl
# Remove Obsolete Packages
sudo apt-get -y -f --purge autoremove

Note that I had made the script for myself and everything is according to my preferences. You should modify it according to your needs before using it.