I still don’t know the full story about this GNOME Do program, but so far it’s the best thing… besides slice bread…  you just can’t beat that!  I’ve heard about this package when Fedora 9 was released.  I installed it on my laptop, but never really learned, nor took the time, to understand how it works.  Recently, there was a blog post (LifeHacker) that highlighted the new “Docky” theme, which gives your Linux box a certain popular MAC component.  I’m not going to take a sip of the hateraide, this Docky component is awesome and it’s given my Fedora 10 a new lease on life!

Installing GNOME-Do

The popular distributions have it in their repos, such as: openSUSE, Fedora, Ubuntu, etc.  The only problem is some of the repos do not have the latest version yet – v0.8.0.  That version has the whole “Docky” thing.  Simply use your distro’s text installer; mine is YUM.

YUM install gnome-do

You can always install it manually, using the source files, but this is no easy task if you’re a Linux newb.  It requires other packages, such as: bzr, glib-sharp, glib-, gtk+-2.0, and much more.  I had the toughest time finding some of the dependent files.

Social Media to the Rescue

I posted a “call for help” on Identica and Matthew Schick came to my rescue.  He had it working, from source, and he even made some RPMs.  I quickly downloaded his RPMs and they installed without any issues.  So; visit his site to get the latest version.  Thanks Matt!

• http://www.excentral.org/fedora/10/
  • flickrnet – required
  • gnome-do-plugins – optional
  • gnome-do – required

What Does GNOME Do, Do!?

Beats me!  Ha-ha!  You’ll have to check out the web site for detailed informaton on that.  Besides the whole Docky thing… you call it up by using WINDOWS+Spacebar on your keyboard (it can be changed in the preferences).  Once the GNOME Do console/window is up you then type in a document you’re looking for… a program you want to run, etc.

In order to run it, for the first time you can either type in “gnome-do” in your terminal or use the one-time run window (ALT+F2).  Once it’s running you can go into preferences and have it automatically start on login.

That’s the extent of my knowledge.  If you know more, please post a reply and share your experience with GNOME Do!

Audio Review of Gnome Do

ProductiveLinux, episode #20 has a very good review of this new version of Gnome Do.

Technically, my immediate family is a linux-family; meaning that we run some form of linux on our main computers as our full-time operating system. My wife made the switch this weekend and she was pretty excited about it. We all know it’s going to be a rough ride until we fully understand how things work, but this is very cool news. I’m running Fedora 8 and she’s running openSUSE 10.3.

We wanted her to run Ubuntu 8.04, but had a very tough time getting it to install on ANY computer we have in the house. It keeps freezing up on the boot menu. So; until we figure out what the deal is we looked distros that are backed by major companies.

Later on through forums and mailing lists, I realize that the problem might be the MD5SUM check.  The issue is the ISO file I downloaded passed the SUM check, but it’s very possible the CD isn’t burning right.  Who knows, we’ll figure it out sooner or later – as long as we have working linuxboxes!

I did learn a bit or two about LiveCDs verse AlternateCDs. It would seem that LiveCDs are in an experimental stage so it may not work all the time. The AlternetCD is basically the full-install CD that the distros used to primarily come on. Funny thing is you learn SO much while going through your headache(s).