Black Human GTK Theme

Black Human is based on the Ubuntu Human-Murrine color scheme by Kenneth Wimer & Conn O'Griofa.


- click to enlarge

The theme uses gtk2-engines-murrine and my Carbonate icon theme. It was designed to be a black and dark grey take on the default Ubuntu Human theme.





- click to enlarge

If you'd like to install Black Human, you will first need to install some dependencies.
In a terminal type:
sudo apt-get install gtk2-engines-murrine gnome-colors-common

Also download and install my Carbonate icon theme.
- After downloading the gnome-carbonate.tar.gz, uncompress it and copy to your ~/.icon folder.

To install the Black Human GTK theme:
- Download the Black Human theme via gnomelook.org
- Go to System>Preferences>Appearance.
- Click install and select the Black Human.tar.bz2 file you downloaded



Black Human does have a few quirks. For directions on tweaking Firefox and OpenOffice to look better when using Black Human, follow the directions on my Black Human Fixes article.

If you link the theme, rate it, share it, and enjoy!

Have a question or problem that this article doesn't cover? Ask our Ubuntu Mini 9 Google Group for help.

Black Human Fixes

If you have installed my Black Human GTK theme, you'll notice that Firefox input boxes and buttons are dark grey and don't match the rest of the webpage. OpenOffice shares a similar quirk, the document background is dark grey making text hard to read.

Firefox 3 Fix


Create a userContent.css file

gedit /home/red/.mozilla/firefox/*/chrome/userConent.css

Copy this into the newly created userContent.css file.

/*
* Edit this file and copy it as userContent.css into your
* profile-directory/chrome/
*/

/*
* This file can be used to apply a style to all web pages you view
* Rules without !important are overruled by author rules if the
* author sets any. Rules with !important overrule author rules.
*/

/*
* example: turn off "blink" element blinking
*
* blink { text-decoration: none ! important; }
*
*/

/*
* example: give all tables a 2px border
*
* table { border: 2px solid; }
*/

/*
* example: turn off "marquee" element
*
* marquee { -moz-binding: none; }
*
*/

/*
* For more examples see http://www.mozilla.org/unix/customizing.html
*/
/* Smooth Scrolling Workaround: Disable Fixed Background Images on Pages */
body {
background-attachment: scroll !important;
}

input {
border: 2px inset white;
background-color: white;
color: black;
-moz-appearance: none !important;
}

textarea {
border: 2px inset white;
background-color: white;
color: black;
-moz-appearance: none !important;
}

select {
border: 2px inset white;
background-color: white;
color: black;
-moz-appearance: none !important;
}

input[type="radio"],
input[type="checkbox"] {
border: 2px inset white ! important;
background-color: white ! important;
color: ThreeDFace ! important;
-moz-appearance: none !important;
}

*|*::-moz-radio {
background-color: white;
-moz-appearance: none !important;
}

button,
input[type="reset"],
input[type="button"],
input[type="submit"] {
border: 2px outset white;
background-color: #eeeeee;
color: black;
-moz-appearance: none !important;
}

body {
background-color: white;
color: black;
display: block;
margin: 8px;
-moz-appearance: none !important;
}

Save and exit the file.
You can download my custom css file here.


- Looks much better now


OpenOffice 3 Fix
OpenOffice doesn't look quite right either.


To get a white document background color instead of dark grey, go to:
Go to Tools>Options, then under OpenOffice.org>Appearance


- Under Appearance change the Document Background & Application Background to white.

Now you get a nice clean white background for all your documents.

Have a question or problem that this article doesn't cover?
Ask our Ubuntu Mini 9 Google Group for help.

Flash Player 10.1 Beta 3 is Released

Adobe has released Flayer Player 10.1 Beta 3 for 32-bit Linux Machines. If you've been reluctant to install Adobe's previous testing releases, now might be time to switch. The Beta 3 release boosts speed and stability over the Ubuntu repository version of Flash and the 10.1 Beta 2 that was released back in mid-December. Flash is still far from prefect, but it's getting better.

To install Flash Player 10.1 Beta 3 in Linux:
First remove your current version of flash
- If you are using the Ubuntu repository version of Flash
in a terminal type:

sudo apt-get purge flashplugin-installer

- If you are using another version of the Flash Player Beta

rm ~/.mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so

- Download Flash 10.1 Beta3

wget http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/flashplayer10/flashplayer10_1_p3_linux_022310.tar.gz

- Untar flashplayer10_1_p3_linux_022310.tar.gz

tar -zxvf flashplayer10_1_p3_linux_022310.tar.gz

- Then create a plugin folder in the .mozilla configuration folder

mkdir ~/.mozilla/plugins

(you need to create the plugin folder if your are upgrading from the other Flash beta guides I wrote)

- Install the flash player 10.1 Beta 3 plugin

mv libflashplayer.so ~/.mozilla/plugins

- To remove Flash Player 10.1 Beta 3 and reinstall Ubuntu's repository version of flash

rm -r ~/.mozilla/plugins

then:

sudo apt-get install flashplugin-installer

Have a question or problem that this article doesn't cover? Ask our Ubuntu Mini 9 Google Group for help.

Carbonate Icon Theme

I spent time looking for a good icon theme to match my Darkish Human GTK theme, I couldn't find one so I made my own.


- Carbonate + Darkish Human = Crazy Delicious

Carbonate is dark grey and blue hack of various Gnome Colors themes. I combined gnome-carbonite with gnome-brave and used a few icons from the standard Gnome icon package. It is a clean mix of blue and dark grey.



The theme depends on the gnome-colors-common package.
In a terminal type:

sudo apt-get install gnome-colors-common

Download my Carbonate Icon Theme

After downloading the gnome-carbonate.tar.gz, uncompress it and copy to your ~/.icon folder.

If you link the theme rate it, share it, and enjoy!

Have a question or problem that this article doesn't cover? Ask our Ubuntu Mini 9 Google Group for help.

Hopefullly Google Is Listening

The Free Software Foundation has written an open letter to Google to free it's recently required VP8 codec for use on YouTube.

Dear Google,

With your purchase of On2, you now own both the world's largest video site (YouTube) and all the patents behind a new high performance video codec -- VP8. Just think what you can achieve by releasing the VP8 codec under an irrevocable royalty-free license and pushing it out to users on YouTube? You can end the web's dependence on patent-encumbered video formats and proprietary software (Flash).

To sit on this technology or merely use it as a bargaining chip would be a disservice to the free world, while bringing at best limited short-term benefits to your company. To free VP8 without recommending it to YouTube users would be a wasted opportunity and damaging to free software browsers like Firefox. We all want you to do the right thing. Free VP8, and use it on YouTube!

Why this would be amazing

The world would have a new free format unencumbered by software patents. Viewers, video creators, free software developers, hardware makers -- everyone -- would have another way to distribute video without patents, fees, and restrictions. The free video format Ogg Theora was already at least as good for web video (see a comparison) as its nonfree competitor H.264, and we never did agree with your objections to using it. But since you made the decision to purchase VP8, presumably you're confident it can meet even those objections, and using it on YouTube is a no-brainer.

You have the leverage to make such free formats a global standard. YouTube is the world's largest video site, home to nearly every digital video ever made. If YouTube merely offered a free format as an option, that alone would bring support from a slew of device makers and applications.

You can read the rest of the article here.

Have a question or problem that this article doesn't cover? Ask our Ubuntu Mini 9 Google Group for help.

Mark Shuttleworth Interview

Dell's Cloud Evangelist Barton George interviewed Mark Shuttleworth during his visit to Dell. They discuss Ubuntu's realtionship with Dell, cloud computing, the upcoming Ubuntu 10.4 Lucid Lynx release, netbook remix, Boxee, and the competition.

Have a question or problem that this article doesn't cover? Ask our Ubuntu Mini 9 Google Group for help.