Avant Window Navigator 0.2.4 on Fedora 8 x86_64

In Fedora repos, there is AWN of version 0.2.1, it’s too old (3 months). Compiling from source is not too hard. Go to download awn and awn-extras. You should have no problem with awn, For compiling awn-extras, I have few notes for you, I will list them later.

My feeling about AWN

It’s great, although one or two applets can’t work. Check this screenshot out,

This is my current desktop environment, one Gnome panel and AWN, that’s all.

The first one icon is the MiMenu like Main Menu in Gnome panel, then Last.fm Player Applet. It works very well, it was playing music in this screenshot, so it showed a album cover. Next one is a launcher for Firefox program. The following four icons are launchers as well, which are aMSN, Gnome Terminal, Yumex and Fusion Icon.

A separator follows, then awn-manager, which is not a applet or launcher, it is a program listed in a place like Window List in Gnome panel. Another separator, then a Shiny Switcher (desktop switcher), Stacks Trasher, Volume Control, Clock/Calendar Applet (supports Google Calendar), Battery Applet and, lastly, Quit-Logoff applet.

Unfortunately, Notification Area applet doesn’t work well on my Fedora 8. Neither does Mail applet (supports Gmail).

Compiling notes for awn-extras

While configure

If you saw

No package 'awn' found

then run the following, instead

PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig ./configure

While make

If you saw

./awn_extras.override:25:38: error: libawn-extras/awn-extras.h: No such file or directory

then modify src/libawn-extras/bindings/python/Makefile, find (line# 326 in my case)

AM_CFLAGS = \
    $(PYTHON_CPPFLAGS) \
    $(PYGTK_CFLAGS) \
    $(PYCAIRO_CFLAGS) \
    $(AWN_CFLAGS) \
    -I$(top_builddir)/src/libawn-extras \
    -DHAVE_PYCAIRO \
    $(NULL)

make it be

AM_CFLAGS = \
    $(PYTHON_CPPFLAGS) \
    $(PYGTK_CFLAGS) \
    $(PYCAIRO_CFLAGS) \
    $(AWN_CFLAGS) \
    -I$(top_builddir)/src \
    -DHAVE_PYCAIRO \
    $(NULL)

You should have no more problem.
.

While using

If you saw something like

Creating new applet :None uid:None
Creating new applet :/usr/local/lib/awn/applets/lastfm.desktop uid:1203667530

** (awn-applet-activation:9312): WARNING **: No exec path found in desktop file None

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/lib/awn/applets/lastfm/lastfmapplet.py", line 25, in 
    import awn
ImportError: No module named awn

then run (as root)

ln -s /usr/local/lib/python2.5/site-packages/awn /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/awn

Having Last.fm on Fedora 8 x86_64

I have known of Last.fm long time ago, but had never tried it before. Because I thought:

• Almost all music are made by amateur users;
• I have to stay on its page in order to listen;
• Even I don’t need, the program is not for Linux platform.

I am totally wrong! Last week, I have to spend more than three hours a day with Windows. It’s quite boring last week, so I tried Last.fm yesterday, it’s great. Today, I wanted to know what’s in Download section, I suddenly saw “Linux” and “Open Source (GPL)”. I downloaded the Windows version, and listened to music off the Last.fm website. Really love it, the Radio is like Pandora. I used to listen to Pandora, but no more since they had been forced not to serve people outside of the U.S.

Later, I downloaded the Linux source tarball. There is one note for you if you are using arch x86_64 and you saw this error message while make:

IpodDevice.cpp:38: error: expected declaration before ‘}’ token

Open src/mediadevices/ipod/Makefile, at line 16 (Note that line-breaks added):

INCPATH       = -I/usr/lib64/qt4/mkspecs/linux-g++-64 -I. -I/usr/include/QtCore
-I/usr/include/QtCore -I/usr/include/QtGui -I/usr/include/QtGui -I/usr/include/QtSql
-I/usr/include/QtSql -I/usr/include -I../../../src -I../../../build -I../../libMoose
-I../../libUnicorn -I/usr/include/gpod-1.0 -I/usr/include/glib-2.0
-I/usr/lib/glib-2.0/include -I../../../build/Ipod_device/release -I../../../build

Add 64 to it as

INCPATH       = -I/usr/lib64/qt4/mkspecs/linux-g++-64 -I. -I/usr/include/QtCore
-I/usr/include/QtCore -I/usr/include/QtGui -I/usr/include/QtGui -I/usr/include/QtSql
-I/usr/include/QtSql -I/usr/include -I../../../src -I../../../build -I../../libMoose
-I../../libUnicorn -I/usr/include/gpod-1.0 -I/usr/include/glib-2.0
-I/usr/lib64/glib-2.0/include -I../../../build/Ipod_device/release -I../../../build

You should have no problem. Linux version doesn’t have the left side panel as if Windows version has. There is one thing I don’t get it about this program:

Normally, the shortcuts in tray icon menu are functioned globally, obviously this is not the case. Moreover, this program doesn’t support multimedia keys, this is a quite important feature for me; and no information shows when song changes.

By the way, I just know Rhythmbox has Last.fm plugin. Time to remove, and still stick with Rhythmbox.

Notes on Installing Fedora 8 x86_64 on Dell Inspiron 6400

I will keep updating this post at anytime

This time I installed x86_64 architecture. I wasn’t planning to “do a fresh install”, I was planning to “upgraded Fedora 7 i386 to Fedora 8 x86_64.” I think I failed but not totally. I could boot into X with fglrx, however, upgrading package makes a lot of problems. Too many conflicts. I was warned with “… It is likely to not succeed. …” while upgrading. I have to say “that’s wrong!” It should say “… If you insist to upgrade it from different architecture, then the time you spend for it can do fresh install at least 10 times. …” Before I installed my laptop, I upgraded Fedora 6 i386 with Fedora 8 i386 on my private server. The result is great, I can tell that’s no problem with doing that.

Now, I will describe what I did for installing Fedora 8 x86_64. Notice that this will not be a systematic post.

I didn’t customize packages while installing. While first booting, I saw irqbalance failed. I added livna repo (It is being merged into RPM Fusion.). Installed kmod-fglrx (for ATI Mobility Radeon X1400) and other packages, removed rhgb (fancy but not practical), yum-updatesd (too annoying to me) and some others as well. After rebooted, I got 1680×1050 resolution.

Firefox and Flash

Installed Flash for Linux x86 RPM. Run mozilla-plugin-config -i (-c for reinstalling after upgrade of Flash)as current user, you need nspluginwrapper package. You should see Flash immediately, no need to restart Firefox.

Compiz Fusion