How to make the Linux Mint 14 MATE desktop look like Windows XP Luna.

This theme from Gnome-Look will theme your MATE desktop to look just like the Luna theme in Windows XP. if that is what you want that is. Get the theme here: https://www.gnome-look.org/p/1230964/. This theme will not show up in the theme chooser for some reason, just go to the Customise section and select the XPLuna … Read more

How to make your Linux desktop look like iOS easily. This looks very nice.

There are some very nice themes out there to stylize your Linux desktop, the trendy Linux user may install a theme and make the Linux Gnome desktop look like iOS. This is very easy. iOS 10 theme for Gnome Shell and MATE. https://www.opendesktop.org/p/1220826/. Download this theme and place it under your ~/.themes folder. Then enable … Read more

Install the MATE desktop on Ubuntu and enjoy a nice reliable desktop environment.

To install the MATE desktop environment on Ubuntu 20.04, run this simple command. jason@jason-desktop:~/Documents$ sudo apt install mate-desktop-environment-extras mate-common mate-desktop-environmentjason@jason-desktop:~/Documents$ sudo apt install mate-desktop-environment-extras mate-common mate-desktop-environment Then you need to logout of the desktop session and restart the desktop login manager to allow it to detect MATE. Press Control-Alt-F2 and then login to a virtual … Read more

Very nice Windows 7 basic aero theme for Linux GTK apps.

This theme I found is a very nice GTK theme for your Linux machine. This themes your desktop computer to look like Windows 7 basic. With a non-transparent Windows 7 styled GTK look and Window borders. Download the theme here. https://codeload.github.com/B00merang-Project/Windows-7/zip/2.1. This is what this theme looks like. It is very nice indeed. And the … Read more

MATE weather applet on Ubuntu 18.04 not working. This is how to fix it.

The MATE weather applet on Ubuntu 18.04 was not working on my Ubuntu 18.04 installation. This is how I fixed it with a simple patch. sudo sed -i ‘s|https://www.aviationweather.gov/adds/dataserver_current/httpparam|https://www.aviationweather.gov/adds/dataserver1_3/httpparam\x0\x0\x0\x0\x0|’ /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libmateweather.so.1sudo sed -i ‘s|https://www.aviationweather.gov/adds/dataserver_current/httpparam|https://www.aviationweather.gov/adds/dataserver1_3/httpparam\x0\x0\x0\x0\x0|’ /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libmateweather.so.1 The patch above will fix the libmateweather library. Then the applet will work. Log out and back into the MATE desktop … Read more

Set a very nice Linux shell prompt and very useful aliases.

This addition to your .bashrc file will give you a very nice shell prompt and colorful output of the ls command. This looks very stylish indeed. # set variable identifying the chroot you work in (used in the prompt below) if [ -z "${debian_chroot:-}" ] && [ -r /etc/debian_chroot ]; then debian_chroot=$(cat /etc/debian_chroot) fi   … Read more

Make Ubuntu Linux look like Macintosh OSX.

Making Ubuntu look like Macintosh OSX is very simple, this theme I found is a very good recreation of the OSX Aqua theme. Download the theme like this. git clone https://github.com/B00merang-Project/OS-X-Leopard.gitgit clone https://github.com/B00merang-Project/OS-X-Leopard.git Then copy the OS-X-Leopard-master directory to your ~/.themes folder and use the preferences dialog in the MATE desktop to set the new … Read more

How to create thumbnails of dds files in Ubuntu or Mint.

Thumbnailing for the DirectDraw Surface file format is not supported in Linux with the Caja file manager, but this is easy to fix. The /usr/share/thumbnailers/ directory contains all of the thumbnailer files that automatically create thumbnails in the file manager for Caja. Just create a file named dds.thumbnailer and put this in it. 2 3 … Read more

How to set various options in the MATE Cinnamon and Gnome desktops with the terminal.

The old Gconf framework allowed a user to set various options for the Gnome 2 desktop with a command-line utility or the GUI. But nowadays, we have another one. The gsettings framework for modern desktops allows a user to set various options with the terminal. This is a nice way of setting various options all … Read more

How to extract the files from a GTK 3.0 gresource file to allow theme editing.

The themes for GTK 3.0 are packaged in a gtk.gresource file that contains .css and other files for the theme. I do not understand why, but I have figured out how to extract the files on Ubuntu 19.04. The gresource utility allows the listing of files in a gtk.gresource file. jason@jason-Virtual-Machine:~/.themes/Yaru/gtk-3.0$ gresource list gtk.gresourcejason@jason-Virtual-Machine:~/.themes/Yaru/gtk-3.0$ gresource … Read more

Make the Linux MATE desktop look just like Mac OSX.

There is a new theme set available on Gnome Look. This makes Linux look just like Macintosh OSX High Sierra. It is very high quality and well worth installing. The GTK3 theme: https://dl.opendesktop.org/api/files/download/id/1537895905/s/a13d96c5494b48d7c715859105db2c5d/t/1537916795/u//Sierra-light.tar.xz. Icon theme: https://dl.opendesktop.org/api/files/download/id/1524634947/s/a13d96c5494b48d7c715859105db2c5d/t/1537916795/u//MacOSX-icon-theme.tar.xz. Cursor theme: https://dl.opendesktop.org/api/files/download/id/1517130771/s/a13d96c5494b48d7c715859105db2c5d/t/1537916795/u//MacOSX-cursors.tar.xz. A couple of Mac OSX wallpapers: https://dl.opendesktop.org/api/files/download/id/1517131134/s/a13d96c5494b48d7c715859105db2c5d/t/1537916795/u//HighSierra-wallpapers.tar.xz. Unpack the GTK theme under the ~/.themes folder. And … Read more

Make XfCE 4 look like a SGI O2 workstation.

Make your XFCE desktop look as close as possible to an old IRIX machine. SGI Screen Fonts https://www.gnome-look.org/p/998527/ Xfwm4 theme that is based on the window manager for SGI OS. https://www.gnome-look.org/p/1015906/ SGI-IMD Metacity theme. This also works with MATE. https://www.gnome-look.org/p/1006689/ SGI Irix cursor theme. This works with any window manager. https://www.gnome-look.org/p/999497/ SGI IRIX icons theme. … Read more

Very useful Linux desktop tips to make it very pretty and usable.

How to have a transparent rxvt terminal on a Linux desktop Transparent rxvt files. This is a very useful script to create a transparent rxvt terminal for a user who likes a pretty terminal to do day to day tasks in. #!/bin/bash # This is a shell script that provides a more attractive rxvt terminal. … Read more

Get information about filesystem usage with the MATE Disk Usage Analyser.

The MATE Disk Usage Analyser is a very good way to get disk usage information in a graphical fashion. The above example, shows the usage on the whole Linux filesystem. MATE Disk Usage Analyser showing information about my home directory. The user can click each folder to view disk usage information about a certain folder, … Read more

Make the Linux MATE desktop look like Windows 8 easily with these great theme files.

There are a few Windows themes out there, I just wanted to show how to make the MATE desktop look like Windows 8.1. This is very easy, just download these theme files. Windows 8 mouse cursor theme: http://xfce-look.org/content/show.php/Win8E?content=160758. Put the contents into the ~/.icons directory. Like this. jason@Yog-Sothoth:~/.icons$ ls -hula total 24K drwxrwxr-x 6 jason … Read more