Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Mintified Edgy!

Last weekends, I suddenly felt like installing LinuxMint over Ubuntu Edgy on the PCs in our Community eCenter. However, I realized that all I need is the theme (not including the Biana usplash theme which IMHO sucks) and the mint tool namely mintMenu, mintDisk, mintDesktop, and mintConfig.

And then I realized that LinuxMint is in fact around 95 percent Ubuntu Edgy so why waste my time again doing a fresh install when all the codecs and plugins I need are already installed? So I did a few research and I theorized that Ubuntu Edgy can be easily mintified, so to speak.

How?

To be able to install the mint tools, you have to add the LinuxMint Bianca repository at the /etc/apt/sources.list file.

Open /etc/apt/sources.list
$sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list
and then add the following line at the end of the file...

deb http://www.linuxmint.com/repository bianca/

Please take note of the "/" after the word bianca. Save and close the file and then update packages...
$sudo aptitude update
Time to install mint tools. To make this a lot easier, simply open the Synaptic via Administration --> Synaptic Package Manager. Then search for the word "mint" (Ctrl + F then type in the word mint). Scroll down until you see the following packages: mintMenu, mintDesktop, mintConfig, and mintDisk. Select there four packages, right click then choose Install. Then click on Apply and then wait till installation is done. (You may also want to install the Bianca theme and mintWifi if you like.)

To use mintMenu, right click on a panel then Add to Panel, then scroll down to click on LinuxMint Menu. After selecting it, click on Add. You may change the word Bianca by right clicking on the mintMenu then Preferences. When a dialog opens, double click on applet_text and input any word you like.

You can now also access mintDisk via Administration. mintConfig and mintDesktop are at Preferences.

Here are some screen captures at Flickr....

I am still using the orange Human icon set but opted to use the linuxmint wallpaper plus the layout of its panel.
mintMenu, a replacement for the Gnome menu which is inspired by SUSE's Slab and based on USP.
mintDisk and mintDesktop, both imported from the Linuxmint repositories.
Beryl in action!

By the way, I had a chance to try on Envy and on Beryl. As you can see at the screencaps, it still looked yummy even only on 64 mb Nvidia video card.

Obviously, I am trying to keep myself busy to forget my disappoint not being able to install Ubuntu Feisty. Poor me!

P.S.: Thanks Dom and Chin for the Ubuntu Feisty Fawn installer!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Dave,
Nice screencaps. You even have Christine on them :)

Did the CD ever get to you, BTW?

fishfillet said...

elo Chin!

Ever since I "discovered" Christine on your blog, I've been a fan of her...

And yes, thank you so much for the CD. I have in fact given 8 copies of it to my friends. Sadly, I can't install it on my very own desktop PC. :(