Type umlauts on Dvorak keyboard in Linux

Here is an article explaining how to enable typing German umlauts (and others) in Linux. This is so convenient. Now I can type umlauts straight from Dvorak keyboard layout.
Basically, in the keyboard layout settings, set the Compose key. In Fedora 18 Gnome 3.6 this is in Keyboard -> Shortcuts -> Typing.
I use Right Alt for this. And then type key combinations to get umlauts:

• ä = compose, ", a
• ö = compose, ", o
• ü = compose, ", u
• ß = compose, s, s

and so on. There are many other special characters that can be typed this way.
Source Article.

Windows Server Update Services

Here are some resources for setting up a Windows Server Update Services (link).

Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) enables information technology administrators to deploy the latest Microsoft product updates to computers that are running the Windows operating system. By using WSUS, administrators can fully manage the distribution of updates that are released through Microsoft Update to computers in their network.

Download WSUS 3.0 SP2 (link). WSUS Installation Guide (link).

If you get a message indicating that "IIS role or additional IIS role services must be installed", it is probably because your Windows Server IIS is missing IIS 6 MetaBase Compability role service.

After installation, I gave Read permissions on "c:\wsus" directory for Everyone so that any computer on the network could access the updates.

Clients

Configure client updates (link). Configure clients to use WSUS as the primary source of updates (link). Setting the clients that are not in the same domain is done by editing registry (link).

Create the key HKEYLOCALMACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU and add a DWORD value "UseWUServer" and set its value to 1.

Then in HKEYLOCALMACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate add keys WUServer and WUStatusServer, type String (Reg_SZ), and set them to the same value. That being the HTTP(S) address of your update server.

These settings are available as a .reg file on my Dropbox (link). You should adjust the URL to point to your WSUS server installation.

After client workstation restart, it automatically uses the WSUS server for Windows Update. The first time it checks for updates it will install a different version of Windows Update components. After that it will allow checking against a WSUS server as well as against Microsoft online update.

Administration

As an Administrator, you may want to clean the database ocassionally. This is done by removing superseeded updates.

A convenient way to download updates is to look at Needed updates. These are reported as needed by the clients.

The updates will download after they are approved (by default). This option is adjustable.

Enabling Java applets in Chrome on Fedora

To enable running Java applets in Google Chrome under 64-bit Linux (Fedora 17 x86_64) the following steps should get you going.

Install Java Runtime Environment. The version 1.7.0_04 uses the directories specified below. 

# mkdir /opt/google/chrome/plugins

# cd /opt/google/chrome/plugins

and then either

# ln -s /usr/java/default/lib/i386/libnpjp2.so

for 32-bit version (i586), or

# ln -s /usr/java/default/lib/amd64/libnpjp2.so

for 64-bit version (x64) of JRE. 

After this, go here to test whether Java applet support is successfully installed in Chrome.

Setting the default file handler in Gnome

Changing the default image viewer in Nautilus (default file manager in Gnome 3.4) is quite easy. Right-click on an image, select Properties, then go to Open With tab. Either select a different image viewer from the list there and click 'Set as default' or select a different handler by clicking 'Show other applications' button and searching for the desired application.

This process works if you want to change the default file handlers for any file type.

More Node Plugins

The Node Toolbox (link) contains categorized links to plugins for Node.js with descriptions. Quite a useful site for a javascript developer.

Changing GDM background

The Beefy Miracle wallpaper is not very pleasing to the eye so I looked into changing GDM background on Fedora 17 Linux. In order to accomplish this feat, we can use gdm3setup.

To get gdm3setup, clone its git repository:

git clone https://github.com/Nano77/gdm3setup.git

Then run install.sh script as root to install. It will install a shortcut (.desktop file) so the application is accessible from the Applications list as GDM3 Settings.

Apart from changing the wallpaper, it offers a few more options for customization of both GDM and Gnome Shell, like cursor theme, GTK theme, logo, etc.

Source: link

Useful Shortcuts in Nautilus

I'm getting used to Nautilus as a default file manager in Gnome. While at first it seemed inferior to Dolphin from KDE, after discovering plugins and shortcuts to different features, I find it quite convenient and capable. It has all the features I'm used to with Dolphin (or Windows Explorer for that matter).

Some of these features would be WebDAV support (mentioned earlier), integration with desktop search, being supported by Beyond Compare, terminal integration, and so on.

Here I will list some of the useful plugin packages and shortcuts when using Nautilus.

Plugins

• File Roller
• Gnome Exe Thumbnailer
• Nautilus Actions
• Nautilus Dropbox
• Nautilus Extensions
• Nautilus Open Terminal
• Nautilus SendTo
• Nautilus Terminal
• Seahorse Nautilus
• Sushi
• TortoiseHg Nautilus
• Tracker Nautilus Plugin

Keyboard Shortcuts

• F3 = Extra pane
• F4 = Terminal window (Nautilus Terminal)
• F6 = Switch panels
• F9 = toggle sidebar
• Ctrl+1..3 = view (Icons, Compact, List)
• Ctrl+T = New tab
• Ctrl+PgUp (or PgDn) = browse tabs
• Alt+1..n = browse tabs by number
• Ctrl+F = search

At first I was not sure what the extra pane was used for. I prefered using tabs. Panel, however, is a completely new panel view that can have its own tabs. This allows a setup pretty similar to Total Commander (and the likes). Nautilus supports Copy and Move to the Other Panel commands, which is very convenient. This is one of the things I *loved* in Total Commander and was missing in Windows Explorer.

Vice, Commodore 64 Emulator on Linux

A night of fun and nostalgia - playing with Vice, Commodore emulator on Linux. Available as a package simply named "vice" in official Fedora repository, 5.8 MB in size, is a relatively quick download.

Some useful settings on modern screens would be to increase the size of the display by using Settings -> Vic-II Settings -> Double Size; or use Alt+D to turn on Full Screen mode altogether. To enable Full Screen mode, I had to switch Settings -> VIC-II setting -> Fullscreen settings -> Fullscreen device to VidMode instead of XRandR.

Then, going through the list of repositories of C64 games and programs listed earlier, searching for more online and adjusting the list. Hoping to find some of the old hits. Finding Elite, Le Mans, Infiltrator, Laser Squad, Usagi Yojimbo.

Running Google Earth on Fedora 17 x86_64

Today I've filed a bug report for an error trying to update redhat-lsb package (link). As a result of the latest changes, I had to uninstall "redhat-lsb.i686" package from my system.

Then I identified the cause for having this package installed in the first place. Trying to run Google Earth resulted in the message:

/usr/bin/google-earth: ./googleearth-bin: /lib/ld-lsb.so.3: bad ELF interpreter: No such file or directory

This package I had installed earlier in order to enable Google Earth to run on a 64-bit system. This was done following the advice in article Google Earth in 64-bit Linux (Fedora, Ubuntu).

Now, after installing latest lsb packages it was not possible anymore to install redhat-lsb.i686 package on Fedora 17 x86_64. Fortunately, I found an old bug report that also contains an extremely convenient workaround - LSB symbolic link (/lib/ld-lsb.so.3) is missing in x86_64 version redhat-lsb package.

Simply creating a symbolic link in /lib with

ln -s ld-linux.so.2 ld-lsb.so.3

will enable 32-bit applications to use the library and, in result, Google Earth will run without any problems on a 64-bit system.

Themes in Gnome

So I have decided it is about time to get rid of the large title bar on top of the windows in Gnome 3.4 (Fedora 17 #linux) and looked into customization options. The components I found can be customized are:

• window look
• icons
• cursors

Where to find?

Gnome-look.org site contains lots of theme packages for any of the above components. Apart from these, there's lots of other Linux/Gnome components that can be customized, like Nautilus, GDM, and so on.

How to install?

Installation is quite simple. Once a theme is downloaded in .tar.gz format, unpack the directory from the archive into an appropriate location.

• Window themes are to be found in /usr/share/themes.
• Icons and mouse cursors are in /usr/share/icons.

The above locations are used as a shared location for all users. If you want to install a theme only for yourself then place the themes in an appropriate directory within your home location. Icons themes, for example, are found in ~/.icons/ and window/GTK themes are in ~/.themes/.
Once installed, these will be available through Gnome Tweak Tool or, in Cinnamon, through Theme settings.

My Favorites

My current favorites are listed below:

• Window: Adwaita Cupertino (link)
• Icons: Faience (link)
• Cursors: Aero Mouse Cursors with Drop Shadow (link)

NPM Registry - node.js plugins

There are many plugins written for Node.js so far. They can be downloaded using NPM (node package manager). At NPM Registry you can see which packages are most popular. 

Packages can contain MVC frameworks, languages, modules for communication with data servers, etc.

http://search.npmjs.org/

Debugger Canvas for Visual Studio

A great add-on for Visual Studio: Debugger Canvas. Visual debugger, allowing you to visualize the whole code path being debugged, with all the related variables. It displays only the functions being stepped-through, not the whole content of the class or the code file the function belongs to. In their own words:

Debugger Canvas is a new user experience for the debugger in Visual Studio Ultimate. It pulls together the code you’re exploring onto a single pan-and-zoom display. As you hit breakpoints or step into code, Debugger Canvas shows just the methods that you’re debugging, with call lines and local variables, to help you see the bigger picture.

(link)

Wine Virtual Desktop from the Command Line

Some programs, when run with Wine under Linux, are next to useless when run without Virtual Desktop emulated by Wine. This usually happens when programs have dialog boxes, like Open File, displayed beside the main program window. In such a case, turning on the Virtual Desktop option in Wine solves these issues and the dialog boxes are displayed properly. 

Unfortunately, there is no option to instruct Wine to use Virtual Desktop when run from the command line. There was (is?) an option for older versions of Wine, using "wine explore /desktop=default,1280x1024 <program.exe>" but this does not seem to work when run under Wine 1.5.3 that I have.

The good news is that there is a workaround available. You can use q4wine. Create a shortcut in there, setting all the properties as desired. There you can specify which Wine prefix to use and whether to use Virtual Desktop or not. Then, you can right-click the created shortcut, select Copy to Clipboard -> q4wine-cli cmd, and it will copy something like

/usr/bin/q4wine-cli  -p "Quicken" -i "Quicken"

to clipboard. You can use this as an Exec line in the .desktop shortcut file that you can create in Gnome, for example. It will run the shortcut you created with the Virtual Desktop setting. This can be used for multiple purposes but I need it mostly in order to run Quicken, which prompts the user for certain input entries and confirmations on startup.

WebDAV in Linux

WebDAV protocol is supported by main file managers in Linux (Fedora): Nautilus and Dolphin.

In Nautilus, you would go to File -> Connect to Server and then fill out the server details, or type in "davs://" and the server address.

In Dolphin, you would use "webdavs://" plus the server location.

In the examples above, I've used Secure WebDAV, which uses SSL (HTTPS) protocol. To use WebDAV over HTTP just omit the 's' at the end and use "dav://" or "webdav://" as protocol.

There are also other tools, like WebDAV Sync. Download from here and check Manual for usage instructions.

'Low Space' on Samsung Galaxy S

Using CyanogenMod 9 Android ROM on Samsung Galaxy S, lately I ran more often into the "Low space on device" message. The message was a bit confusing for an ordinary user because all the logical components were mostly empty. Those standard ones were:

1. phone memory
2. internal SD card
3. external SD card

However, the things are a bit trickier than they seem at first glance. The devs of CyanogenMod used fast memory component in the phone to store application data (databases and configuration files mostly) onto it, effectively improving the system performance because reading these files was now much faster than on stock Samsung ROM. The stock ROM simply used the internal phone memory (2GB in size) to store all these files. In comparison to CM9 such a system would run extremely slow.
The drawback to the above approach is that the fast partition, where /datadata is stored, is only 170MB in size. Quite a few applications do not pay much attention where and how they store their files so this partition fills up pretty quickly. At first it was quite difficult to even understand how to see what has filled up. You can check the size and free space by using DiskUsage application and selecting /datadata as the location to be analyzed.
Some people recommended moving applications to SD card. This, however, does not solve anything in this case because it moves files from internal phone's 2GB partition to the SD card. But my 2GB partition was already 80% empty. Not knowing what was going on initially, I even used Titanium Backup to move some system applications to SD card. What a waste of effort.
The background information was scattered in different forum posts. A very useful one is here. That one contains a script that, if run on boot, would move all the files from /datadata to /data/data (from 170MB partition to 2GB partition) and then moves only the files that are *both* read and written into, back onto the fast /datadata partition. It creates symbolic links on the slow partition to these configuration files and databases, improving their performance. The /data location (being on 2GB partition) has good-enough read performance so libraries and other static files that are moved to /data/data still perform well.
This would be a great solution, only if it worked. I flashed the package into my Galaxy S, rebooted phone a few times but found out that /data/data was still a symbolic link to /datadata and all the files were still on the /datadata partition. As a result of running the script, /data/data was supposed to be converted to a real directory, with only the 'database' and a few other directories moved to /datadata. However, this was not the case.
So, knowing enough background information, and being encouraged to take things into my own hands by this post, I used Root Explorer to solve the problem:

1. create /data/data_alen directory on 2GB partition,
2. manually move iGo's whole directory (com.navngo.igo.javaclient) to /data/data_alen
3. create symlink to com.navngo.igo.javaclient in /datadata

This was the simplest workaround that removed about 20MB from /datadata, freeing enough space for system to run for some time in the future. The apps that are clogging the system the most are browsers Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox Aurora, with their cache. However, since I'm using these for testing and often, I prefer to keep them on the fast partition. Less used space hogs, like Google+ can, like iGo, be completely moved to /data partition.

Edit 2012-07-24: After installing new CyanogenMod, the applications for which the data was moved to a different partition would force-close. I tried a few things, like restoring the data with Titanium Backup and moving it back-and-forth with Total Commander, but that did not work. What worked was reinstalling the application (or restoring the data with Titanium Backup) and moving the data to the large partition and creating symlink to it with Root Explorer.
I haven't experimented much since this seems to work. The "low space" is handled for the moment. When it comes back I'll post back the findings of further experiments.

Python Development on Windows

Here I will summarize some useful links for Python development in Windows. Also check my page about Python in Dev Knowledge Base (link).
There are other posts in this blog that relate to Python. They can be found using the search box at the top of the page. I will link to useful ones here.

Development Environment

• GUI Programming (link)
• Boa Constructor (link)
• WxGlade GUI designer (link)

Windows

For Windows, actually .Net platform, there is Iron Python project (link).

Other

• Py2exe (link)

Changing default system language in Fedora 17 Gnome

To change the default system language, use 

system-config-language

In case you don't have it installed, simply install the package with the same name.

Once changed, the settings apply when you log in the next time.

Application Shortcuts in Gnome

#linux, Fedora 17, Gnome 3.4

To create application shortcuts in Gnome, simply create a .desktop file in 

/home/<user>/.local/share/applications/

and they will become visible in the Applications menu or in application search. To get a sample, get one of the existing files or check the reference page below for the basic options.

References: Desktop Entry Files (link)

Fedora 17 Installation Checklist

Quick notes on Linux installation.

 

- Create Live USB drive.

- Run off the Live USB drive. Use Install to Hard Disk option.

- set Terminal window transparency and color scheme.

- install yum extension (yum-local, downloadonly, fastestmirror, priorities)

- Install apper (+KDE)

- install dolphin

- install Mono

- install Yakuake

- install workrave

- install Google Chrome and set up Chrome custom user agent (blog)

- install conky

- install nethogs

- set up KeePass with Mono, install xdotool

- install gnome extensions online

- install gnome-tweak-tool, add minimize to window context menu

- install mouse cursors

- install rainlendar (requires SDL)

- set startup apps using gnome-session-properties (rainlendar, conky, workrave)

- install lvm tools (system-config-lvm) and kde-partitionmanager

- install beyond compare

- add rpmfusion repositories

- install netactview

- install feh and set rotating desktop wallpapers

- unpack google appengine

- install google earth (redhat-lsb.i686, mesa-libGL.i686)

- install codecs for Totem movie player (ff...)

- sync Firefox

- install Adobe Flash plugin

- install download manager (gwget)

- install dropbox: download nautilus package, download daemon manually.

- install vlc

- install media codecs (mp3, mp4, ogg) - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Multimedia, http://ask.fedoraproject.org/question/1145/what-plugins-required-in-fedora-16-to-play-mp3 ( 'yum install gstreamer-{ffmpeg,plugins-{good,ugly,bad{,-free,-nonfree}}}' )

- install boost, boost-devel

- install git

- install skype (alsa-lib.i686 libXv.i686 libXScrnSaver.i686 qt.i686 qt-x11.i686)

- install banshee

- install p7zip, p7zip-plugins

- install Wine.i686 + q4wine 

- download winetricks, install cabextract, samba-winbind, libmpg123

- install freemind

 

ToDo:

*****

- install libreoffice

- install @kde

- install vmware

- backup app startup scripts & settings (conkyrc, shell scripts, wine)

- set up app shortcuts in /usr/local/share/applications/

- install Netvisualize Favorites under wine

 

Package locations: 

http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/development/17/x86_64/os/Packages/

Gnome buttons on the titlebar

If you are missing Minimize and Maximize buttons in the window titlebar in Gnome 3, just install gnome-tweak-tool and go to Shell -> Arrangements of buttons on the titlebar, and set the value to All.

#linux

Source

Document Viewer for Linux

The best document viewer for Linux I found is Okular. It reads PDF, CHM, and mobile formats.

Installing Linux Dropbox on a slow connection

Default Dropbox installation includes downloading and installing Nautilus extension first. It will add Dropbox icon/application link. When this is run for the first time, it will download and install proprietary daemon. However, on a slow link this download often fails if I use the connection for parallel downloads. Running it again will not continue the download but will download again from the start.

To download the daemon manually, we can run the following command:

cd ~ && wget -O - "https://www.dropbox.com/download?plat=lnx.x86_64" | tar xzf -

Note that I'm using 64-bit version in the link above. Official instructions are available here.

Media Players on Linux

After a brief research into what to use as a media player(s) in #linux, I settled with three players:

• Totem Movie Player as a fast-startup default player for audio and video
• Banshee player for music, with playlists and library
• VLC as a backup video player

Fedora 17: [Errno -1] Metadata file does not match checksum

Running updates for Fedora 17 on a slow connection and after I reset the repositories, I started getting the above error. I assume the reason is that the mirrors that get selected for the download of repolist.xml and the database are different and, hence, the database hash does not match the one in the repolist.
To solve this, I'm using dl.fedoraproject.org as the primary URL for the fedora repository until the repolist and the database are downloaded.
If you get the above message try "yum clean all" although some mention that "yum clean metadata" should be enough. Then, in the fedora.repo, comment the line for mirrors and add a new line for the baseurl and add a desired mirror URL. I went straight to the source, with:

baseurl=http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/development/$releasever/$basearch/os/
#mirrorlist=https://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/metalink?repo=fedora-$releasever&arch=$basearch

After the database is downloaded, I enabled the mirrorlist line and disable the baseurl so the updates continue as usual.

Installing Skype on 64-bit Linux (Fedora 17)

Since Skype is a 32-bit application, it requires 32-bit libraries to be installed on the system in order to run.

First I installed Autoplus and followed the instructions here.

That did not fully work so I went and installed the dependencies one by one, as per Skype Dependencies.

It turned out that some of these dependencies simply needed an update to be downloaded and installed first. After that a 32-bit version installed without problems and then everything worked.

The one-line command that installs all the required dependencies is:

yum install alsa-lib.i686 libXv.i686 libXScrnSaver.i686 qt.i686 qt-x11.i686

LibreOffice (OpenOffice/StarOffice)

After Oracle brought chaos into Open Source world, a number of projects got renamed. Version of OpenOffice that branched off is named LibreOffice (link). Windows version is available for download, while Linux version is installed by default by a number of distributions.

The same way Jenkins (CI) grew out of Hudson project.

Windows 7 Service Pack 1 Preparation

Installing Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 is proving to be a nuissance. Especially when considering that there are no major updates contained in case you've been installing the updates regularly.
Google Chrome in Windows is having an issue where it can not open sites via SSL (https). This has been quickly patched in stable versions because of publicity. However, the issue still exists in development channel. One way to get rid of it is to install Service Pack 1 for Windows 7.
While I had the offline installation of SP1, I was getting the dreadful error 0x8007000d (link) and had to install a whole bunch of other things first. Here's the list. (from Steps to follow before installing Windows 7 Service Pack 1, link)

• Windows Update Readiness Tool (300+ MB)
• KB2533552
• KB2454826
• KB2534366

These need to be downloaded and installed manually if you are using an offline installer for the SP 1. As noted in the instructions - "... these updates are not automatically installed when you install the service pack from the Microsoft Download Center").
Apart from these, I also did not have the option to install SP1 from Windows Update (described here - link). Running the readiness tool did not change anything.
In the end, I had to run the online installer, which did the magic behind the scenes and installed about 80 MB of updates.

Managing Partitions in Linux

Managing partitions in Linux is easy with the right tools. Some of the tools readily available on Fedora 16 are

• Disk Utility
• GPartEd
• parted

PartEd is a console application and can be used from a rescue disk. I've managed to detach and move the /boot partition while the system was running.
To work with Logical Volumes, additional package is required:

• system-config-lvm

This is a GUI tool for managing logical volumes on an extended partition. You can also use the following commands manually:

• lvresize,  for resizing logical volumes (LV)
• pvresize, for resizing physical volumes (PV)

For more details, see the LVM How-To. It describes LVM concepts in details. After reading the text it becomes quite clear how LVM system works and puts things into perspective. There is no need to resize a Volume Group as such. It simply contains all the physical disks we assign to it, abstracts all that space into one unit and then splits it up into Logical Volumes. This means that, to increase space in a Logical Volume Group we would simply add another disk or partition to it and then resize the Logical Volumes. To shring the Group, we would shrink the Logical Volumes and then remove the Physical Volume from the Group. 

However, to resize a Group that has only one Physical Volume, is a bit more difficult. How to do this without a reboot is described here. The point, as described here, is to shrink the Logical Volume first, then the Physical Volume. In the end, delete and (re-)create the LVM group with the same starting position. By setting the end position before or after the previous value you would effectively shrink or enlarge the LVM partition.

And, in the end, there is KDE Volume and Partition Manager (link) - kde-partitionmanager - that supports both parted and lvm (lvm2) commands. As the description states: "Kvpm is a GUI front end for Linux LVM and Gnu parted. LVM2 groups and volumes can be created, removed and manipulated using most of the options supported by the standard LVM2 tools. Some support for creating and operating on partitions is also provided. It also handles creating and mounting file systems.

The LVM version: 2.02.88 or newer must be installed with the lvm2app library. Only the KDE 4 libraries need to be installed, not the entire desktop, so it my be run from within Gnome for instance."
It is worth trying out.

References: LVM How-to (link), LVM Cheatsheet (link), Extend a Volume Group (link), Editing Logical Volumes (link), LVM Resizing Guide (link), Growing a live LVM volume (link), Moving LVM partition (link)

Issues with VMWare Workstation and new kernels

After installing the latest kernel package on Fedora 16, VMWare Workstation 8.0.2 stopped working. It requires certain modules to be built into the kernel and there is a script that automatically runs, compiles them, and installs. All this should be pretty straightforward except that it does not work. Module vmnet can not be started after the compilation.

Fortunately, there is a patch available at the link below. I used the one for VMWare 8.0.2. The process is as simple as extracting the files (one shell script and one patch) and running the shell script. It will patch the source and run the compilation again. After this, vmware services still don't start but the Workstation can start.

There is an error accessing ALSA sound while booting a virtual machine. Changing the sound driver to Default (ALSA) makes it work again.

Patch (link)


Update: This has to be re-applied every time kernel is upgraded. However, after installing 3.4.0 it did not work. The solution with kernel 3.4.0 is here. The files are here and, instead of using /usr/lib/vmware, you should go one level lower, to /usr/lib/vmware/modules, extract the package and run

vmware-modconfig --console --install-all

Removing old kernels in Fedora 16

If you find too many kernels being listed during Grub screen on system boot, cleaning up old kernels is extremely easy:

package-cleanup --oldkernels

Automount NTFS partition on startup in Fedora Linux

'blkid' displays the UUIDs of disk partitions.
Then put the UUID into /etc/fstab and set the mount point. The drive with the given UUID will be mounted on system startup.

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?p=1396111

Gnome Shell Extensions

Here are useful additions to Gnome Shell, like Alternative Status Menu enabling Hibernate option in Shell Status Menu, showing icons in window preview, adding the Applications menu to the status bar, showing system monitor in the panel, etc.

The really convenient thing is how you can see installed extensions on the web site, enable or disable installed extensions, or add new ones simply by clicking the On/Off switch on the web page.

https://extensions.gnome.org/

The ones I like are:

• Hide Top Bar (link) - the new favourite for Gnome 3.6. Auto-hide top panel.
• Alternative status menu (link)
• Advanced settings in user menu (link)
• Panel settings (link)
• Window Overlay Icons (link)
• Net Speed (link)
• system-monitor (link)
• Remove Accessibility (link)
• Remove username (link) - get some space in the panel.
• Caffeine (link) prevents the shell from going to sleep. Useful when watching movies, for example.

#linux #gnome