Elementary OS Minimalistic Theme

Saturday, April 19, 2014 K.Z. Freeman 7 Comments



A friend of mine recently suggested I should be using Linux, since my Windows XP shell consisted of a minimalistic bbLean (Blackbox) setup. 

I've ran Ubuntu before, but then decided XP is good enough for my needs. Plus I can't do shit on Linux without hassle when it comes to *.exe. However I recently began to use Linux for writing, since it boots in seconds. Also, Linux is, unlike windows, cross-platform in that it is able to read the Windows partition as well, so files can be easily saved and accessed. This is more useful than you might think. That is to say Linux is great if all you want to do is write. 

A minimalistic approach was what I was after and I didn't much like Debian's interface, even though I knew it could be altered, so I chose Elementary OS (Luna), since it seems stable and quite lovely. 

In a nutshell, I found a Minimalistic Elementary OS Theme I really liked and wanted to use, but in the end managed to devote quite a bit of time setting it up. 

I want to save you the trouble I had to go through. I am that nice. Plus, what good is a nice looking theme if you can't shove it in people's faces.

The main issue with setup was that Things just did not work. And while Linux tends to be a system where you can do everything in the terminal, and while this is true, it can still be a royal pain in the actual ass for the inexperienced. Namely me.



First the easy steps:

2. Install Elementary Tweaks in Terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) 

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:versable/elementary-update
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install elementary-tweaks

3. Install Wingpanel Slim. The easiest way is to install it is by using Software Center in your Applications tab. Simply write Wingpanel Slim in search and click Install on the right. Or you can do it in Terminal.

sudo apt-get install wingpanel-slim elementary-tweaks

4. Go to System Settings, open the previously installed Tweaks tab, select Cerbere, and delete your normal wingpanel so it wont load on startup.














Now for the bitch part of this setup.

Here are some of the issues you might have:


1. Conky Not Loading.
    The author says one just needs to download his script and install Curl and set permissions in .conky.sh file. But firstly, there is no such file called conky.sh in his Conky pack, and secondly, Curl is not needed. You could create a conky.sh but loading every single thing like this is just not very time efficient. Instead do this:
          2. Open up Software Center in your Applications and find Conky Manager
          3. Extract the Conky Script into conky-manager/themes/ and within this extracted folder (rename it if you want so you may find it in the manager easier) create a new folder named config, then copy all the extracted files into that new folder.
          4. You should be able to find the three of the things you need. the clock, weather and system info (CPU, Memory, Bandwidth). Enable these three.
          5. If you're using 1600x900 you'll probably need to adjust the positioning of your elements. Do it in the settings by selecting the specific scripts you wish to move around until you are satisfied.



2. Moving the Icons Causing Elementary OS to Logout

Now you're set for the Conky part of the deal, next download Avant Window Navigator in Applications-Software Center. A dock will load to which you can drag your Applications from the tab down into the dock. A problem may present itself here in the form of a logout when you attempt to drag an icon. This is because of a graphics driver issue. To fix this, open Terminal and use this:

sudo apt-get remove --purge fglrx fglrx_* fglrx-amdcccle* fglrx-dev*


You will be using this dock from now on, so Plank is of no use to you. Uninstall it.
To Unistall Plank Open Terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and use: sudo apt-get remove plank 

Now changing the icons in AWN is as easy as selecting the app you want to change the icon of on your AWN, righclick on it and select the setting for changing the icon. Navigate to the folder you upacked the icons to and use the PNG versions.


 That's it. Obviously you need internet access for the weather station to work...

 I still want to test out if there's any difference in battery usage between the two systems so I might update this post very soon.

 Good luck.

7 comments:

  1. Anonymous24 April, 2014

    Almost makes me want to install elementary... Almost.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Unknown11 March, 2015

      and why not?
      a decent install takes up maybe 10G, and it's beautiful.

      the only problem with the OS as a whole is the software center, which doesn't work very well. But terminal is easy to use and massively supported so it doesn't really matter

      Delete
  2. Unknown11 March, 2015

    I cannot seem to get Token to work. It's sitting there in my .icon folder, but is not selectable. Very annoying.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. K.Z. Freeman11 March, 2015

      Token comes with different versions of teh same icons. Some are not selectable, I think you need to choose the ones with the correct extensions, have you tried all of them?

      Delete
  3. baragoz09 September, 2015

    Thank you very much :))

    ReplyDelete
  4. Blaž06 December, 2015

    Decided to make myself a windows version of this beauty :)
    https://www.dropbox.com/s/zium6ik4mbh0di5/Leaves.png?dl=0

    ReplyDelete

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