Tag: ppa

Netflix on Ubuntu: Try this PPA

by doctormo

Netflix had been a bugbear of Ubuntu in the USA for a while now. I’ve long suspected a conspiracy was at work in Netflix to stop Ubuntu and other Free Desktops having access to their watch instantly service. Since ya know, they seem to have no problems with ChromeOS, Roku, Android or a bazillion other Linux distributions that don’t sun silverlight.

Only Saturday I was installing Ubuntu for someone and the one question that added doubt to their experience was Netflix watch instantly support.

So onto the good news. Over at iHeartUbuntu they’ve packaged up their wine implementation of Netflix running through Firefox. Really it doesn’t matter what wrapper or other crap is used for this, having support that is easy enough to install and quick enough to execute is the main point.

This package sorts everything out and puts an icon in the right place. That’s exactly what we needed. The performance on my machine is 80% of what it needs to be, but I’m confident that with a little more work it can be improved into something that really helps Ubuntu adoption and get over that chasm.

Have you tried it?

Posted in UbuntuTagged netflix, 4 Comments on Netflix on Ubuntu: Try this PPA

Inkscape Stable PPAs

by doctormo

Have you ever wanted a stable release of your favourite application in Ubuntu but find that there are only ever nightly build ppas? I found that last year when inkscape 0.47 was released and Ubuntu 10.04 would never really have the ability to download and install it without using the sources.

So I asked on the Inkscape mailing list for a stable PPA. Now thanks to Alex Valavanis and Cafuego for putting in the hard work, there is now a stable PPA for new inkscape releases:

One is for the current stable/supported release of Inkscape (not populated yet).

https://launchpad.net/~inkscape.dev/+archive/stable

The other is a nightly/trunk PPA for our testers and those who just want the newest features right away.

https://launchpad.net/~inkscape.dev/+archive/trunk

Thanks to everyone for sorting this out, this means a lot to the ease of use of Ubuntu with applications that support Ubuntu with their new releases. Thoughts?

Posted in UbuntuTagged inkscape, , 2 Comments on Inkscape Stable PPAs

Enlightenment Foundation Libraries 1.0 for Lucid, Maverick and Natty

by doctormo

There is a brand new stable release of the efl (Enlightenment Foundation Libraries) for Oneric, and because I want to play with python-efl, I needed to compile and build an entire PPA full of the newest stable release.

So here we have it, I invite anyone to use this PPA if you’re interested (or have a need) to use efl-1.0 in past Ubuntu releases.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:doctormo/efl
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python-ecore ... etc

This ppa has taken me all week to build, it’s a lot of work so please do use it if you need up to date efl libraries or a newer cython build and especially if you need python-efl 0.7.3 or better.

I hope to use the code to produce the netbook-launcher effect in the logon screen, but this is very early days and it might be a fools errand. But it will be F’N awesome if successful. Report below if you know anything about programming with efl.

Netbook Launcher now Available for Natty!

by doctormo

Hey guys, you might remember that a few days ago I was asked to build the lucid netbook launcher functionality for maverick; enough people asked me for a natty version that I wanted to make sure you guys got access to the clutter based netbook-launcher too. So here you go!

Of course this repackaging can’t go on forever, the packages I’ve sent to my PPA have no maintainer and sooner or later there is going to be major api failure as gnome3 moves on and ubuntu doesn’t ship the libraries this interface needs.

With that caveat out of the way, you can install the netbook launcher (3D) like this:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:doctormo/netbook-launcher
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install yeold-netbook-launcher

If you would like the 2D version of netbook-launcher, then the best thing to do is to install the netbook-launcher-efl which is shipped in natty (and meverick), true it’s a daft package which sucks in unity by mistake, but it still works and unlike the 3D code, the 2D code is still being developed (if only in small ways) by mterry.

Thoughts, comments and problems, please post below…

deviantArt Plugins Released!

by doctormo

I’m please to announce that version 1.0 of the deviantArt stash plugins for Inkscape and Gimp are released.

It’s a Big Deal

This is a BIG deal my friends and I’m very excited because not only do we have this functionality, but we have it FIRST, before ANY proprietary software package. That’s right, the stash API was only announced last week and here I am giving you the keys to brand spanking new functionality right from within your favourite art creation applications!

We can do something with art that no other software can do today… send your artwork (with or without sources) directly to your deviantArt account… then once uploaded it can (at your option) open up the web browser so you can look at the artwork, send your friends a link or publish it further in your main galleries.

Oh and you can submit from the command line using the da-submit command.

Where do I get it!?

You can get the goodness from the source tarball or from my ppa if you’re using Ubuntu 10.04/10.10/11.04 by following these steps:


sudo add-apt-repository ppa:doctormo/deviantart-plugins
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gimp-plugin-dastash inkscape-extension-dastash

Please report bugs in launchpad, if you would like to make these plugins available for other platforms, please do let me know. If you know someone who will sponsor these packages into Debian, also get in touch. Because this is the sort of functionality that should be available directly from the software center.

How do I use it?

Simply go into either Inkscape or Gimp…

Open up an XCF gimp file and from the Image menu, select ‘Publish to’ > ‘deviantArt Stash’:

Open up an SVG file and from the Extensions menu, select ‘Publish to’ > ‘deviantArt’:

A small window will appear, fill in the title and maybe a few keywords and press ok… If this is your first time uploading you will get a pop-up asking you to authenticate:

Log in and now wait as your image is saved as a png, and then the png and source files as sent to deivnatArt. Inkscape might give you a warning that the extension returns (saying you weren’t authenticated) you can safely ignore it. You should still get the webpage pop up in your web browser showing your your new devination:

Now you can edit the piece in the browser and publish it to one of your galleries and give it a good CC license too. Don’t forget that the sources are made available by default, so be sure that’s what you want to do.

With Thanks To

A big shout out to Gilles Dubuc and Mike Halpert from deviantArt who made sure that bugs were fixed and I was given help trying to fix some of the problems with OAuth. Thanks LGM for hosting an awesome event that allowed the project to happen.

If you have any questions or thoughts, please add a comment to this blog entry…

Netbook Launcher now available for Maverick!

by doctormo

OK so yes, this looks a bit weird but hear me out. The netbook-launcher package was the old clutter based user interface for the Intrepid to Lucid netbook editions of Ubuntu, which was supplemented by the netbook-launcher-efl package that used enlightenment for anyone who didn’t have 3D. After Lucid, the code for the non-efl hasn’t been development and now everything from Maverick onwards is Unity only.

The efl package is still available, but that has it’s own problems…

I always liked the netbook-launcher, I always put it on other people’s computers (especially for the elderly who need big icons) because it filled the screen and everything was right there on the desktop. Perfect.

Screenshot of Netbook-launcher working on Maverick

It wasn’t really available in maverick until tonight, when prompted by a friend who is delivering 10 new Ubuntu computers to the local working-class community. The plan had always been to use the netbook interface and the machines won’t run Unity. So here’s where I step in, I downloaded the Lucid code for liblauncher and netbook-launcher and have fixed the gtk bitrot errors and published the results on a new PPA.

I had to change the name of the clutter package because of the hatchet job done on the netbook-launcher package to upgrade people from Lucid to Unity/Maverick. This means that when you try to install netbook-launcher, you get unity instead. That aside packages are available here:

https://launchpad.net/~doctormo/+archive/netbook-launcher/+packages

My friend probably wants to use the efl version which is still in development (by the heroic mterry no less, is there any cool project that guy isn’t involved with?). The problem with the shipped version is that it recommends the old ‘netbook-launcher’ package which pulls in unity. So I’ve built a new version of that without that dependency problem and I’ll try and get mterry to update the package for Oneric.

To use/test this branch try this:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:doctormo/netbook-launcher
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install yeold-netbook-launcher netbook-launcher-efl

I hope this ppa will be useful to a few people and do let me know below if you would like a natty version of the package…

Genetic Wallpapers Now Available to Test!

by doctormo

In my previous videos I showed off some scripts which modified some svg files and made the desktop background shift and move randomly and with determination towards pre-set patterns.

In this video I show you how to install the new packages for testing and how you can make your own:

View Video on Blip

Your thoughts? have you ested my new packages and do they work for you?

Blackberry with OpenSync 0.40

by doctormo

I’ve created a new barry snapshot PPA which should be updated every 2 weeks with the latest barry git revisions and the latest opensync svn. This is to encourage testing and perhaps there is some functionality which you need in the latest versions.

I will warn you that opensync 0.4x isn’t done, isn’t safe and isn’t ready for being trusted with your data. It can duplicate entries, delete them entirely or mangle text on a whim. But it will support calendar, contact and note syncing.

Update: My PPA has been shut down because of an inability for me to test the packages. Please see the barry website for more details on how to get barry working with your Ubuntu installation.

Now that should pull in barry, opensync and your opensync 0.39 plugin. Please report back here if it works. I’ve had the devil of a time packaging all these things, almost a week worth of messing about with the packaging to get everything buildable.

If you get an error such as “E: Broken packages” then hold onto your hat, the packages are still building and taking their damn sweet time to finish. — All Fixed and built, sorry for the wait