Tweak your startup with this nice elementary-styled bootloader theme

Fed up with your boring text-only bootloader? Here's an elementary-styled alternative you'll certainly like a lot! 

The bootloader of your computer is the screen you get when you start up your device, letting you choose which operating system you want to start up (that is if you have more than one operating system installed, for example elementaryOS and Windows).

Meet BURG, a graphical interface for elementary's default bootloader GRUB:

How to install this?

Install BURG

First, we have to install BURG. To do this, fire up a terminal and type in the following commands:

• Add the PPA to install BURG:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:n-muench/burg
sudo apt-get update 

• Install BURG (if you installed your GRUB bootloader somewhere else than the default settings in your elementaryOS installation, you'll have to change the hd0 to the right partition. To list up all disks and partitions on your computer, type in 'lsblk' in a terminal):

sudo apt-get install burg burg-themes
sudo burg-install "(hd0)"

Congrats, you now have BURG installed on your computer! Go check it out by rebooting your pc! If you want the awesome elementary-ish theme, read further!

Install the theme

• First download this zip-file: 

http://www32.zippyshare.com/v/7331949/file.html

(if the link is down, please let me know in the comments)

• Then, right click the Files-icon in your dock and choose 'run as administrator'. 

• Go to your downloads folder and extract the downloaded zip. 

• Copy the extracted folder to /boot/burg/themes

• Now open up a terminal and update BURG:

 sudo update-burg

That's it! You now have the theme installed. Just reboot your pc and choose the theme by pressing 't' when your bootloader shows up. Then, select 'el_castillo' from the list and press enter. If you want to change the resolution of the theme as well, you can press F3 on the bootloader screen.

All credit goes to bigRZA for his magnificent theme! I just modified the elementary logo so it would fit the new one :)

Clipgrab: a lightweight and beautiful way to convert Youtube videos in anything you like

If you're looking for a desktop application that can download and convert Youtube videos in popular formats like mp3, ogg, flv, mp4 or wmv, search no more!

Clipgrab is a lightweight youtube downloader that blends in perfectly with elementaryOS due to its light color scheme. How to install it you ask? Here you go:

First fire up a terminal and type:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:clipgrab-team/ppa

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install clipgrab

That's it, enjoy your new Youtube downloader! If you have any questions, let me know in the comments!

How to add and modify applications in the slingshot launcher of elementaryOS

Slingshot launcher

Slingshot is the default elementaryOS application launcher in the top left corner of your screen. Since elementaryOS doesn't come with an editor to change or add menu entries in slingshot by default, here's how to do it!

First, we are going to install alacarte. That's the default menu editor for Gnome, but with the right modifications we can also make it work on elementary.

Open up a terminal and type:

sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends alacarte

The '--no-install-recommends' option makes sure you don't install the gnome environment which you don't need to have alacarte running.

Now, we're going to make alacarte work with slingshot. Type this in a terminal:

sudo scratch-text-editor /usr/share/alacarte/Alacarte/MenuEditor.py

This will open up a text file. Hit ctrl+F to search for 'applications.menu' and replace all with 'pantheon-applications.menu' (you have to replace applications.menu twice in the file). When done, close the file.

Now start the menu editor by typing 'alacarte' in slingshot or in a terminal:

Alacarte up and running

That's it! You can now start adding applications and changing them (icons, command prompt...) so Slingshot looks exactly as you like it. Have fun!

Set up Steam to use Bumblebee or Primus in elementaryOS

In my last post, I explained how to set up Bumblebee and Primus quick and easy in elementaryOS. Most people will want to use their high-end graphics card to play games on elementary, so here's a simple guide that shows how to play games and how to set up Steam to use your high-end card:

How to play games? 

Really simple, just type in 'optirun' and the path to your game in the terminal like this:

optirun /path/to/mygame

If you installed Primus, you can simply replace optirun with primusrun:

primusrun /path/to/mygame

Pretty easy right? If you don't know the path to your game, the easiest way to know is by installing alacarte which is a menu editor for your slingshot launcher. I've made a guide here. Also, you can just change the menu entry for your game in alacarte by putting optirun or primusrun in front of the command for your game. That way, you don't have to use a terminal to start up your game and you simply can click the icon in slingshot!

How to set up Steam? 

There are 2 methods to set up Steam to use your high-end graphics card:

Method 1

If you're a frequent user of the big picture mode in Steam, the way to set up Steam is the same as any other game. Just type 'optirun steam' or 'primusrun steam ' in a terminal, or to make this default in slingshot add optirun or primusrun to the command in alacarte so it looks like this:

This method drains a lot of memory usage, so if you're not using the big picture mode (as I), use method 2!

Method 2

• First, fire up a terminal and type this: 

sudo sh -c 'echo OPTIMUS_PREFIX=\"primusrun\" >> /etc/environment'

• Logout and log back in from your desktop.

• Once you installed a game in steam, right click the game in the Steam library and choose 'properties'. Click the 'set launcher options' button in the dialog and fill in the following line: 

$OPTIMUS_PREFIX %command%

so it the dialog screen looks like this:

Do this for each game you want to play with your high-end card and that's it!

How to install bumblebee with latest nvidia drivers in elementaryOS

As there isn't a really great guide on how to install Bumblebee in elementaryOS Luna, here's mine!
I tried this on beta 1 as well as beta 2, and it worked flawlessly. Bumblebee brings Nvidia Optimus support to elementaryOS improving power management, gaming performance and more.

If you're a complete newbie and don't know how to use terminal commands, let me know in the comments!

• Add the Bumblebee PPA to your system

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:bumblebee/stable

•  For more up-to-date nvidia drivers, you need to add another PPA. This is necessary for Nvidia GT 6xxM cards. It may be optional for the GT 4xxM and GT 5xxM series. When in doubt, just install it:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates

• Update your apt-repos:

sudo apt-get update

• Install Bumblebee using the proprietary nvidia driver:

sudo apt-get install bumblebee bumblebee-nvidia

•  Make sure the right headers for your kernel are installed

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r)

• Install the Nvidia GeForce driver 310.14 experimental driver (via the 'updates' repository):

sudo apt-get install nvidia-experimental-310 nvidia-settings-experimental-310

• Configure Bumblebee to use nvidia-experimental-310.

Open "/etc/bumblebee/bumblebee.conf" as root with a text editor: 

sudo scratch-text-editor /etc/bumblebee/bumblebee.conf

And change the following:
- on line 22, make sure "Driver=" is set to "nvidia", like this:
Driver=nvidia
- change the "KernelDriver=" (on line 47) to "nvidia-experimental-310", like this:
KernelDriver=nvidia-experimental-310
- change "LibraryPath=" (on line 51) to "/usr/lib/nvidia-experimental-310:/usr/lib32/nvidia-experimental-310", so it looks like this:
LibraryPath=/usr/lib/nvidia-experimental-310:/usr/lib32/nvidia-experimental-310
- change the "XorgModulePath=" (line 54) to "XorgModulePath=/usr/lib/nvidia-experimental-310/xorg,/usr/lib/xorg/modules" so it looks like this:
XorgModulePath=/usr/lib/nvidia-experimental-310/xorg,/usr/lib/xorg/modules

• Logout and log back in

• Optional: install primus (this should even give you better performance than optirun with bumblebee)

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:zhurikhin/primus
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install primus

• Change primus script:

sudo scratch-text-editor /usr/bin/primusrun

And change the following:on line 16: export PRIMUS_libGLa=${PRIMUS_libGLa:-'/usr/lib/nvidia-experimental-310/libGL.so.1:/usr/lib32/nvidia-experimental-310/libGL.so.1'}
on line 27: /usr/lib*/nvidia-experimental-310*|'') # nvidia is used by default

• Test your fresh installed bumblebee or optimus with glxspheres: 

optirun glxspheres
primusrun glxspheres