Let me just be the 57th person to blog that I like Amarok. A lot. Best audio player ever, and like many Linux users I’ve tried a lot. XMMS, BMP, MPD + lots of clients, Rhythmbox, Quod Libet, Banshee, some others I’m probably forgetting. Clearly Amarok is better than Winamp (especially […]

I wanted to set up a button in KDE to open up a terminal and log me in as root. But the behavior I wanted was that if this was the first time I clicked the button, it should spawn a new screen session; otherwise if a screen session already existed, it should use […]

Release early, release often, right? I put an experimental Buuf KDE icon theme up for download. Go upvote it on KDE-look and I’ll give you a cookie*. Or go look in my themes section.
*Cookie offer expires right about…. now.

I’ve been working on that script to convert Gnome icon themes to KDE icon themes. My first goal is to get Buuf to work.
I came up with a way of doing this. I downloaded the Tango icon theme. To install Tango you have to actually ./configure && make && make install it. […]

I really like the buuf icon theme. But it only exists for Gnome. I want a version for KDE.
A post made by someone on KDE-Apps says:
It is very easy to convert GNOME icon theme to KDE icon theme, because it’s the same format ;).
Just edit index.theme and change any Statu to Actions, Places […]

Click for full-size version. In the first shot you can see the “wave” effect in progress that occurs any time a window is unmapped; the window sort of waves and dissolves. Beryl’s “Animations” plugin lets you specify animations for mapping, unmapping, focusing, and min/maxing windows. There are some nice effects too, like […]

This wiki entry has a LOT of really good tips for making KDE look nice. For example making your K-menu’s icons bigger (which I’ve ALWAYS wanted to do) and getting rid of the K-menu’s ugly category headings can be achieved by editing ~/.kde/share/config/kickerrc and adding/modifying the [menus] entry:
[menus]
MenuEntryHeight=32
ShowMenuTitles=false
After going into KControl, Desktop -> Panels […]

I just got my new keyboard from newegg. A day early, as usual. Can’t beat newegg. My keyboard is a Saitek Eclipse II, and I highly recommend it. The keys are just the right firmness and as a bonus, this keyboard makes no noise whatsoever when you type. The space bar is […]

I posted earlier about getting Conky to be transparent in KDE. Unsetting and resetting the “Show icons on desktop” and “Allow programs in desktop window” options would allow Conky to look correct when transparent. Otherwise it would be a black box.
This is OK but it’s a hassle to do this every time I […]

There are plenty of nice Compiz themes at compiz.net. Here’s Milk, which I’ve always liked. KDE + Compiz is just too nice:

Since taking these screenshots, I’ve started using dual monitors. There’s a good FAQ on the Gentoo Wiki about setting up TwinView. It honestly couldn’t be easier. I don’t […]