Are you tired of looking at the drab desktop over and over again? Or are you trying to get that Mac look on your Ubuntu? Well, look no further, Screenlets does all that, and it's the best companion to your Compiz/Beryl system too.

Well, to start off, Screenlets are small python programs that provide a number of features that a widget engine does, and a lot more !

Ok, here's how you can get yourself the power of Screenlets:

• Edit sources.list as sudo vim /etc/apt/sources.list, and add one of the following lines, based on which version of Ubuntu you've got :
  
  deb http://hendrik.kaju.pri.ee/ubuntu edgy screenlets
  or
  deb http://hendrik.kaju.pri.ee/ubuntu feisty screenlets
  or
  deb http://hendrik.kaju.pri.ee/ubuntu gutsy screenlets


• Add the gpg key to confirm as a verified source :

wget http://hendrik.kaju.pri.ee/ubuntu/F854AFD7.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add - && sudo apt-get update


• Now install screenlets: sudo apt-get install screenlets
• Start the Screenlet manager as screenlets-manager, select what you like and add to the desktop, enable if you want to see it when you log in.
  

Screenlets are changing so quickly, that what you see now, may not be how it can be used tomorrow. Stay tuned, and stay cool ;)

References:
http://hendrik.kaju.pri.ee/screenlets/

Admit it, every once in a while you have the urge to try something new. For me, this always ends up in the form of a new game, a new OS, a new firmware upgrade, or mobile modding..

 Recently I got my hands dirty with Ubuntu Feisty, and now I wanted more, I wanted to play games on the tux-box, and what better place to start than Quake3. Quake3 was one of the first games that brought me into deathmatches. That's where I started off, and I did quite well, i must say. But then the craze died, and I stopped gaming for a whole long year.

 This ended with the urge of getting Quake3 to run on Ubuntu. Of course it isn't difficult, but then again, nothing really is difficult nowadays, but still ran into a couple of issues. Here's what you need :

  1. A licensed, working CD of Quake3.
  2. The Quake3 license.
  3. An internet connection.

Let's get started....

1. Put the CD into the tray and wait for it to be mounted.
2. Now, run the following command on the terminal:

    sudo apt-get install quake3-data

3. Provide the path to the installation folder of Quake3, in my case, this was /media/cdrom0/
4. Leave the next setting at the default, you'll need to download a 30MB point release for linux.
5. The installation starts. First it copies pak0.pk3 from the CD, that's around 458MB. Then, it downloads the latest point release from ID site.
6. Once done, run the downloaded point release as

    sudo /root/<point-release>.run

  In my case, it was

    sudo /root/linuxq3apoint-1.32b-3.x86.run

7. Install into the default directory.

8. Now here's where I ran into a problem, whenever I'd run the command "quake3", it'd die complaining of a missing default.cfg file. To solve this issue, you need to copy the pak0.pk3 file from the CD into the installation directory manually.  I did this as :

    sudo cp /media/cdrom0/baseq3/pak0.pk3  /usr/share/games/quake3/baseq3/

9. Run the game as 'quake3'. Now it'll ask for the CD key, type the CD key, and voila, you're ready to play Quake3 on Ubuntu, without the need of wine...

Enjoy!