Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Removing Startup Cruft

Xfce session taking forever to load, is it auto-loading programs you don't want?

Delete the contents of:

~/.cache/sessions

~/.config/autostart

to get to your fast booting xfce session.

How to Install Dropbox In Xfce

Dropbox is a file hosting service which uses cloud computing to enable users to store and share files and folders across multiple computers and on the web.

Now that I use Dropbox, I never have to worry about carrying round USB flash drives. All my shared files are stored across my computers and on the web. Dropbox+Xfce=Crazy Delicious.


How to Install Dropbox In xfce
Stolen from the Lubuntu Mailing List

In a terminal type:
- cd
- wget -O dropbox.tar.gz http://www.dropbox.com/download\?plat=lnx.x86
- tar -zxvf dropbox.tar.gz
- wget -nd http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6995/dbmakefakelib.py
- wget -nd http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6995/dbreadconfig.py
- python dbmakefakelib.py

I did run into a bit of trouble when running:
red@vostro:~$ python dbmakefakelib.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "dbmakefakelib.py", line 39, in
compile_fakelib()
File "dbmakefakelib.py", line 36, in compile_fakelib
raise Exception, ret[1]
Exception: sh: gcc: not found
If you see this, don't worry, Dropbox installed correctly.

To start Dropbox
In a terminal
~/.dropbox-dist/dropboxd
- you can also make a launcher or shortcut for dropbox using the same command.
- In xfce you will need to replace the ~/ with /home/YOUR USER NAME/.dropbox-dist/dropboxd
- My launcher ends up being /home/red/.dropbox-dist/dropboxd

If you wuold like to try Dropbox, it's free. Use this referral link to get an extra 250MB of storage (that's 2.25GB of storage just for signing up).

Disable The Trackpad While Typing

To disable the trackpad while typing just run this command in the terminal
syndaemon -i 1 -d

In xfce, if you want to start the touchpad delay at boot go to Settings>Xfce 4 Setting Manager
Under Session and Startup, in the Application autostart tab, click Add


Create an entry for the touchpad delay

Name: Touchpad Delay
Description: delay the touchpad 1 second
Command:
syndaemon -i 1 -d

- hit OK and restart your session for the delay to take effect.