Get The Ubuntu Touch Feeling On The Unity Desktop With These Launcher Icons

<div style="text-align: justify;">A few days ago we had an article about a <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2013/04/new-unity-revamped-ppa-for-ubuntu-1204.html">new Unity Revamped PPA</a> that adds some tweaks to Ubuntu 12.04, among which there were some nice Ubuntu Touch-style assets for the Unity Launcher. If you're using Ubuntu 12.10 or 13.04 and want to use these Ubuntu Touch Launcher assets, you'll find instructions on how to do it below.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://img.netupd8.com/ubuntu-touch-unity-launcher-icons.png" imageanchor="1" rel="image_group" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8JousaNyKplbZ2eVtB3m2VLUVHKxb5rCvGhCSWCgNJXuQhqXE3z-6HqQKONExiTvBdCopEVfWejpl39L54d7ikqRZS4RGGic1rQ4KYhLryjYw5Htlu8RM6fuACZmQZN9iK6XNRtihG3_d/s320/ubuntu-touch-unity-launcher-icons.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><a name="more"></a><br /><h2>Using the Ubuntu Touch-style Launcher icons in Ubuntu 12.10 or 13.04</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>1. To use the Ubuntu Touch Launcher icons / assets on the desktop (Unity), download the icons from <a href="http://aerilius.deviantart.com/art/Ubuntu-Touch-Launcher-icons-358618366">DeviantArt</a> and extract the downloaded archive in your home folder.</b></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>2.</b> Then, to replace the Unity icons with the Ubuntu Touch-style icons, use the following command:</div><br /><b>- for Ubuntu 12.10:</b><br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>cd && sudo cp -r unity/6 /usr/share/unity/</code></pre><b>-for Ubuntu 13.04:</b><br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>cd && sudo cp -r unity/6/* /usr/share/unity/icons/</code></pre><br />Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail screenshot after the changes:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://img.netupd8.com/ubuntu-touch-launcher-icons-unity-6.png" rel="image_group" title="Ubuntu Touch style icons in Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail"><img alt="Ubuntu Touch icons 13.04 Unity Launcher" src="http://img.netupd8.com/ubuntu-touch-launcher-icons-unity-6_thumb.png" /></a></div><br /><br />Ubuntu 12.10 screenshot after the changes:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://img.netupd8.com/ubuntu-touch-launcher-icons-unity-5.png" rel="image_group" title="Ubuntu Touch style icons in Ubuntu 12.10"><img alt="Ubuntu Touch icons 13.04 Unity Launcher" src="http://img.netupd8.com/ubuntu-touch-launcher-icons-unity-5_thumb.png" /></a></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>3.</b> And finally, restart Unity by pressing ALT + F2 and entering "unity" (without the quotes), or log out and log back in.</div><br /><br /><br /><h2>Reverting the changes</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>If you  revert the changes, simply reinstall unity-common using the following command:</b></div><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo apt-get install --reinstall unity-common</code></pre><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">And then restart Unity (press ALT + F2 and enter: "unity" or log out and log back in).</div>

Get The Ubuntu Touch Feeling On The Unity Desktop With These Launcher Icons

A few days ago we had an article about a new Unity Revamped PPA that adds some tweaks to Ubuntu 12.04, among which there were some nice Ubu...

+ Read more »

Unity Reboot (Launcher To Quickly Reboot In A Different OS) Updated For Ubuntu 12.10 And 13.04

<div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Today I've updated <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2011/09/unity-reboot-ubuntu-unity-launcher-to.html">Unity Reboot</a> to work with the latest GRUB 2.0 available in Ubuntu 12.10 and 13.04.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Unity Reboot is a custom Unity launcher that can be used to quickly reboot into a different OS / Linux distribution, useful for those who dual boot (or triple boot </b>or... it should work with any number of operating systems, including Windows, various Linux distributions like Ubuntu and Fedora, etc.). This isn't just for Unity and <b>it should also work with docks that support Unity quicklists</b>, like DockBarX, Cairo Dock or Plank.</div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Here's a screenshot with Unity Reboot in Ubuntu 12.10 on a system on which I triple boot: Ubuntu 12.10, Fedora 18 and Windows 7 (in VirtualBox, set up just for testing this):</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZNqjGGwBAaDCuCG27yprZaAcPajmmEPWL_9z46WsyFvyCPoFYMIPVCFXSe-sAriM_MkRfNTNCzagtUX9EjlDbeYgIgRNowYkD3Ec3ZGUpSIaWY0AOdhhYDIms-HRZjNjjSSbxp3qKfhyE/s1600/unity-reboot.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="unity reboot ubuntu fedora windows 7" border="0" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZNqjGGwBAaDCuCG27yprZaAcPajmmEPWL_9z46WsyFvyCPoFYMIPVCFXSe-sAriM_MkRfNTNCzagtUX9EjlDbeYgIgRNowYkD3Ec3ZGUpSIaWY0AOdhhYDIms-HRZjNjjSSbxp3qKfhyE/s320/unity-reboot.png" title="unity reboot ubuntu fedora windows 7" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><a name="more"></a><div style="text-align: justify;">This is how it works: selecting an entry from the quicklist, the system will reboot and that entry will be selected in the GRUB menu. That means you can still boot to a different OS if you change your mind. You can set the GRUB menu timeout to 0 and you won't see the GRUB menu and instead, the system will directly reboot into the selected OS. This only applies for that system restart (so only one time) and after that, the first boot entry should be selected, like it is with the default GRUB settings.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The GRUB menu has changed starting with Ubuntu 12.10 and the various options for an OS (like old kernels for Ubuntu) are displayed in a sub menu which isn't displayed by default, so I've had to tweak Unity Reboot to work with this new GRUB 2 menu. <b>The new version also uses pkexec</b> (so you'll get a nice password prompt in GNOME Shell for instance) <b>instead of gksu for the reboot command.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>You can select to reboot without having to enter your pasword</b>, by right clicking the Unity Reboot launcher icon and selecting <i>Settings > Don't ask for password on restart</i> (for the settings, gksu is still used and not pkexec).</div><br /><br /><b>Important notes:</b><br /><ul><li style="text-align: justify;">clicking the icon on the Unity launcher doesn't do anything (a notification will be displayed if you left click it). All the functionality is in the quicklists so you need to right click the icon and select an an item. Your computer will then reboot and automatically select the item you've clicked in the GRUB menu;</li><li style="text-align: justify;">Unity Reboot only works if Ubuntu (the installation on which you're using Unity Reboot) has been installed after the other operating systems. So for example, if you triple boot Windows 7, Ubuntu 12.10 and Fedora 18, Unity Reboot will only work if Ubuntu 12.10 was the last you've installed from these 3 (basically, it needs to run on the Linux distribution that has installed GRUB).</li></ul><br /><br /><h2>Install Unity Reboot in Ubuntu</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>1. Unity Reboot is available in the main WebUpd8 PPA. To add the PPA and install it, use the following commands:</b></div><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8<br />sudo apt-get update<br />sudo apt-get install unity-reboot</code></pre><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The latest Unity Reboot 0.2 is only available for Ubuntu 12.10 and 13.04, but an older version is also available in the same PPA for Ubuntu 12.04, 11.10 or 11.04.</div><br />If you want to get the code and tweak it to your needs, you can get it via <a href="https://github.com/hotice/unity-reboot">GitHub</a> (it uses simple bash scripts and <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2010/12/yad-zenity-on-steroids-display.html">YAD</a> for the settings dialog).<br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>2.</b> After the installation has finished, run the following command in a terminal to initialize Unity Reboot (this is only required once):</div><pre class="linux-code"><code>unity-reboot</code></pre><br />Don't worry, this command won't reboot your system.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>3.</b> Now you need to add the Unity Reboot launcher icon on the Unity Launcher (or a dock that supports Unity quicklists). To do this, open Nautilus, press CTRL + L (so you can type the location), enter "<i>~/.local/share/applications</i>" without the quotes in the Nautilus location entry (or manually navigate to "<i>~/.local/share/applications</i>") and drag and drop the "<i>Reboot in...</i>" icon to the Unity launcher / dock.</div><br />Now right click it to see the available options:<br /><ul><li style="text-align: justify;">Clicking an OS entry in the launcher will reboot into that OS, after you enter your password;</li><li style="text-align: justify;">In the settings, you can set Unity Reboot not to ask for a password when rebooting in a different OS. Warning: if you disable the password prompt, the system will reboot as soon as you select an OS from the quicklist, without any confirmation dialog.</li></ul><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">I've tested Unity Reboot on my laptop on which I dual boot Ubuntu 13.04 and 12.10 as well as in VirtualBox with triple boot: Windows 7, Ubuntu 12.10 and Fedora 18. If you encounter bugs, please post them in the comments below. </div>

Unity Reboot (Launcher To Quickly Reboot In A Different OS) Updated For Ubuntu 12.10 And 13.04

Today I've updated Unity Reboot to work with the latest GRUB 2.0 available in Ubuntu 12.10 and 13.04. Unity Reboot is a custom Unity la...

+ Read more »

Unity Stacks Application `Drawers` Gets New Features

<div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Drawers, an application that can be used to create stacks (drawers) on the Unity Launcher, has been updated to version 12.12.1, getting new features which some of you have requested such as an option to automatically close drawer when focus is lost and more.</b></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Drawers lets you create launchers for Unity on which you can add applications as well as files, folders or even links so you can quickly access them from one place. </div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://img.netupd8.com/drawers.png"><img alt="Drawers Unity Launcher" src="http://img.netupd8.com/drawers_thumb.png" /></a></div><br /><a name="more"></a><div style="text-align: justify;">Using it, you can unclutter the Unity launcher and better organize the most used applications or files - e.g. if you're a web developer, you can for instance have a drawer for web browsers, one for work-related applications and important documents, and so on.</div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://img.netupd8.com/drawers-preferences.png"><img alt="Drawers preferences" src="http://img.netupd8.com/drawers-preferences_thumb.png" /></a></div><br /><b>Improvements in the latest Drawers 12.12.1:</b><br /><ul><li>Individual configuration of drawers now possible</li><li>Auto-layout option to use maximum available horizontal screen space</li><li>Option to automatically close drawer when focus is lost</li><li>Create drawers pre-loaded with applications whose category matches a search term</li><li>Various bug-fixes</li></ul><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Also, since our <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2012/08/add-stacks-to-unity-launcher-with.html" title="Add Stacks To The Unity Launcher With `Drawers`">previous Drawers post</a>, the application works and looks a lot better (the Preferences dialog is still a bit of a mess, but hopefully it will get some attention soon).</div><br /><br /><br /><h2>Install Drawers in Ubuntu</h2><br />To add the Drawers PPA and install the application in Ubuntu, use the following commands:<br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ian-berke/ppa-drawers<br />sudo apt-get update<br />sudo apt-get install drawers</code></pre><br />For how to use Drawers, see our initial post: <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2012/08/add-stacks-to-unity-launcher-with.html">Add Stacks To The Unity Launcher With `Drawers`</a><br /><br />If you encounter bugs, report them @ <a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/drawers">Launchpad</a>.

Unity Stacks Application `Drawers` Gets New Features

Drawers, an application that can be used to create stacks (drawers) on the Unity Launcher, has been updated to version 12.12.1, getting new ...

+ Read more »